Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

a strict delineation between each grade of human. While some ofthese beings are more acceptable to society than others, they allhave an opportunity to obtain salvation by modifying to fit thecommunal standards, or the status quo. Likewise, in Sir Gawainand the Green Knight, the governmental body is Arthur’s court andthe code of chivalry; both have clear expectations for how men andwomen within society should act. While the court and the codecan ostracize those who do not represent cultural norms, they arealso flexible enough to adapt and make exceptions when deemedappropriate. Paradoxically, in Grettir’s Saga, the governmental bodyis the institution of outlawry. It is the deeming of lesser outlawry andfull outlawry that sends non-conformists away from society; theseindividuals can only be reaccepted when society has found some wayto reconcile them with the good of humanity. Essentially, it seemsthat all of these state institutions, while clearly delineating who themonster is and where the monster resides, want nothing more thanconformity for their populous; they do not want to be capable ofharboring the monstrous, so they provide means through which theother can adapt.To focus more closely on The Wonders of the East and thegovernmental preservation of the status quo, one should explore:the outlined hierarchy of humanity, how the government functionsas a belief system in this text, and the ability of the other to obtainsalvation. Beginning with the hierarchy, Wonders, as theorized byGreta Austin, is “arranged to show the hierarchical spectrum ofthose people to whom God offers grace” (28). One can see theprogression by looking at the text at the beginning, middle, andend; in paragraph eight, the people are described with monstrousqualities: “In one land people are born who are six feet tall. Theyhave beards to their knees and hair to their heels. They are calledHomodubii, that is ‘doubtful ones’ and they eat raw fish and liveon them” (“Wonders” 189). A few paragraphs later, the description118 afternoons of alterity