Let Women Be Virgins and Villains: “The Mists of Avalon” through a Radical Feminist Lens
When I first encountered The Mists of Avalon, I was very excited. It promised to tell the story of Arthur Pendragon, one of my most favorite medieval legends, through the eyes of its women — a relatively new premise, since it is quite common in sprawling high fantasies to have women confined to very small, stereotypical roles.
In medieval stories, especially, women are either the damsels in distress, the wise crones, or the ever-sacrificing mothers; in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s first installment of the Avalon series, women are all or none of these, and more.
Morgan le Fay has always been portrayed as witch, harlot, and seductress in the many adaptations of King Arthur’s tale; Guinevere is known mostly in the context of Lancelot, and she is best remembered as virgin princess and adulteress — these are but two of the characters whose initially one-sided stories Bradley deconstructs and reconstructs.
What I appreciated most about this retelling is it didn’t try to paint women in only one positive light, it endeavored to illustrate us in our entirety — often flawed and sometimes detestable, yes, but always determined and singularly devoted to the things we hold dear. This multidimensional characterization of women both central and peripheral to Arthurian mythology is, I feel, the novel’s greatest strength and what makes it a truly feminist work.
However, applying a fully radical feminist lens upon Mists is not easy. Radical feminism is neither straightforward nor simple, what with its transitory nature and the many clear differences between radical-libertarians and radical-culturalists despite their common belief that the “oppression of women was at the root of all other systems of oppression” (Jaggar, 1983). Mists, on the other hand, spans two full generations of Pendragon, following the entire lives and individual perspectives of Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar as they mature from young girls to old women nearing their end of days. It chronicles the stories of ‘side characters’ related in different ways to Arthur too, such as his mother Igraine and his aunts Viviane and Morgause, except in this novel they are main characters in the chapters that they inhibit.
It will be too tall an order to apply the full extent of radfem to the full extent of Mists, so for the purpose of this writing I will examine the stories of only a few characters and/or places, and use radfem as a standard in a manner that is admittedly far from comprehensive. Nevertheless, I don’t believe this limitation lessens the impact of the novel or the essence of this review in any way, mainly because the sheer volume of Mists ensures that considerable insight can be gleaned from any segment of the novel one elects to highlight or emphasize.
The life and times of Queen Morgause
In Bradley’s mythology, we meet Morgause as a maiden, already wily with her charms and comfortable with her sexuality; from her older sister Igraine’s point of view, her character is sometimes offensive, and overcompensating for the reality that she is not the ‘chosen one’, or the destined mother-to-be of Arthur Pendragon. Through Igraine’s eyes, and the eyes of the female narrators throughout Mists, Morgause is willful, sly, and impossible to rein in — oftentimes they express wariness or fear over Morgause’s manipulative nature and the scale of her ambition.
At a young age, she is sent to marry the old king Lot who lives far from the kingdom’s capital; in that position, despite being thoroughly unhappy and out of love with her arranged marriage, she establishes herself as queen and secures alliances with different fiefdoms through her sons. She allows her husband’s many affairs, but only because she takes men and young boys freely to her bed as well; to her, this makes the arrangement fair. Morgause considers the rise of Christianity inevitable in Pendragon’s kingdoms, but she takes no part in it herself, only interacting with it as politically convenient; in her private chambers, she is not beyond the practice of the ‘dark arts’, or the natural power of the original Goddess with which she is slightly acquainted.
Although it may be argued that Morgause employed male characteristics to possess male power, I cannot agree with this since her weapons were decidedly female. To me, she embodies the radical feminist ideal in general, and the radical-libertarian ideal in particular.
I find Morgause ‘radical’ mostly in the aspect of sexuality. She had a very healthy relationship with her female sexuality, seeking pleasure with whoever she fancies since she cannot find this fulfillment in her husband’s bed; she found nothing morally repugnant about her non-monogamous sexual relationships, and at times even considered it her right. She entertained both physical and emotional ties with her sexual partners, and cared little for the social stigma that sometimes came with it. She exercised control over her own body — after producing sons as was her ‘queenly duty’, Morgause used birth control both with Lot and her younger lovers, and did not hesitate to avail of abortion services when she was unwillingly with child (a clear foil to Gwenhwyfar, who believed pregnancy-inducing herbs were ‘witchcraft’). Upon her husband’s death, Morgause seized power in her kingdom, establishing herself as regent with the excuse that her son is too young to take the throne. In that capacity, she acted as a true leader and refused the claim of her other sons, making executive decisions and representing her country in Arthur’s court.
These traits — an outright rejection of the patriarchy, a challenge to its shackles through a celebration of female sexuality and an exercise of her rights over her own body — are consistent with radical feminist ideology, leaning more towards radical libertarianism (Tong, 2009).
Morgause’s life and character was, I think, Bradley’s epitomization of the radical strand of feminism in Mists. From a young age, she was resentful of the system that she grew up in and aware of the limitations it placed upon her, but she was one-minded about her intent to take advantage of it. In many ways, Morgause recognized the depth of sex class and its invisibility (Firestone, 1970), but she interpreted it as a challenge to determine her own personal destiny. Although it was never Morgause’s ambition to end patriarchy in its entirety (in the novel, these manifestations were both Pendragon’s existing feudal monarchy and the rising Christian religion), it was her intent to weaken patriarchy’s hold over her life.
In a way, she succeeded — from an unpleasant girlhood, she took hold over her own fate and eventually became Queen, running her country very liberally compared to the overly-pious and conservative Christian court that High Queen Gwenhwyfar was managing in Camelot. I like to think that the way Morgause’s story ended was an affirmation of one radical feminist sentiment that “male control must be eliminated if women are to be liberated” (Millett, 1970 in Tong, 2009).
