Martin Guerre

3 Pages 703 Words

The Return of Martin Guerre By: Natalie Davis The story was based in the early 1550’s, a young peasant, Martin Guerre from Artigat had left his wife Bertrande and their son Sanxi and their inheritance to seek adventure in Spain as a mercenary. After leaving his family for nearly nine years a man claiming to be Martin returns to the village to claim his wife and land. Bertrande accepts the man as being her husband and they have another child together. Martin has a dispute with Pierre over the management of the family estate and ownership of the rents from Matins land during his absence. During their dispute a passing by veteran had claimed that “Martin” is not who he claims to be. He said that Martin had lost a leg at the battle of Saint Quentin and that he really was Arnaud de Tihl from a neighboring village. Both Martin and Arnaud had soldered together in the war, where they had became friends. The Guerre family was very divided over the story. Pierre and his sons-in-law believe the soldier’s story, and Pierres daughters and Bertrande continue to believe “Martin” is Martin. As their case was being heard before a judge (Coras), a man with a wooden leg enters the courtroom. The man enters right before the judge was going to free him. The man claims to be Martin Guerre. The judges were then forced to determine who the real Martin was. After having certain people look at them and ask them both questions. They figured out that the man claiming to be “Martin” wasn’t and his name was Arnaud. He was convicted of being an imposter and later was executed for the crime. Now the village had resolved the dispute. How did Bertrande seek freedom? Family- She was willing to go against her own family to seek a better, happier life. She had lied about him being her husband, because she felt that Arnaud treated her better. She wanted to be totally feed from her old marriage, and she wanted to be treated better and have a better life wit...