In beginning the text of Parzival, one small motif struck me – the integration of hands. The hands are an intimate part of the body in this text and appear to have more meaning than simply anatomized. They are given meaning through God and reveal ethnicity. Though we have just begun this text, it is interesting to map out the change in the use of hands between the father, Gahmuret, and the son, Parzival.
The story beings with Gahmuret and his relations with beautiful queens. On his journey to the Zazamanc kingdom of Queen Belacane. At the sight of the mourning queen, Gahmuret says, “whatever it is that has vexed or vexes you, if this right hand can ward it off, let it be duly appointed to your service” (25). Gahmuret is ready to aid this Queen if he has the stamina to do it. He offers is hands, that is, his ability to act, in order to appease this Queen. However, the right hand could also be meant as the hand of God, which will bring those wronged to justice. Though the Queen and her court are heathens, Gahmuret finds reason to enact justice to those victimized by the opposing army. At any rate, the Queen agrees and Gahmuret goes out to handle the enemy.
The use of hands in this chapter helps to emphasize an intimacy between the characters as well. In serving Gahmuret at dinner, the Queen “with her own hand carved him a good helping” (29). Not only is this an intimate scene between the two characters, but there is a subversion of the standard classes. The queen is serving a knight, and is acting outside of her standards. The hands in this scene present honor and faithfulness to Gahmuret, who is uncertain how to react. This scene along with the next helps to disarm Gahmuret from the Queen’s advances. The Queen takes power in her hands after Gahmuret’s victory in battle. When he returns, “the Queen disarmed him with her own dark hands” (34). Queen Belcane has control over Gahmuret and utilizes it in this scene. Another interesting point is the reference to her “dark hands,” a reoccurring motif to the ethnic differences between them. The use of her ethnicity here is able to disarm Gahmuret and subject him to her will, just as Gahmuret requested to lend a hand with the battle. The Queen has the upper hand in this situation, which enables her to separate Gahmuret from competition for a year.
In the following chapter, Gahmuret heads to Kanvoleis, where he participates in a tournament. During the games, Gahmuret is given a letter written by the Queen Ampflise. Before Gahmuret opened the letter, “at the sight of her hand he bowed” (49). This handwritten letter is an honorable token and also shows signs of intimacy. Aside from the fact that it is a document professing the Queen’s love for Gahmuret, it is an action that disarms Gahmuret much like Queen Belacane’s servitude of food as previously stated. When inspecting the bruises on Gahmuret, the Queen used her “soft white hands that bore the signs of God’s handiwork” (54). Here is yet another ethnic distinction to the hands, however, these hands are associated with being created by God, whereas Queen Belacane’s heathen hands are in lack.
In the third chapter, we see Parzival taking rings from women’s hands unexpectedly and causing their ruin. When he meets King Arthur and eagerly accepts to challenge Ither, the page, “Iwanet took him by the hand and led him” (86). This hand-holding is on the level of friendship, but also a leader/follower action to Parzival’s destiny. The holding of hands seems to carry a connection between the two characters. Parzival is described as a boy in these scenes, and is comparatively the same age as the page. This gesture of holding hands seems to promote a sense of equality between the page and soon-to-be knight. Parzival is handed his opportunity to display his purpose for knighthood and is unexpectedly victorious.
It seems to be that the hand intimacy of the queens to Gahmuret lead to his delay in action and the intimacy of handholding between Parzival and the page show his rising to knighthood. The hands that guide Gahmuret appear to get him off track, and he is detained in a kingdom (or two), whereas Parzival is led by the hand to his destiny of becoming a noble knight. What contrasts these characters is their actions in being presented with a hand. For Gahmuret, he offers is hand in marriage twice, but abandons his first wife and is killed while away from his second. Parzival simply takes the hand of the noble and proceeds to his goal – to be a knight.
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I think, especially as we later find Cundrie's hands with their "ape-skin," that the significance of hands has three parts. The first is that hands take action, they do things, make things, destroy things. Hands hold the weapons, they hold the lovers, the serve the food, and by focusing on those small actions of hands, it gives greater significance to the moment that those hands are helping to make. The second is that, at least in my memory, hands and other arm-like body parts are used to identify people, such as Andromache with her white arms, Iseult with her lovely white hands (versus the Iseult whose hands are less pretty), and so on. The last point of contact with hands relates to what would have been significant to the "Saracens" in this story. There is a charm called the "hamsa" in both Jewish and Muslim faiths that wards off evil and protects the wearer. In the Jewish tradition, it is that "hand of Gd," whereas in the Muslim it is the "hand of Fatima," daughter of the prophet Muhammed. In both cases, it is represented by a right hand (not the sinestra/ sinister left hand), and in both cases, remains a valid symbol to this day.
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