Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,
As a real woman."
        Keats

How do Morgaine and Gwenhwyfar of The Mists of Avalon live up to the religious ideals set up for them by their cultures, as shown through their perceptions of physical beauty and spirituality?

The most prominent theme in The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, is the conflict between Christianity and the Goddess religion. The conflict created a ideological gap between followers of the two religions, resulting in a difference in their perceptions of life. The Goddess religion sees the reverence of fertility as one of its highest principles and places women in positions of permanent authority, reflecting the seasonal cycles of the earth's fruitfulness. The Christians believe that chastity is one of the highest virtues and that men are naturally superior because they, not women, were created in the image of God, and because women brought sin into the world; they emphasize God's wrath and punishments, and the repentance necessary to avoid them. The Goddess' followers see the Christians as repressing fertility in their promotion of chastity: "that any force calling itself divine could prefer barrenness to fruitfulness -- that seemed to her a terrible betrayal of the very forces which gave life to the world" (747). They are resentful of the Christian teachings that women are inferior because they are responsible for original sin; they think the idea of an angry God and the necessity of repentance go against the natural idea of the goodness of nature. The Christians believe the Goddess' followers are sorcerers and that they worship the devil, and attribute to them other ideas which are not found in the Goddess religion: "Why, she ... went away to the land of Fairy, but everybody knows that on All Hallows Night she flies round the castle with a hazel twig and anyone who catches sight of her will be struck blind." (768) The Christians also consider them adulterers because of their celebration of fertility, especially in such festivals as Beltane. It is also important to note that religion, ethnicity, and culture are inextricably combined so that there is a culture of people of Roman ancestry, mostly the nobility, who are Christian, and a culture made up of those descended from the original Tribes that inhabited Britain who worship the Goddess; both groups wish to keep or spread their religious ideas through the common people of Britain.

The difference between the ideologies of the two religions is most manifest in how they affect women's perceptions of themselves. Both religions have established physical and spiritual standards that reflect the respect each has for women. Women living in these cultures thereby are given models for their own behavior and standards of living. The conflict between the basic ideologies drives the novel, with women as the main characters.

Morgaine, having been raised during her formative years in Avalon, does not give the same importance to physical beauty as the Christian women at court do. Although she realizes she is not beautiful by the Roman standard -- tall, slim, and pale with golden hair -- she is beautiful by the Tribal standard -- small and dark, with dark eyes and hair. When growing up in Avalon, she thought Viviane, who looked very much like Morgaine, to be one of the most beautiful women she had even seen: "she forgot that she looked like Viviane, and that, to her, Viviane was beautiful" (159); she is recognized as beautiful by others who follow Avalon, such as Lancelet and Accolon. Even so, having spent most of her life in Roman-Christian courts, she sometimes feels resentful that she does not have the same standard of beauty possessed by the other women, such as Gwenhwyfar and Igraine. As a young girl and even later, she feels resentful at being called "Morgaine of the Fairies." She also wishes that she had the beauty of Gwenhwyfar, hoping that Lancelet would love her and forget about Gwenhwyfar; Morgaine persists in this wish, both because of her own personal desire for Lancelet, and also by telling herself that it would save everyone involved from much scandal at court.

However, her jealousy of Roman standards is rare, because Morgaine places more emphasis on the beauty expected of a priestess of Avalon, which is as much an inner quality as outer. As a high priestess she is respected and revered in and of herself; she can call the power of Avalon to herself through the glamour, making her seem larger and imposing, a figure of respect and reverence. The followers of Avalon see the Goddess as taking three forms, all of which are embodied in the priestesses, especially the Lady of the Lake: "The Goddess receives her consort and she will slay him again at the end of time, she shall give birth to her Dark Son who will bring the King Stag down...." (177) The first is the Maiden, who is young and beautiful; the second is the Mother, who is fertile and gives life to her sons; the third is the Death-Crone, who takes life from her children to complete the cycle and renew the strength of the earth. Throughout the course of the book Morgaine embodies all of these incarnations: she is Maiden until she gives her virginity to the Horned One in the Great Marriage; then becomes the Mother with the birth of Gwydion until she is reconsecrated as priestess by Accolon; she becomes Death-Crone when she kills Avalloch, through her plot to bring down Arthur, and until the end of the book. As an extension of this, one of the physical qualities most highly revered by followers of Avalon is fertility, which signifies the life of the earth given by the Mother-Goddess. After the birth of Gwydion Morgaine is barren, and often feels incomplete because of this. She wishes that she was able to bear a daughter for the Goddess to continue the line of priestesses, or later a son to Accolon to establish herself as Queen.

Morgaine has a hard time living up to the expectations imposed on her by her religion. She is a pivotal point in Viviane's plan to preserve the Goddess-religion, but she is resentful of the means and decides instead to abandon her duty altogether by leaving Avalon, shamed and angry: "I would not be a pawn for Viviane, giving a son to my brother for some secret purpose of the Lady of the Lake" (230). She lives at court for years, giving up her priestess-training and living with Christians, and when she finally does leave it is because she has embarrassed herself with Lancelet. But she is now unable to return to Avalon, wandering instead into the fairy kingdom for five years; when she finds her way out she returns again to court. It is not until she is married off to Uriens and becomes Queen of North Wales that she begins to return to the Goddess-ways, becoming a priestess again with Accolon as her priest, and challenging Arthur's right to hold Excalibur. She realizes then that by giving up the hold on Arthur's conscience she gained by bearing his child from his king-making, she has lost almost all hope of not having the Goddess-worship driven out of the land by Christians and of keeping Avalon within the world. Now she tries to make up for her mistake by taking on Viviane's mission, even though many who had once supported it, such as Kevin the Merlin, seem to have given up on its success. Yet in trying to do this she takes Viviane's ruthlessness too far, turning it into hubris, and is disastrously unsuccessful at her attempt to overthrow Arthur and replace him with Accolon, with herself as Queen. Although Morgaine had left her duty she had never never really abandoned her faith in the Goddess until now, feeling betrayed that she did not receive the Goddess' help with her plans: "I think it was that which hurt me worst, that I had failed, failed Avalon, that she had not put forth her hand to help me do her will" (751). It is not until the very end that she comes to the realization that the Goddess' will would be done with or without her own efforts.

