Martin Guerre Essay

Martin Guerre Essay

Western Civ.

The book "The Return of Martin Guerre" was set in medieval Europe in the 1500's. Its story brings us into the world of pre-modern peasant life and how the people of the time felt and their different views on life. The story itself was about how a husband abandoned his wife and another man came in to resume his life he gave up. Later when Guerre returned, the imposter was sentenced to death.

The Guerra’s were known as the Daguerre’s before they moved to Artigat, the reason for this is that when they immigrated, they took the “da” off of Daguerre to conform to what everyone else’s names were. They very much wanted to fit in and the thought that this would help them out a lot. Then Martin Guerre married Bertrand de Rols at the age of 14. I think that the marriage was arranged for the economic advantage of the two families and the two probably did not know each other before they got married. After being married for 8 years, Martin couldn’t have a child because he was very impotent. He went to see someone to remove the "Spell" and they performed the act on him and immediately after they conceived a child. They named there child Sanxi after his grandfathers basque name. When Sanxi was only a few months old, Martin and his father got in an argument when his father said he stole grain from him. After that, Martin left everyone and abandoned them.

The main part of the story where Guerre gets his identity stole was based in the little town of Artigat. I don’t think that Arnaud du Tilh, Bertrand de Rols, and Martin Guerre knew each other before the trial. Arnaud and Martin may have met somewhere out on the battlefields across Europe. Arnaud went across Europe and was later told by some people that he looked like Martin so that’s when he probably inquired about his life so he could “return” to his home and take over his life. He always asked questions about Martin’s life and began to gain knowledge about his life and everything that happened in his life. When he had enough information to take over his life, he went to his house