Monday, September 10, 2007

A Plague of Traitors

The most puzzling aspect of the second half of Roland, for me, at least, is the death of Pinabel's thirty kinsmen. As I understand the order of things, they were simply assurance that Pinabel would show up for his duel with Thierry . I hardly think that, had Thierry lost the battle, anyone was going to be hanging Charlemagne. What had the kinsmen done to deserve a hanging?

The answer is, of course, nothing of note other than be in the company of the losing parties. So perhaps the answer lies in the company, as "treason destroys itself and others, too." (Sayers 201). The only treasonous party is Ganelon, but by aligning themselves with him, Pinabel and the kinsmen are infected. This has such a strong connection to Panopticism that I cannot help but drag Foucault into this mess.

The kinsmen must be quarantined like they are contagious - "guarded until justice shall be done" (Sayers 197) in the words of the song and "First, a strict spatial partitioning...a prohibition to leave on pain of death...each governed by an intendant" (Foucault 195). The description of their death "hanged up in a noose" (Sayers 201) brings to mind a type of binding quarantine - tied up in ropes. They sound more like patients than oath keepers.

Ganelon's rather barbaric punishment of having his limbs ripped off by galloping horses can also been rendered in somewhat medical terms. His insides are all outside, they can be seen and examined, and his treacherous germs are exterminated in a display of force that makes the "crime explode into truth" (Foucault 227).

I wonder, however, if all this showmanship on the part of Charlemagne does not leave us with a neat ending to Ganelon and his treachery. The huge and public displays of power seem to only to point out that Charlemagne is nervous. Perhaps he is perpetrating the fear of contamination in the hope that the population won't get any of Ganelon's ideas - using panoptic fear to goad the remainder of his population into self discipline.

2 comments:

Janel said...
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Janel said...

It's interesting that you bring up the Foucault and the notion of discipline. Throughout Roland, the poet brings up how cowardly and undisciplined the Saracen army is, but somehow Ganelon escapes the label of being undisciplined. He seems to be othered simply by his allegiance with the Saracen army. Despite his treachery, he is still brought back to the Aix, reestablishing his identity.

However, you're right to point out that internally he is othered for the purpose of social control. Because Ganelon is recongnizable as a Frankish, Christian male, the necessity of panopticism becomes urgent. "the domain of panopticism is, on the contrary, that whole lower region, that region of irregular bodies, with their details, their multiple movements, their heterogeneous forces, their spatial relations" (Foucault 208). Because Ganelon is disloyal to the body of the king, he must certainly be quarantined.