Character Analysis
Shy, innocent, and beautiful, Elaine is the “Lily Maid of Astolat.” She’s the perfect wife for Lancelot.
There’s just one problem.
Consumed by his devotion to Guinevere, he can’t bring himself to return poor Elaine's desperate love. Elaine is just a girl when she first meets Lancelot, but her girlish crush quickly turns into an all-consuming passion that motivates her to nurse Lancelot back from the brink of death, then offer to be his mistress when he refuses to make her his wife.
Wow.
Elaine’s purity and unconditional love (she doesn’t blame Lancelot or stop loving him when she learns that he doesn’t love her) make her the perfect foil for the adulterous queen.
She provides a major contrast with Guinevere. And just as Guinevere ought to love the person most worthy of her love (Arthur), so Lancelot ought to love the person most worthy of him (Elaine). Elaine shares Arthur’s idealism, refusing to believe the rumor of Lancelot’s affair with the queen. Her idealization of Lancelot makes her unable to shake her attachment to him, which leads to her death. Elaine and Lancelot’s story, like Lancelot and Guinevere’s, is a way for the Idylls to explore the consequences of love directed toward the wrong object.