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The Hearth
In The Wife of Martin Guerre, doves represent innocence. After Bertrande has publicly announced that she suspects that the man claiming to be her husband, Martin Guerre, is an imposter, the Guerres’ housekeeper, urges Bertrande to keep her suspicions to herself in order to maintain the peace that Martin’s return has brought to the land. The housekeeper offers this advice while slitting the throats of doves, presumably for some domestic utility. Bertrande watches the doves struggle weakly in the housekeeper’s hands while the blood slowly drains from their throats. The dying birds symbolize Bertrande’s situation: as a woman in a patriarchal society, others view Bertrande as helpless and inferior to men. Bertrande’s conviction that her husband is an imposter is met with scorn and accusations of her misperception. Discredited as a woman, Bertrande is forced to submit to adultery as the doves are forced to submit to the housekeeper. The doves’ symbolism also reflects how Bertrande’s innocent commitment to traditional morality is draining her, spiritually and physically. Not only has her insistence that the returned Martin is not her real husband turned her community against her, but it denies her the chance to live a happy life with a man who, though perhaps not her real husband, genuinely loves and cares for her.
Doves come to represent Bertrande’s tragic fate. The innocent doves that the housekeeper kills resemble Bertrande before Martin’s departure and the return of the imposter (Arnaud du Tilh). Just as the doves do nothing to deserve their death, Bertrande, who tries in vain to remain loyal to her husband and her morals, does not deserve the lack of support she receives from her community. In this way, the doves depict Bertrande as an innocent victim of cruel and regressive social norms of her society. The life of the dove drains slowly, representing a kind of death that is the result of exhaustion rather than sudden violence.
Doves Quotes in The Wife of Martin Guerre
The The Wife of Martin Guerre quotes below all refer to the symbol of Doves. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Part 1: Artigues
Quotes
People so reasonable, so devoted, so strongly loving and hardworking should have been exempt, one feels, from the vagaries of malicious fate. Nevertheless, the very virtues of their way of life gave rise to a small incident, and from that incident developed the whole train of misfortune which singled out Bertrande de Rols from the peace and obscurity of her tradition.
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And her thought, sweeping backward quickly over all the moments of anguish, of desire, of hatred, even, hours of fierce resentment against Martin for making her suffer, for holding her from any other life than a prolonged fruitless waiting for his return, hours of terror when she had contemplated his death in some engagement of the Spanish wars, hours to be remembered with horror in which she had desired his death that she might be free of the agony of incertitude—all these reviewed in a moment with a sharp inward knowledge of herself, her thought returned like a tired dove to this moment of peace in which love was only love for Sanxi, as innocent and cool and gentle as the curve of his cheek.
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Part 2: Rieux
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“I also found it curious, upon remarking the prisoner at sword practice with my son, that Martin Guerre should fence so awkwardly; he was known to be distinguished in the art.”
[…] A brief smile flitted across the face of one of the judges, and Bertrande, seeing it, exclaimed:
“You may smile, my lord, and my testimony may seem innocent to you and of small importance, but I swear by God and all His holy angels that this man is not my husband. Of that I am certain, although I should die for it.”
“Well, we shall inquire, Madame, we shall inquire,” said the justice.
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Part 3: Toulouse
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The living dove turned its head this way and that, struggled a little, clasping a pale cold claw over the hand that held it, and relaxed, although still turning its head. The blood seemed to be clotting too soon, the wound was shrunken, and the old woman enlarged it with the point of the knife which she had in her lap. The dove made no cry. Bertrande watched with pity and comprehension the dying bird, feeling the blood drop by drop leave the weakening body, feeling her own strength drop slowly away like the blood of the dove.
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Doves Symbol Timeline in The Wife of Martin Guerre
The timeline below shows where the symbol Doves appears in The Wife of Martin Guerre. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1: Artigues
...fear, and resentment she has felt over the years, but her mind settles “like a dove” on her love for Sanxi and the happy present moment. Bertrande gently corrects Sanxi’s work,...
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Part 3: Toulouse
One day, Bertrande sits on the stoop beside the housekeeper. The housekeeper slits a dove’s throat and drains its blood into a bowl. Bertrande watches with pity. The housekeeper says...
(full context)