Morgause is, of course, far from being a solely admirable character. As an aggressive, powerful, and sexual woman, she is framed as harlot and witch even by the female characters narrating Mists. Her personality is unabashedly dark and twisted, her jealousies unadulterated, her lust for power unbounded. That Bradley didn’t shy away from the complex, multi-faceted and rather villainous character of Morgause was, to me, further proof that this book was feminist in its acknowledgment of the many forms that women took.
Avalon as both country and character
I find this multiplicity is illustrated best in the world of Avalon, which I feel is the more radical-cultural strand of Mists. Avalon is the sacred country where worship of the Goddess — first and main deity, reframed as the ‘pagan’ religion when Christianity established its foothold in the kingdoms — is kept intact through its priestesses. Its version of radical feminism is not a rejection but an embracing of the female gender and of all that has to do with womanhood; Firestone (1970)’s negative views of natural reproduction, for example, would not be welcome here. Avalon celebrates and equally cherishes the Goddess in all her forms, whether as virgin, mother, or crone, and espouses a communal relationship with nature as prescribed in the priestesses’ training.
In Avalon, and in the tribes that revere the Goddess, the woman is the most powerful — the line of succession passes through the female line, and the priestesses are the ones who are to choose who to bed, whether male or female. The latter is even done en masse at the annual Beltane fires, where the celebration of the Goddess is a celebration of female sexuality. This carries over to the ritual’s affirmation that “biological motherhood is a social construction” (Oakley in Tong, 2009), since the children conceived at the fires are considered ‘of the Goddess’ — they have only cursory knowledge of their biological fathers, their biological parents can lay no claim to them, and they are brought up in service to the Goddess, whether as priestesses in Avalon or as soldiers elsewhere in the kingdom. They are raised collectively by Avalon society, and to be a child begotten from the Beltane fires was considered a great honor, even when this same child is begotten by incest.
These are just some of the characteristics of Avalon that I find very fascinating and rather consistent with radical feminist thought — however, Bradley’s allegiance to one radfem strand over another is not explicitly clear. As demonstrated so far, Morgause as a radical-libertarian ideal is equally celebrated as Avalon as a radical-cultural ideal. Suffice to say that in Mists, libertarian and cultural leanings both appear, and the preference of one over another does not conform to a singular strand.
It does not seem as if it is the intent of the novel to support one brand of feminism over another. As I mentioned earlier, it was more concerned with illustrating the multiplicities and complexities of its women (which is why Gwenhwyfar’s internalized oppression and support of patriarchy is also allocated entire chapters, perhaps to counter Morgaine’s more Goddess-centric beliefs). It is also concerned (at least from Morgaine’s point of view) with the dismantling of the swiftly-burgeoning patriarchy in the form of the Christian church, which unfortunately is an unsuccessful venture in the story’s end.
This is an expected conclusion, of course, given the readers’ familiarity with Arthurian mythology’s place in real history; but to recognize that this came at the expense of women’s loss of power is Mists’ unique take on Pendragon’s legend.
We learn that the mainstreaming of Christ is synonymous with the fall of the Goddess in her purest form, which is a literary illustration consistent with radfems’ take on the true impact of patriarchy. Avalon’s retreat into the mists at the novel’s close can be read as a concession of patriarchal rule, but I choose to see it as a version of Frye (1983)’s musings on separatism — the priestesses literally separate themselves from the world dominated by men, and this is how they preserve the Goddess’ culture. It is not a perfect solution, but it is a lesser evil in that women are separate, but not subordinate. Add to that the footnote wherein Morgaine accepts that the Goddess takes unexpected and unusual forms, such as the Christian religion’s Virgin/Mother Mary — this, I decided, is an ending that I can find satisfactory.
Mists is a beast of a novel, and what I discussed of it here is merely the surface of what it actually tackles. It is in no way flawless nor singularly representative of feminist literature, but I stand by my initial assessment that it is a landmark work — entertaining and thorough in its exploration of female characters that we are familiar but not intimate with, and enlightening in its theological dissection in many ways. I will admit that it made me see a myriad of things in a totally different light, and it is this reframing of reality that makes me highly appreciative of Mists’ contribution to feminist literature.
This book review was a requirement for my graduate class, circa April 2018.
A Postscript
When I first read Mists, I was not aware of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s history of sexually abusing her own daughter, among other deplorable acts. As such, I appreciated the book on its own, separate from the personal life of its creator; after learning of these accusations, I have not revisited MZB’s Avalon nor perused her other work. There is a rich debate on whether or not artists should or could be separate or separated from their art, and I am still on the fence on this, but I do know two things: one, being a scifi/fantasy pioneer and women’s rights champion does not absolve a person of incest and child abuse; and two, Mists is such an important work in feminist literature that to erase it completely from the annals of history because of its posthumously-exposed author is a loss. I cannot continue to support MZB, but neither can I discredit the significance of Mists.
References
Bradley, M.Z. (1982). The Mists of Avalon. Ballantine Books.
Firestone, S. (1970). The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for a Feminist Revolution. New York: William Morrow and Co.
Frye, M. (1983). Some reflections on separatism and power. In The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory. Crossing Press.
Jaggar, A.M. (1983). Chapters on radical politics, philosophy and feminism.
Millet, K. (1970). Sexual Politics. New York: Doubleday.
Pineda, R. (2001). Bridging Gaps, Marking a Struggle: The History of Filipina Lesbian Struggle in the Philippines. Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies, 16 (1).
Pineda-Ofreneo, R., Narciso-Apuan, V., & Estrada-Claudio, S. (1997). Module 9.
Tong, R. (2009). Chapter on Radical Feminism.
