The Prize of Fate in Tennyson’s The Last Tournament
By Grace Ferrara.
The Symbol of the Color Red as Death and Destruction
Tennyson’s The Last Tournament is quite an interesting read… just when you begin to think the story is heading in one direction, it throws another intense and intriguing detail your way which inevitably erupts the entire story. In class we discussed a plethora of important elements and scenes in the work, which to me was a very fascinating discussion. A detail that stuck out to me was our conversation regarding death imagery and the symbolism of the color red in the story. “The Tournament of the Dead Innocence” took place after Arthur and Lancelot found an abandoned child wearing a “ruby red” jewel like blood around its neck. The tournament took place after the infant died and the winner would be rewarded with the jewel. It’s interesting to me how death is inevitable within the first few lines of the story—it ultimately foreshadows the theme and plot line to come in the remainder of the text. On the morning of the tournament, Arthur is made aware that a Red Knight and his followers are responsible for harming one of his servants. The Red Knight (another symbolic figure of the color red), says that he has founded a Round Table in the North, and his knights are “worthier, seeing they profess To be none other than themselves” (250, lines 82-83). This essentially means that Arthur’s knights are not worthy and true because of their inability to profess that they have female harlots (prostitutes) in their court. Arthur decides to defeat the Red Knight’s Round Table in the north, and successfully win a bloody victory.
At the tournament, all rules are essentially broken. Fighting in valor and chivalry is neglected by participants, and cheating is at the forefront of battle. Sir Tristram wins the tournament and later decides to seek his lover, Isolt, who is married to King Mark. Isolt learns about Tristram’s marriage through her husband, Mark, and is extremely distraught by the news. Tristram visits Isolt to gift her with the jewel that he has won. What is most fascinating to me about this story is what is to come after Tristram’s decision. The ruby-red jewel itself is described as “frozen blood.” When the Queen grasps it too hard, it “melts within her hand—her hand is hot With ill desires” (259, line 414). At the story’s conclusion, (we all know what happens), as Tristram attempts to kiss the jewel on Isolt’s neck, Mark “rises from the shadows” and shrieks, “Mark’s way” as he cloves him through the brain (268, line 748). Tristram dies, Arthur returns home to his “death-dumb autumn-dripping gloom,” and the story concludes with thy fool saying, “And I shall never make thee smile again” (268, lines 750 and 756). A whirlwind of scenes, The Last Tournament begins and ends with death imagery. The symbolism of the color red as “blood” throughout the text creates a sense of gloom and eeriness. The full-circle ending leads me to believe that those who possess the “ruby-red jewel,” are in fact possessing something more—an evil symbol, and the object of death and destruction itself.
