Erec and Enide- Part 2

Question 1:
The emergence of Enide's character is one that does not take place until the second part of the story. Before this part Enide's character is very one dimensional and based solely on her physical attributes. The changing point in which she gains personality is the event of her marriage to Erec. Fittingly, this is when we also learn her name.

The revealing of Enide's character is done through the media of speech. Through her words we learn that she is very perceptive, much more so than Erec. When Erec's subjects are criticizing him for spending too much time "with" her, she is the one that notices it, not him. We are informed of this fact in the scene where she is agonizing over the amount of time he spends with her. Besides her perception, we also learn that Enide is very practical. Even when Erec forbids her to speak to him multiple times, she still warns him of dangers that are approaching. Ironically, this also shows her loyalty, because even though she is disobeying Erec, she cares more about his safety than his opinion of her.

Question 3
When Erec takes Enide on the adventure I think he had several motives in doing so. The first was to regain the respect he had lost through his inaction at court. He accomplished this by fighting many battles, but never stopping his journey for rest or to let his wounds heal. Even when King Arthur bade him to stop for two weeks and be cured, he refused.

Erec brings Enide with him on this journey, and I believe he does so quite selfishly. Instead of leaving Enide at the court where she would be able to live comfortably, he makes her live in the woods and endure multiple torments, such as when the evil count wanted to marry her. In these scenes we also see how haughty Erec is, and we must wonder why. He repetitively see him scolding Enide for warning him of danger, yet he himself does not see it coming. I believe it is safe to say that without Enide's help, Erec's adventure would not have ended so well. This is seen clearly in the scene where the count wants to kill Erec, but he thinks that the count has his best interests in mind. Without Enide to warn him, Erec would have probably died at hands of the count's men.