The Knight in Rusty Armor

The knight is the eponymous main character and protagonist of The Knight in Rusty Armor. While he remains nameless, he encounters his “real self” once he passes the Castle of Silence. He calls this voice “Sam,” indicating that this might be the knight’s first name.

At the beginning of the novella, the knight is not willfully malicious, but his avoidant behaviors and his struggles with self-love and self-knowledge draw him into cycles where he inadvertently hurts the people around him. For instance, on the rare occasions when he is at home with Juliet and Christopher rather than on a knightly errand, his favorite thing to do is “delive[r] monologues on his exploits” (3). One of the knight’s weaknesses at this point is his need for external validation that he is “good, kind, and loving” (3). Constantly performing knightliness and striving to prove that he has these attributes leads to one-sided relationships where his family does not truly know him.

While the knight faces the external conflict of proceeding up the difficult Path of Truth through the castles, the novella’s allegorical structure shows this to be a direct reflection of his internal conflict. Internally, he must learn to embrace

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