The Story of the Grail

2) The blood on the snow reminds Perceval of Blancheflor. On page 391, Chretian writes, “The blood and the snow together reminded him of the fresh hue on his beloved’s face, and he mused until he forgot himself. He thought that the rosy hue stood out against the white of her face like the drops of blood on the white snow. Gazing gave him such pleasure that he believed he was beholding the fresh hue on his beloved’s face.” Perceval would always stare into this white snow, because he saw an image of Blancheflor. He remembered her rosy cheeks on her white face. When she went to see him, she was weeping over him in the castle. She was weeping over knighthood. Perceval dressed in red, and Blancheflor was known as the ‘white flower.’ I see this as am image of Blancheflor because he went out to find the knight who killed Blanceflor’s father. She saw him as being one of the best knights because he didn’t speak, even though he really wasn’t. The images of color that we get with them are red and white. Through this image in the snow, I mostly see death because of the blood. The way I look at it with red and white, is seeing it as life and death. The white also can resemble purity. Earlier in the story there were images of blood. We have seen this when Perceval was defeating the Red Knight, and with brother’s eye, these two also resembled the blindness of knighthood. The red knight was killed with a javelin through the eye, blood and guts fell out. Perceval learned that the crow ate his brother’s eye. I brought this back to knighthood because when Perceval kept staring into the snow, I think it resembled he didn’t do what he was getting into. He had been blind on his part, not knowing what the consequences were. Whenever a knight tried to defeat Perceval at the end, Perceval would look back at the snow after the battle. He would always look at the three drops of blood, which could also resemble the drops of tears that Blancheflor wept over him.