Fight Between the Red Cross Knight and the Monster Error

Edmund Spenser has designed his masterpiece the Faerie Queene as a great epic romance in order to allegorical man’s eternal spiritual and moral journey and its final victory all obstacles of evil forces. The main attraction of “The Faerie Queene” is The Red Cross Knight’s heroic and bloody encounter with monster error. The Red Cross Knight who is appointed by (Gloriana) The Faerie Queen to assist lady Una is freeing her parents from the prison of Dragon. The Monster error is represented as a horrible creature with the face of a woman and the hind part a serpent. Now we need a critical description to focus on the significance of the encounter.

The fight between the Knight and the monster proved to be the most fierce one. At one point in the course of his fighting, the Knight found himself in the tight grip of the monsters huge tail. At this time Lady Una shouted to the Knight to show his bravery. She urged him to have faith in himself and in Jesus Christ and to fight bravely. Inspired by the lady’s words, the Knight fought with redoubled vigor and courage. He was able to release himself from the grip of the monster’s tail. He then pressed the monster’s throat with such force that she threw out a lot of filth from her mouth. Black poison and big lumps of flesh and raw meat came out from her belly. The monster had many young ones which had all taken shelter inside her mouth when the Knight had entered the cave. These little dragons also now emerged from the monster’s mouth. Ultimately, the Knight succeeded in cutting off the monster’s head and killing her. Her offspring’s now began to drink the blood which was flowing from her with it, and their bellies burst open with the consequence that they all died. This was the first adventure of the Red Cross Knight and Lady Una congratulated him on his victory.

Behind these bare facts, there are spiritual and moral conceptions which blend and fuse in each other. The Red Cross Knight stands for Holiness. Lady Una stands for Truth and her parents symbolize Humanity. The foul Dragon is a symbol of Devil or Satan. The mission of holiness is to champion the cause of inspiration of truth and regain the right of human race, held in subjection by mighty force of evil.

To conclude we can say that Spenser has presented The Red Cross Knight’s encounter with the Monster Error with great skill. So he depicts the faults and perils that beset mankind in the world and shows how they may be overcome in the journey of life and here lies the popularity and universality of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.