The Song of Roland
Reason for Blowing Roland’s Horn
The best thing to do was to blow Ronald’s Oliphant horn to raise an alarm to alert Charlemagne of the tough mission they were facing. After Roland’s forces were attacked by the Saracens, Olive who was a wise, prudent man and Roland’s best ally, attempted to convince him to blow his great horn and call for help. Roland was a brave, strong, and courageous knight who could not surrender or retreat. The pagan’s force was in a large number than Roland’s force. Even though the Christians’ force was full of rearguards, they were surprisingly attacked by an enormous and superior force, which was totaling hundreds of thousands of men. This number was nearly impossible to be defeated by Roland’s force. This could have acted as a motivating and mind-opening fact for Roland to blow his Oliphant horn, but it did not.
By blowing the Oliphant horn, the Charlemagne could have sent an extra force to come to their rescue. This could have saved many lives that perished in the hands of enemies. This could have also prevented Roland’s stepfather who was behind the whole plan from achieving his goal of eliminating him. Even though the Roland force fought brilliantly, the great number of the opposite force could not have been defeated by the smaller number of their force. Roland was a brave soldier and he only blew his Oliphant when his force was killed to a man by the pagans. By so doing, he was certain that Charlemagne would have come back and revenge on their behalf. His death was symbolic that, even if he refused to blow his horn, he died facing the land of the enemies. This symbolized that the pagans would be in for the merciless killing of Roland and his force. This was fulfilled after Charlemagne arrived and avenged his force and punished all those who were involved in the plot to eliminate Roland.