Analysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

gender role. The Lady’s role questions traditional presumptions of the roles of women in medieval literature. Women of the Middle Ages were generally dependent, inferior, and many female portraits in medieval texts did not fare better. While men of the Middle Ages were generally chivalry, valiance, noble and honest. Throughout the poem I began to see gender roles being reversed between Lady Bertilak and Sir Gawain.

Society expects ultimate perfection of all people. Due to this people are pressured to act a certain way that they would otherwise not act. The journey of obtaining perfection and maintaining it leads to success and failure. But what is considered failing while trying to become a different person? This topic is addressed in the poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by Pearl Poet. The main character Sir Gawain finds himself on a journey that will test his knightly integrity and the true nature of his personality. Sir Gawain fails his quest when he responds to the challenge in an aggressive way; by doing so he shows his lack of concern for human life, he fails to uphold his agreement with Lord Bertilak, and succumbs to fear when the

A close reading of the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight reveals a very antifeminist view. The poem, told in four parts, tells of common medieval folklore. The stories seem to be of different plotlines, but start to intersect in interesting ways – that is, the character of Morgan Le Fay begins to frame the stories together. The half-sister of King Arthur, she holds intense hatred for her half-brother and his court. It is her thirst for the downfall of Camelot that makes this character infamous, and, surprisingly, her success and the strength of her ability that give a bad name to women. Through the examination of Morgan Le Fay’s character, it is clear that a successful woman is always an illusion.

The code of chivalry is an expectation that knights will protect their lords, have courage in battle and respect women (Beck 365). The aftermath of the affair between Sir Launcelot and Queen Gwynevere ended in the loss of two great knights and a war that sparked more conflict. That was all brought on because Queen Gwynevere wasn't faithful to her husband, King Arthur. Sir Lancelot's love for Queen Gwynevere is the reason he broke the code of chivalry. The lady of the manor repeatedly tempted Sir Gawain with riches, and he passed, except when she offered a sash that would save his life. When he took the sash, that was the moment that he failed the test of the Green Knight and the dishonored the code of chivalry. The women in these two stories may not have been one hundred percent responsible for the knights breaking the code of chivalry, but in the long run caused much worse events than the breaking of the code of

 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the most intriguing Middle English chivalric romances known today. The poem is a delicately written balancing act between two cultures, clashing in a time of unease between the religion of tradition, (paganism) and the new religion, (Christianity). The poem is also one of the best known Arthurian tales, with its plot combining two types of folklore patterns, the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. The Green Knight is interpreted by many as a representation of the Green Man of folklore and by others as an allusion to Christ. The story is told in stanzas of alliterative verse, ending in a bob and wheel. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an important poem in the Middle English romance genre, because it involves all the typical plot progression of a hero who goes on a quest to prove himself. Yet what sets Sir Gawain apart from heroes of lore is his inability to finish his quest. The aspect which makes Sir Gawain and the Green Knight different is Sir Gawain’s failure. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a perfect example of the struggle between enduring Paganism and newfound Christianity.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is the classic tale of a knight of the round table who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight. The poem begins with the Green Knight’s sudden arrival and his declaration of his proposition: a knight may strike him, and then a year and one day from then he will return the blow. This tale is most well-known for dealing with the themes of a knight’s code of chivalry, loyalty, resisting temptation, and keeping one’s word. While the whole poem is full of great lines that beautifully deliver the message, one of the best passages come at the end of the poem after Sir Gawain has managed to survive his second encounter with the Green Knight. This passage perfectly encompasses the various themes of the poem, as it deals with all of the trials Gawain has faced up until that point and also explains how he deals with the shame he feels for surviving the game in the way he did.

    Gawain’s loyalty to King Arthur is unquestionable. To begin this story, there is a Green knight who proposes a game to a room full of Arthur’s knights. When no man volunteers to play with the Green Knight, Gawain steps in to save his king’s life and reputation. Before accepting the Green Knight's challenge, Gawain asks Arthur to “...command me to step from the dias and stand with you there, / That I might without bad manners make down from my place…” (From Sir Gawain…, ln. 121-122). By doing so, not only does Gawain step up to the green knight for his king, but he also goes about it in a very chivalrous, respectful way to his king above all of us. By respecting his king and being the only man to step up to the challenge and risk his life for his king, Gawain shows loyalty, which in turn follows chivalry, putting his honor above his life.

