Jason Moore
17 September, 1998
The Book of Margery Kempe is a difficult reading experience because its protagonist distorts any ideas one might have of the status of medieval women by representing herself as the focal point in the narrative. Margery occupies the foreground of the narrative so thoroughly that she serves to distract the reader from her demeaning characterization of her community. The description of events during Margery's spiritual quest functions as a commentary on the tension and inconsistency present in late medieval society. By repressing certain aspects of social reality, Kempe focuses her critique on a commercialism that has lost sight of the Christian values on which her society is supposedly based.
Kempe introduces her narrative by presenting Margery as an integrated individual within her community. Through a series of events, she rapidly becomes an outcast because of her adherence to a private rule for living that has been given to her through spiritual authority. This marginal status allows Margery to observe and comment without also condemning herself.
Margery's nonconformist spiritual status signifies the demands and pressures of the community for her to conform. Margery frequently defines herself in terms of oppositional relationships to emphasize the lack of personal freedom in her society.
Margery is frequently asked to account for her marital status suggesting that her identity is both a social and private one. Kempe reveals her interest between these public and private circles in her treatment of John Kempe's final illness. Margery presents the concept of the marriage debt in a manner that implies that her medieval society is inherently confining and restrictive. The complex social bonds that bind John and Margery’s marriage hint at a Christian concept of community that has its basis in Kempe's recognition that people are inevitably tied to society. Through John and Margery, Kempe hints at ways in which individuals can reinterpret social rules.
Kempe scrutinizes the complicated spiritual and secular life of the late medieval townsperson whose mode of living is dominated by a mercantilist ethic. To contrast her hints about the physical comforts of the merchant class, Kempe provides passing glimpses into the lives of the poverty-stricken. Kempe's primary focus upon Margery's social discomfort helps to blunt the effect of what is a sharp critique of her world. She keeps us focused upon Margery by emphasizing the provisional status of women. By playing upon Margery's fears of sexual violation, Kempe dramatizes a more essential violence that is checked by the social contracts that serve to hold a community together.
The proem to the Book establishes polarities that allow Kempe to describe her world through the experience of a self whose fictive identity is a social one. Kempe comments on her society the way that she does because of the danger she might incur as a social critic. The persecution of the Lollards had made the dangers of dissent real enough, so it is likely that she would wish to protect herself from the charge that she is attacking the commercialism of the church and the community.