Themes
The quality of loyalty to a cause or a person is a recurring theme throughout the work, as characters declare their loyalty to a cause or person only for that loyalty to be tested, sometimes to breaking point. The novel begins with a triple betrayal: Giles Siward betrays the cause of Empress Maud, the plans of his lord FitzAlan and the two squires entrusted with the treasury, to King Stephen's sheriff, Courcelle. Courcelle then betrays the cause of King Stephen and Giles Siward out of greed.
The contrast between justice and expedience is another theme explored at the beginning and end of the novel, with King Stephen's expedient justice in war time treading a difficult line between both. Yet the King's desire to move on does reveal the better man for his cause, and allow his newest adherent to prove his loyalty to the King while following his notions of honour and justice.
Read more about this topic: One Corpse Too Many
Famous quotes containing the word themes:
“In economics, we borrowed from the Bourbons; in foreign policy, we drew on themes fashioned by the nomad warriors of the Eurasian steppes. In spiritual matters, we emulated the braying intolerance of our archenemies, the Shi’ite fundamentalists.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I suppose you think that persons who are as old as your father and myself are always thinking about very grave things, but I know that we are meditating the same old themes that we did when we were ten years old, only we go more gravely about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)