A Macat Analysis of Natalie Zemon Davis's The Return of Martin Guerre
The bizarre story of Martin Guerre—a peasant who disappears from a small village in sixteenth-century France and whose place is taken by an imposter—has captivated historians for centuries.
In her 1983 book, Natalie Zemon Davis, a historian with a special interest in gender studies, examines the role of Martin Guerre’s wife Bertrande in their fraudulent marriage. Davis argues that Bertrande plays a key part in the deceit and readily goes along with it. Her book helped spur a shift in the way historians viewed past events generally, and the role of women in a period where documentary evidence was lacking. She daringly used her imagination to reinterpret the story, and some scholars criticized her for “filling in the gaps. ” But Davis was unrepentant about mixing literary techniques with historical research.
The book became a bestseller and inspired other historians to chronicle the lives of people ignored by traditional history books.
