But in McKinley’s hands, outlawry is serious business. Tournament, and the final battle between the outlaws and Guy of Gisbourne’s men are heart-in-your-throat suspenseful. When she married, as most women did, everything that was hers (her land, her money, the children she would have, even her own person) became the property of her husband, to do with as he liked, whether or not he was a good person.Īs with the traditional legend and its previous adaptations, there are lots of adventures and action-packed scenes in particular, the ones where Marian disguises herself as Robin to attend the
Unless she was a nun or a high-born lady, she likely had no formal education as it was thought unnecessary to educate girls. She had few choices, no power, and little authority over her own life, let alone anyone else’s. As difficult as life could be for the average man in the Middle Ages, for the average woman it was even more so. Many of these characters are girls and women. They are all united in their misfortune, in their care for each other, and ultimately in their struggle for justice, both for themselves and others.
And some are running from a life that was not of their own choosing. Some are actual outlaws, exiled and hiding from the sheriff’s men. Some are poor and homeless and simply have nowhere else to go. Some do come with that goal already in place, but with little understanding of what that entails. This raises the stakes for both the characters and the reader.įar from having the single noble goal of taking from the rich to give to the poor, the people who find their way to Sherwood in McKinley’s version have many reasons for doing so. In McKinley’s version, with the exception of Little John and a few others, Robin and the outlaws are young, in their late teens to early twenties. Most versions of the Robin Hood legend portray the outlaws as adults. Robin McKinley is possibly best known for her Newbery Honor book, The Blue Sword, and for her fairy tale retellings ( Beauty, A Knot In the Grain, Spindle’s End), but her lesser-known reworking of the Robin Hood legend, The Outlaws of Sherwood, is a gem. Before there was Katniss Everdeen, there were the female archers of Robin Hood’s band of outlaws…
0 kommentar(er)
