Choosing a Red or Blue Cloth Allegory
Guenevere tells a story of choosing between a red cloth and a blue one. She uses this as an allegorical example of choosing between the right thing to do and the wrong thing to do. The purpose of the allegory is to show that sometimes choices that seem unimportant at the time can have much bigger consequences, and also to show that she did not make a deliberate decision to embarrass her husband or to have an affair. It was as mundane as choosing between two cloths of different colors.
Red and Blue Cloth Symbol
Guenevere also uses the story of picking between a red cloth and a blue one as a symbol of simplicity and the mundane, and of how her choice to spend time with Lancelot came to be. Nobody picks one color of cloth over another thinking that their choice will cast them in a certain light, or reflect badly on their husband. This is a symbol of how she decided to spend time with Lancelot. There was no ulterior motive and no undertone of impropriety; it was just a choice between spending time on her own, or with someone else, the latter who happened to be Lancelot. The story is a symbol of run-of-the-mill life happenings, intended to play down her friendship with Lancelot and its impression of impropriety.
Water Motif
Although a frequent motif in the poem, the motif of water does not seem to have any particular meaning or hold any major thematic clues. Guenevere does seem to return again and again to stories that involve water, either describing her relationship in terms of the running of water, or in terms of using water to set the scene for events and locations. At the beginning of the poem her hair is wet, which she never elaborates on. The frequent references to water washing away something suggest that she believes her sins can be washed away and that she is suggesting to the court that they should believe in her redemption in this regard. She is using the water images to suggest some kind of awakening of a change in her, in that she has seen the error of her ways and will do better moving forward.
Walled Garden Symbol
If Guenevere is driven half mad by her own beauty as she walks the garden, the wall around the garden can be seen as a symbol of the constraints placed on one so beautiful by her role as Arthur's wife and the expectations upon her because of it. The wall is a symbol for the social limitations and mores that Guenevere feels she is trapped by, preventing her from exploring outside of the box she is contained within.
Garden Symbol
Guenevere and Lancelot seem to conduct many of their meetings in the garden. This is a symbol for temptation; much Western literature uses this metaphor because it relates to the Garden of Eden, and the very first temptation that took place there. The garden in the poem symbolizes Guenevere's assertion that although she was tempted to stray from her marriage, she did not, iin fact, succumb.
