Quest, Antiquest, Hybrid Quest: Depicting the Arthurian Quest in Three Parts

The following essay was written as a final paper for an online English course I took this summer called "Arthurian Legend." The purpose of the course was to become familiar with the legend of Arthur from its origins up through present day, and to accomplish this we studied, among other things, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Chrétien de Troyes, Sir Thomas Malory, Walker Percy, and several films. In this paper, I was tasked with tracking the development of the quest in three different sources from the course and determining whether the quest is about, as it has been argued, "a knight’s search for personal identity projected onto his pursuit of some external object or person." Here I argue for a three-part development of the quest as (1) quest, (2) antiquest, and (3) hybrid quest. As I reread the paper, I think that my most interesting reading is of Gilliam's film as an example of a hybrid quest. I think a lengthier paper could certainly build on this point, or hybrid quests in general. Anyway, for anyone studying quests, the Arthurian legend, or any of the three major sources in this paper (Chrétien's "Perceval; or, The Story of the Grail," Walker Percy's novel Lancelot, or Terry Gilliam's film The Fisher King), this paper may prove useful.


Sources used:

Chrétien de Troyes. Perceval, or The Story of the Grail. Arthurian Romances. Ed. and trans. William W. Kibler. London: Penguin, 1991. 381-494. Print.

The Fisher King. Dir. Terry Gilliam. Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl, and Robin Williams. Columbia, 1991. Film.

Percy, Walker. Lancelot. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1977. Print.

(Note: I was, unfortunately, strained by a maximum word count of one thousand words when I wrote this, so the paper as a whole may feel lacking in depth.)


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Throughout this course, we have witnessed the development of the quest in the context of the Arthurian legend. In this paper, I will argue for a three-part characterization of the quest. I will analyze a traditional quest (“The Story of the Grail”), an antiquest (Lancelot), and a hybrid quest (The Fisher King) to demonstrate how each one sketches a related yet unique picture of the quest’s intersection with the search for identity.

“The Story of the Grail” features Perceval, a naïve, somewhat rude but still enthusiastic youth who wishes to serve as a knight in King Arthur’s court. Perceval succeeds in many of his early objectives: he defeats the Red Knight, rewarding himself with his armor, and also wins the hand of Blancheflor by protecting her castle against enemies. One suspects, though, that these are more challenges for Perceval than they are quests—“pre-quests,” perhaps—designed to boost his ego as opposed to truly testing him.

Thus, they serve as foils to Perceval’s later interaction with the Fisher King, when his true quest begins. Dining with the Fisher King at his castle (but still very unaware of whom his dinner partner is), Perceval first observes the mysterious grail and the bleeding lance. He does not, however, ask the Fisher King about it, perhaps following the advice of Gornemant, who earlier instructed him “not to talk too much” (Chrétien 402). Soon after leaving the castle, Perceval learns from his cousin that not asking about the grail was a grave mistake: “Ah, unlucky Perceval, how unfortunate you were when you failed to ask . . . because you would have brought great succor to the good king who is maimed”(Chrétien 425).

This experience seems to change Perceval more than any of the others leading up to it. Returning to the court of King Arthur, he swears “a different oath”: that he will learn “who was served from the grail” and the “true reason why [the lance] bled.” More importantly, Perceval will “not abandon his quest for any hardship” (Chrétien 439). Here Perceval shows none of the naivety and rudeness that characterized him earlier in the story. Instead, he exudes determination and selflessness—truly knightly traits. Thus Perceval demonstrates growth by his story’s end.

Many of these quest elements are both inverted and perverted in Lancelot(1977). Whereas Perceval is youthful and innocent (thus demanding growth by his very nature), Percy’s titular character is elder and jaded, often wallowing in his own repulsive ideas, and thus beyond growth. And while Perceval discovers love with Blancheflor during one of his pre-quests, Lancelot’s discovery that he has been cuckolded by his own wife (an ironic twist on Lancelot’s adulterous affair with Guinevere in more traditional sources)—his lack of love, in other words—is what prompts his antiquest in the first place.

Above all else, Lancelot perverts Perceval’s traditional quest by seeking something quite different—“the Unholy Grail”—in a “quest for evil” (Percy 138). It perhaps need not be asked whether Lancelot’s behavior throughout the novel—during his antiquest as well as his recounting of it—tarnishes his identity. Lancelot certainly seems unworthy of his namesake, belonging as it does to arguably the greatest of Arthur’s knights, one who places great value on his name and reputation in Chrétien’s “The Knight of the Cart.” Moreover, in trying to expose the immorality of others, Percy’s Lancelot only ends up exposing himself (and, consequently, his reputation). In short, one wonders whether Lancelot, a man who “cannot tolerate this age,” occupies a wasteland of a world that will only be healed if he redirects his own quest in life toward a nobler end (Percy 154).

With this in mind, one may ask where redemption lies given the bleak portrait of the contemporary world offered by Lancelot? One hopefully prospect is The Fisher King (1991), a film that shows the unlikely friendship and redemption of Jack Lucas and Parry through their separate yet interconnected quests to understand love, life, and, above all else, themselves. Gilliam’s film presents audiences with a dark world replete with poverty, personal trauma, and murder, much like Lancelot, yet it is ultimately more explicit about sending a positive message.

Jack Lucas, the film’s protagonist, is a big time radio host before a few insensitive comments he makes inspire a listener to undertake a murderous shooting spree. Losing everything, Jack spirals downward before finally deciding to commit suicide. While attempting this, however, he is saved by Parry, a homeless and rather insane man on a quest to find the Holy Grail (which is actually nothing more than a trophy at the home of a famous architect). From this point forward, the story focuses on how Jack and Parry help one another—yet not without a dramatic realization: that the man who went on the shooting spree killed Parry’s wife that same night, which causes Jack to feel responsible for her death. Still, even an obstacle like this can be overcome in The Fisher King, which reminds viewers that life itself is nothing less than a series of quests.

Most importantly, the film reveals that each of us is a Fisher King since we are all in need of redemption in our own lives. For this reason, Jack and Parry play the part of both redeemer and redeemed, with Jack renewing his own prospects through Parry’s example, and Parry being rescued by Jack in both his love life and his own life (for Jack, in the spirit of Perceval, recovers the trophy grail in hopes that it will miraculously bring Parry back from a catatonic state brought on by a traumatic memory over his wife’s murder—which it does).

Jack and Parry each grow through their interconnected quests, but not without overcoming some of the hardships of contemporary existence that similarly plague Lancelot. Consequently, The Fisher King is best characterized as a hybrid quest, mixing elements of Chrétien’s traditional quest narrative with Percy’s darker portrait of the antihero’s antiquest in the face of the contemporary world.