The Once and Future King Essay Questions

Do the comic elements of The Once and Future King improve or undermine the book as a whole?

There are many good defenses of the abundant and prominent comedic elements of White's book. For one, the incorporation of comedy allows White to portray a complete and multi-faceted narrative world; he doesn't so much create a novel as create a small universe of characters, from the noble to the buffoonish. For another, some of the most important characters in The Once and Future King—Merlyn, Sir Ector, Uncle Dap—have personalities that fuse the comic and the serious. Characters such as these would be diminished without their turns of eccentricity and generosity, which depend on comedy.

However, it can also be argued that comedy is a distraction from White's integral political and psychological content. To take but one example, The Queen of Air and Darkness devotes much attention to the misadventures of King Pellinore; an emphasis on Morgause's psychology or Arthur's statecraft, arguably, would have given this book an intensity and focus that (under a rather inhospitable reading) it presently lacks.

Which animal species, of those observed in The Sword in the Stone, presents the best model for a human political system?

Many of the animal groups depicted in White's first book combine clear attractions with clear liabilities: the fish are cooperative but still have some semblance of tyranny, the hawks are orderly and honorable yet fundamentally violent, and the badgers are exemplars of both scholarship and seclusion. Only the humane and meritocratic geese are almost entirely positive in portrayal, while only the ants (who live under something that resembles a totalitarian dictatorship) are thoroughly negative. While the geese may seem like the ideal model, their nonviolent ways are perhaps too far from human nature, as White depicts it, to offer a viable political model. Whether the fish, the hawks, the badgers, or some other species—other than the ants, of course—offers the best alternative may rely on the reader's own preferences and ideology.

How effective of a leader, ultimately, is King Arthur?

It could be argued that, as a political figure and as the creator of a new ideology, Arthur achieves much. The survey of Arthur's domains that occurs early in The Candle in the Wind makes it clear that Arthur's influence has lifted England out of barbarism and into a state of stability and enlightenment. Moreover, his leadership brings out the best in characters such as Lancelot, a man who might never have had a meaningful outlet for his prowess as a fighter without the structure provided by Arthur's court. Yet there are failings that can be attributed to Arthur, who after all does not leave behind a younger generation capable of carrying on his work; if anything, the younger knights represented by Mordred are decadent and devious. Nor does Arthur's progress come without grievous losses, such as the death of King Pellinore, that a more seasoned and more authoritative king might have prevented.

What would have been gained or lost if Merlyn's unusual perspective on time had been left out of the narrative entirely?

Merlyn's knowledge of future events allows the tension between Arthur's Middle Ages and White's twentieth century to become one of the novel's predominant themes—and one of its most complex themes, no less. Without Merlyn, White would need to delegate references to the future mostly to his third-person narrator. Working with Merlyn's unusual perspective on time allows White to offer a second commentary on the future from within the action of the plot and to engage the issue of whether the future can be changed, or whether fate is all-powerful, with special intensity. Nonetheless, it is possible to argue that Merlyn's perspective is mostly a distraction from the even more important issue of Arthur's development. Leaving the eventual king to his own devices would add suspense for readers unfamiliar with the Arthurian narrative, and would allow a stronger focus on Arthur's psychology (as opposed to Arthur's place in history) for readers more acquainted with Arthur's fate.

What is the role or significance of women in The Once and Future King?

Under one reading, The Once and Future King is a novel that—without being explicitly misogynistic—places its female characters in mostly minor roles. The sweeping changes in English life that Arthur engineers are conceived with the help of a male mentor (Merlyn) and are brought into effect by male allies (Lancelot and the other loyal knights). Even Guenever, a woman of strong emotions, can be construed as a figurehead in a male-dominated political system.

It is also possible, though, to read The Once and Future King as a novel that imparts much more agency and significance to women such as Guenever, Elaine, and Morgause. Though they do not have Arthur's decision-making powers, Guenever and Elaine have powerful influences over Lancelot, a figure central to Arthur's entire project; Morgause is linked to both King Lot and King Arthur, and is instrumental (through Mordred) in a clash with everything that Arthur has built.