Gwenhwyfar, on the other hand, is the epitome of the Roman standard of beauty: "She was very young and dazzlingly pretty; she seemed all white and gold, her skin pale as ivory just stained with coral, her eyes palest sky-blue, her hair long and pale and shining through the mist like living gold" (157). She knows well that she is beautiful and is the envy of many ladies at the court; she admires Igraine's beauty and knows that she herself possesses many of the same qualities. In part because of her natural beauty, she fears that people will not love her if she is not beautiful -- that Arthur would not have loved her if she had been pockmarked, or that Lancelet would no longer love her if she became great with child.

Gwenhwyfar feels that her greatest physical failing is her inability to bear an heir for Arthur. She believes that God is punishing her for some sin, and comes to the conclusion that the sin is that she has not convinced Arthur to condemn the pagan worship: "God has punished us because he feels that we are not fit to give this kingdom another king, you and I, unless we will vow ourselves to serve him faithfully" (392). To this end she convinces Arthur to carry her banner into battle, and influences Arthur's decisions so that the Goddess-worship is gradually driven out and replaced by Christianity. However, no matter how hard she tries she does not feel that she has been good enough, since she would then be rewarded with a son. Eventually this begins to change her view toward religion; if God does not reward her for her goodness, surely he will not punish her for her sins; she uses this as justification to give in and sleep with Lancelet. At times, however, this realization has no effect on her fierce piety, as she continues to try to keep herself perfect in order to be given a child. In the Roman society, unlike that of Avalon, her incompleteness as a wife makes her nearly worthless; unlike Morgaine, also barren, Gwenhwyfar does not live in a culture which will respect her as a woman despite this failing.

Gwenhwyfar, having been raised in a Christian family and educated in a convent, subscribes to the belief that women are inferior because a woman brought sin into the world. This affects her entire worldview, making her focus her life on penitence and the modesty expected of her by the men who control her society. However, this is countered by her love for Lancelet, which she feels cannot be escaped but only suppressed. She feels compelled to love him, which her husband has all but condoned, but feels that his would be another sin preventing her from having a child. She tries to convince herself that if she became pregnant she would become huge and ugly and that Lancelet would no longer look on her with love, nor would she have time for him: "If I had a child, I would not think night and day of this love which tempts my honor, for all my thoughts would be given to Arthur's son" (441). While she knows she is deceiving herself, this only compounds her desire to have a child. Gwenhwyfar also believes it is her duty, as the wife of the king, to help spread Christianity throughout the land. She takes great pride in protecting her maidens from corruption by guarding their virginity and training them to be good wives, hostesses, and housekeepers. She also believes it her responsibility to guide Arthur's conscience by convincing him to drive out the Goddess religion from the land. In addition to convincing him to carry the banner she makes, she also encourages the prohibition of Druid rituals such as the Beltane fires and spring rites, and she helps to establish Pentecost as a great Christian feast to distract the common people from the pagan feast of Beltane. She takes on this as one of her missions in life, to Christianize the inhabitants of Britain so that they may be saved from what she considers to be evil paganism. Although she had never had any trouble accepting Christianity despite its harshness toward women, Gwenhwyfar begins to find more comfort after her realization in the wake of the appearance of the Grail that perhaps God is a merciful and loving God as much as he is a stern and punishing one.

Ironically, Gwenhwyfar's and Morgaine's lives seem to parallel each other -- "somehow her fate and mine have gotten all entangled" (533). Both were raised in their formative years in a religious place removed from society, which gave them perceptions of themselves which forever affected their lives. Both failed to live up to the expectations placed upon them, Morgaine through abandoning her priestess duties and Gwenhwyfar through her barrenness, and were forced to make do with modified versions of their plans; Morgaine's plot for Accolon to overthrow Arthur must suffice for power over Arthur himself, and Gwenhwyfar must be satisfied with her nephew Galahad as her husband's heir. They each took up the promotion or preservation of their respective religions to be their goals in life, which unfortunately proved mutually exclusive. However, they each found peace in the end with their realizations that even though neither's mission was successful in the way she had planned, her God or Goddess made everything work out the way she had intended in the end. There is also a twist to this parallel: Morgaine, who was raised and lives with a religion that gave her a positive self-image, becomes dissatisfied and believes herself a failure when her plans to promote her own religion by unseating Arthur fail; what she thinks is her own personal low point is also the first low point in the downfall of Arthur's reign. Gwenhwyfar, who was raised and lives in a religion that gave her a negative self-image, finally finds some comfort and joy in her faith when she sees the Holy Grail, which is ironically one of the high points of Avalon's plans.

Bradley, Marion Zimmer. The Mists of Avalon. New York: Ballantine-Random, 1982.

Gardner, John. "The Alliterative Morte Arthure." The Alliterative Morte Arthure, The Owl and the Nightingale, and five other Middle English poems in a modernized version, with comments on the poems and notes by John Gardner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1971. 3 - 113.

Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthure. Eds. Caxton, William and H. Oskar Sommer. London: David Nutt, 1889. 16 Nov. 2001. http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/c/cme/cme-idx?type=HTML&rgn=TEI.2&byte=24050031

Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Dir. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. Cinema 5, 1975.