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Thuc Nguyen
English 2 Honors
22 January 2012
T.H. White Parodies Governments More Than Depicting Knighthood
In the four book compilation of The Once and Future King, T.H. White tells the story of
the life of protagonist Arthur and the many life lessons he encounters on his journey to become
king of England. The first book, especially, has Arthur transforming into different animals and
observing their civilizations and conduct through the wizardry of tutor Meryln the magician. As
the plot progresses, White introduces a multitude of ideas for the reader to ponder, including
the importance of honor, knowledge and fairness, the ups and downs of knighthood, and
situations that parody government systems and concepts. This chronicle of King Arthurs life
obviously takes place during the Dark Ages, or medieval England, so one would expect that
knights are the focal point of the novels. The focus on satirizing government, however, is
greater than that of focusing on knighthood itself, and White brings up numerous valid positive
and negative points of a monarchy, military society, communist society, and democracy.
With the use of an omnipotent, insane pike monarch and a high-ranked, even more
demented hawk colonel, T.H. White shows the reader the harm that comes from being in a
power-based government such as a monarchy or a military society. The great body, shadowy
and almost invisible among the stems, ended in a face which had been ravaged by all the
passions of an absolute monarch by cruelty, sorrow, age, pride, selfishness, loneliness and
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thoughts too strong for individual brains (5.51). Then, in the cold voice of an adder, The bell
invites me. Hear it not, Merlin, for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell (8.84).
The sheer mental stress that comes with the ability to control proves to be too much in most
situations, and White exploits the characters of the pike and hawk to illustrate the irrationality
of governments that depend on supremacy in order to function. The prospect of authority and
glory oftentimes distracts one from the problems that arise when overcome with such power,
by means of White ridiculing monarchies, or rather, tyrannies, and military societies to prove
such a point.
In Arthurs next adventures, White offers two extremely different communities to be
examined: a communist ant colony that goes to war with its neighbor, and a geese democracy
that considers such behavior completely foreign; this large contrast allows the reader to see the
meaninglessness in a zombie-fied communist government and appreciate egalitarianism in
present society. If we do not attack them today, they will attack us tomorrow. In any case we
are not attacking them at all. We are offering them incalculable benefits (13.129). But what
creature could be so low as to go about in bands, to murder others of its own blood? (18.170).
The gooses response to suggestion of war against their own kind, as stated in the story, opens
up the readers mind in that they actually are able to notice how mindless the ants are and
compare that societys thinking with the logicality of current interactions between nations
today; not only does White pokes fun at the ants government, but he also expresses his
disappointment and disapproval of conflicts between humans themselves. White suggests the
importance and necessity of having a democracy by comparing it with the seemingly parallel
but highly dissimilar communist society, and in doing so mocks the restricted government.
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T.H. White, in the first book, gives the reader a glance at diverse systems of
administration and parodies the majority of given governments, rather than divulging into
knighthood, by presenting them in the form of Arthurs adventures. This allows for one to look
at the impacts of these encounters on Arthur and the way he acts in his own government later
on in the next books, and also serves as an expression of Whites opinions on the matter of the
organization and rules in civilizations. In essence, Arthurs exposure to the animals and their
relations with one another affect him as a king and as a person more so than his experiences
with knights.