When talking about a morally ambiguous character, many ideas may float to mind. Perhaps a Dr. Jekyll type of person will pop up in your mind, or maybe just simply a person who doesn’t let morality get in the way of their ambitions. For a character to have a sense of evil present in them, it is not necessary for them to walk around with an ominous laugh, or anything comical in those lines. Similarly, for a character to have a sense of good, it does not mean they have to be perfectly correct either. In order to put the morally ambiguity into perspective, it is necessary to analyze the presence of both good and evil into a real character, and how it affects the story as a whole. From the Pearl Poet’s chivalric romance, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Sir Gawain is an excellent example of a morally ambiguous character. In the poem, Gawain’s purely good image was shattered when he cut off the Green Knight’s head, since he took the game as a challenge. That event could be considered as the event that set the plot into action, as the following events are all resulting from Gawain’s action. However, Gawain symbolizes good by initially embracing the knight's moral code in accepting the challenge and then, agreeing to the terms of the Green Knight. Gawain still symbolizes goodness by demonstrating proper knightly actions at times. The Pearl Poet uses Gawain as a morally ambiguous character to set up the plot. He firstly sets up Gawain as a good character, then uses a series of

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, after Gawain ventures “into a forest fastness, fearsome and wild” (Norton, 311), he prays that he will be able to find “harborage” on Christmas Eve (Norton, 312). It is the middle of winter, and Gawain has been traveling in search of the Green Knight whose head he has cut off. After he prays and signs himself three times, Gawain finds a magical castle in the midst of a winter forest. He rides to the castle and is granted permission to enter by the lord. Gawain is attended to in a fashion befitting kings, and he meets the lord who tells his identity to all in the court. There are many significant implications and foreshadowings which occur during Gawain’s

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is considered not only a most brilliant example of Middle English poetry but one of the jewels in the crown English Literatures, and sits in the British Library under conditions of high security and controlled humidity. In the anonymously written story, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight shows Sir Gawain’s chivalry form his loyalty to his King, being testing by Green Knight, and his behavior during game playing.

Gawain’s first portrayal of being a true knight comes when the Green Knight makes his appearance in Camelot. The Green Knight first speaks to King Arthur and proposes that they play a “game.” Arthur will strike the Green Knight with his axe, and in return the Green Knight will return the strike in a year and a day. King Arthur agrees to this game and its terms, but as he steps up to accept the challenge, Gawain comes forward and offers to participate in the “game” in place of King Arthur. Sir Gawain says to King Arthur, “I implore with prayer plain that this match should now be mine” (341-342). Gawain goes on to strike the Green Knight, cutting off his head. However, the strike does not kill the Green Knight; he picks up his head from the ground and repeats to Sir Gawain that he will return the blow in a year and a day. In this moment, Gawain’s bravery is clearly showcased. First, he takes a challenge in place of his king, which he did not have to do.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is an excellent work to reference when examining different relationships within Arthurian legends. The author of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is unknown, but he is sometimes referred to as the “Gawain Poet” or “Pearl Poet” because of his additional works: “Pearl,” “Purity,” and “Patience.” All four poems were part of the Alliterative Revival of the Middle Ages of Northern England, containing mostly religious content. This may be the origin of Gawain’s exaggeratedly religious portrayal in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is organized in a stanza arrangement. Each stanza ends with one short line and four longer lines, called the bob and wheel, which “knits” the story together. It may important to note that the work was most likely written in the fourteenth century. The work is set in sixth-seventh centuries, but includes modern advances in armory, dress, and décor from the time the poem was written. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” exhibits many different types of love and relationships in which they are demonstrated. Familial love, spiritual love, erotic love, and courtly love are demonstrated within families, friendships, marriages, and Godly relationships.

At the conclusion of the narrative, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain’s identity is left undecided. The Green Knight restores Gawain’s knightly virtues of the pentangle and continues to praise Gawain for his virtue. But Gawain, unsatisfied with his restoration, returns home only to find his court full of admiration for his return home and victory, even though he now wears the green lace (4.2489-505). The physical journey of Gawain to the Green Knight demonstrates his outward courage and devotion, but leaves the question: what is truly going on in his heart? Gawain’s moral character is at stake, because he must decide between his valued pentangle or his gifted green lace as his moral identity. During his encounter with the Green Knight, Sir Gawain faces the reality of his nature to find that he is not wholly what his armor displays. Sir Gawain tarnishes his perfection and his virtuous pentangle and instead, he exemplifies his fallibility by the wearing the lace.

Throughout the history of fictional writing, cultural values of certain time periods have been expressed and implemented through the depiction of the heroes’ experiences on their journeys and the knowledge they gain by the quest’s end. For example, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a chivalric romance written in the Late Middle Ages, Gawain epitomizes a knight with the characteristics that knights from the Late Middle Ages were expected to possess according to the requirements outlined in the rules of chivalry, such as honor and valor. Likewise, Beowulf, the hero of the folk epic Beowulf, embodies the qualities of an exemplary hero as well as king. Therefore, in both stories, the reader encounters a heroic character that is presented with traits that Anglo-Saxons and the Middle English valued in their culture through their stories’ monomyths, a concept of similar and structural sequences that can be applied to many stories, created by Joseph Campbell. Some of these values are carried from the Early to Late Middle Ages and can be seen through the works of both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf.

According to Christopher Reeve, “a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.” In today’s culture, the hero is frequently depicted as a knight in shining armor, an image that originates from age-old literature such as the fourteenth-century Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In such literary works, the heroic knight has several virtuosic character traits: friendship, chastity, generosity, courtesy, and piety; however, he must also endure a quest in which his virtues are tested. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, three obstacles challenge the hero Gawain’s morals, including the Green Knight, the seductress, and the threat of death, leading to a further maturity of