3. Tristan’s madness, though he first suggests it to himself as a disguise and a ploy to access Yseut, appears to truly be the manifestation of his accumulated grief. Tristan has spent an (unspecified) and prolonged amount of time away from his true love, Yseut, and is further grieved by his reception of the news of King Mark’s threats against him. His heartache leads him to commit crazy, outrageous acts (such as “walking night and day...until he reached the sea” (153)) to see his beloved again, the same way people today may obsessively and repeatedly call an unresponsive love interest. Tristan’s overwhelming distress is conveniently concealed with the mask of a fool. Today these symptoms would reveal themselves in what psychology defines as a mental breakdown.
4. I believe Tristan and Yseut must die because there is no true relief for their struggles in love. In addition to being victims of the misplaced love potion, they truly fell in love with each other, becoming further entangled in a giant, complex web of lies, lust and loss. It was clear that no matter how many times the couple deceived the king or was separated, more harm was brought about. The text presents their deaths as a great but inevitable tragedy, perhaps because there was never any real hope for them. Despite this, though, the “branches intertwined” (165) above their graves imply that they are connected to each other, even in death.
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