Literary Analysis Essay on The Saga of Gisli

Introduction

Gisli Saga is an outlaw saga that deals with conflict that relates to family dissolution that sparks from conflict. The saga of Gisli is one of the ancient heroic stories in Iceland that tells more about a dilemma situation that Gisli had to kill one of his brothers-in-law in order to revenge for the other brother in law (Macpherson, 2001). Gisli is considered as the saga outlaw and later survives all the thirty-three manuscripts according to Iceland tradition. There exist many sagas in the story which revolves around vengeance, keeping the law, and love matters. Initially, the whole family lived in Norway, where everything remained normal; in their tradition, they value swords and victory very much. Gisli had two other siblings namely; Ari and Thorkel, whom they live happily together (Barraclough, 2010). Women in the region are valued strongly because they perform physical actions equally are emotional. Over the otherkin reign, Gisli is branded as the leader with strong familial ties.

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All the three siblings marry to beautiful women; Ari marries Ingibjorga, Gisli marries Aud, and Thorkel married a woman by the name Asgerd (Barraclough, 2010). The honor, vengeance, and law come in the ruling family. Ari, the brother to Gisli, entered into a war with Bjorn after Bjorn Forcing him to fight in the island. Bjorn also was known as Bard had developed some interest with Ari's wife and the material wealth he had. Bard later kills Ari, Ari is found stabbed many times and died. It is an act of honor that Gisli decided to take action on the whole situation and revenge the death of his brother. As a leader, it is not wise to let a brother kill a brother. However, Gisli did not follow the law; he was so quick to take actions, he went to Bard house and killed him with his wife's sword without nobody's knowledge (Macpherson, 2001). Ari's wife had already married Bard, and she saw Gisli come from their place. Gisli did what every person would have done; his brother was jealous and killed Ari for material things.

Gisli could not have avoided vengeance. However, he could have handled it in according to law. He could have ordered his brother killed for killing Ari, the other brother. Aud does everything possible to make sure that Gisli has no problem. Aud gets Thord the coward to remove the spear from the body to clean the whole mess (Macpherson, 2001); she always remained as a loyal wife. She went further and claimed that she changed to Christianity to confuse the crowd. It is almost unlikely to maintain the families honor since two of Gisli niece wished to seek vengeance for their father's death.

Further, every action done in secret in the family went to the public, and thus it called for the division in the family. As Gisli kills Thordis, his widowed sister informs her new husband who is known as Bork. On the contrary, Bork does not plan vengeance but reports to the case to the relevant body; as a result, Gisli is outlawed and escapes (Barraclough, 2010). The action is affirmative according to the law, and that is how Gisli could have done from the start. Even after having Thordis wake up before killing him, Gisli does not make any impact on the law.

However, the whole system does not seem to favor honor and law but favors vengeance. Gisli struggles with his personal experience and emotional conflict on whatever happened. What Gisli wanted are justice and honor, but the community and the family made sure he was outlawed. The whole system is not functional but fundamentally flawed; people are jealous of material things and seek revenge more than justice. Gisli is outlawed as a hero who tried very much to keep the thing in order (Barraclough, 2010). However, he was also controlled by emotions and never sought legal actions.

Reference

Barraclough, E. R. (2010). Inside Outlawry in" Grettis saga Asmundarsonar" and" Gisla saga Surssonar": Landscape in the Outlaw Sagas. Scandinavian Studies, 82(4), 365-388

Macpherson, A. (2001). Book Review: The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection, Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. International Journal of Maritime History, 13(1), pp.243-246.