91 pages • 3 hours read
François Rabelais, Transl. Thomas UrquhartGargantua And Pantagruel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1564A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Literary Devices
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaSymbols & Motifs
Travel and Voyage
In each of the books of the pentalogy, except Book 3, characters go on adventures and voyages that test them and describe strange new worlds, making forms of voyage an important motif in the text.
In Book 1, the settings are more realistic, with Pantagruel traveling to real-world places across France. In Book 2 as well, Gargantua fights King Picrochole of Lerne, a commune in France to this day. However, these real-world places coexist with the fictional Utopia, the land of the giants from which Gargantua and Pantagruel hail, and later in the novel, a whole host of magical islands. These seeming discrepancies show that the text occupies the space of epic and folklore.
The travel motif is a convenient way for Rabelais to explore new, idealized worlds as well as give free rein to his whimsy. The islands to which Pantagruel and his friends travel are not merely strange, but radical, pushing the bounds of reality as it is known. They function as alternate universes. There is an island where people are essentially squirrel-like sausages and dress their wounds with mustard, an island where people live on nothing but air, and an island where the sole aim of being is to extract the pure form of everything. These “alien,” exuberant worlds symbolize the Renaissance spirit of discovery and quest, where ship expeditions opened the horizons like never before. By the time Pantagruel was published in 1532, Columbus had landed in the Americas (1488) and Vasco da Gama had alighted in India (1497-1499).
Rabelais also takes the motif of colonial expansion and subverts it to explore ideal worlds, which are as interior as they are exterior. He is interested more in transformation of the inner space than in spatial expansion. Panurge’s search for an answer leads back to him, with the Dive proclaiming he should do what his heart tells him when he is drunk. The Dive’s prophecy of “Trinck” echoes Pantagruel’s infant cries of “drink!” in Book 1. All travel is therefore a metaphor for descent into the underground chamber of the Dive, the exploration of the inner self.
Cuckoldry and Marriage
Cuckoldry—when a man’s wife cheats on him—was a great source of humor and anxiety in Medieval and Renaissance art and literature in Europe, and it becomes a motif in Gargantua and Pantagruel as well. The preoccupation with female infidelity reflects important aspects of the theme The Treatment of Women, as it reflects many common stereotypes of the time.
The “cuckold” was represented in popular culture as a man wearing horns, alluding to the supposed mating habit of stags who give up their mates when defeated by another male. Becoming a cuckold thus robbed a man of not just his wife, but more importantly, his “masculinity.” The horns became a visual shorthand to indicate a cuckold, sometimes mimicked by holding two fingers on the opposite ends of the forehead. Fears of being cuckolded were rooted in mistrust in women. Until well into the 18th century, it was commonly believed women were more lascivious and inconstant than men because of their supposedly “irrational” nature.
In the world of Gargantua and Pantagruel, the question of whether to marry centers upon Panurge’s worries that he will be cuckolded by his wife. Most of the answers Panurge receives suggest that, since women are supposedly “insatiable” and “deceitful,” it is inevitable that his wife will be unfaithful. Nevertheless, Panurge ultimately does resolve to marry, and the text itself contains examples of happy couples: Gargantua is swamped with grief at the death of Badebec; Grandgousier agrees to cut off his member when Gargamelle curses it for making her pregnant. At the end of Book 3, Gargantua assures Pantagruel he will be arranging a match for him as well. The novel thus ultimately presents marriage in a lighthearted and even optimistic way, suggesting that, for all its risks, it is still worth pursuing.
Pantagruelion
One of the whimsical features of Book 3 is the narrator’s decision to devote the last few chapters to describing the plant Pantagruelion. As Pantagruel oversees the stocking of the ships, he makes sure plenty of Pantagruelion, both in its raw and preserved form, is on board. Pantagruelion is described in a manner similar to the hemp-and-flax, the cannabis plant, as described by the ancient writer Pliny. Pantagruelion, being so named, is also a symbol for Pantagruel’s qualities, his steadfastness, size, courage, and strength.
The phallic imagery associated with the plant is obvious, such as in this description:
The plant called pantagruelion has a small root, somewhat hard and rounded, terminating in a bluntish point, white, of few filaments and penetrating less than a cubit below ground. From the root grows a single, round, ferulaceous stem, green outside, whitish within (599).
The phallic imagery makes all the praise of the miraculous uses and powers of the plants even more funny and bawdy. It can also be argued that the Pantagruelion represents the continuum between the bodily, sexual, spiritual, and intellectual self. Despite its phallic appearance, the plant has both male and female parts. Its uses extend from making hangman’s ropes to being placed as a sanctifying garland on the heads of the dead. Like the ideal human being, Pantagruelion performs the right function in each of its spheres, and is united by the same life force.
