Sir Gawain was a knight of King Arthur and his nephew. A knight was all about chivalry, honesty,

When you think of a knight what do you picture? Do you picture a fragile, cowardly, dishonorable man? Of course not, you picture a strong man who is willing to give up his life for the kingdom. In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” retold by Susan Thompson, a legend is told of, Sir Gawain on his quest to protect his king and fellow knights’ honor. After the Green Knight had challenged them and embarrassed King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, Sir Gawain took up the challenge in an act of true chivalry. In this legend about a battle of knighthood between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain is the better knight. He is a true romantic hero and follows the Knight’s Code of Chivalry, by serving the liege lord, King Arthur, in valor

​In the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain is introduced as a courtly knight with a sense of perfection. The author does this to compare it to his failures, which are later displayed through Gawain’s acts at Morgan le Fay’s castle. Gawain is portrayed to be a chivalrous knight with honor and courage. Gawain is presented with a challenge: accept the game to cut off the Green Knight’s head, and in a test of courage and honor, set out to allow the Green Knight to return the favor to him in a year and a day. This initially shows the knightly characteristics of Gawain which presents him as noble and honorable, which allows the author to shock the audience when Gawain falls under pressure to actions that contradict the chivalrous code. The first of these actions taken by Gawain in opposition to his morals is the temptation

Throughout the Arthurian legends, Sir Gawain seems to be the epitome of a noble knight. He is always putting his king before himself, repeatedly sacrificing his own life in some way for King Arthur. He is an honorable knight that lives up to his word. This is evident in both Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell." In these stories, Gawain lives up to the expectations of a knight belonging to the legendary Round Table.

Even though the green knight turns out to be good at the end of the story, he still presents Gawain with a variety of difficult challenges throughout the poem that make him seem evil. The green knight is first perceived as evil when he barges into king Arthur’s castle and insults the knights of camelot for hesitating to cut off his head. The moment that Sir Gawain volunteers to cut off the green knights instead of allowing Arthur to do so he is crossing the threshold from the ordinary world into the world of adventure. When Gawain departs on his journey to have his head cut off he is putting the greater good of camelot before his preference of not being decapitated by giant green knights. This choice that Gawain makes marks his first step towards becoming a better knight. Even

Sir Gawain could be the noblest knight in all the land and he still made a mistake. When it came time to face the Green Knight, what was ultimately offered was mercy. Gawain received a nick on his neck for making the mistake of not giving the Lord the green girdle he received, breaking the deal they had, and still walking away with his life. Gawain was extremely hard on himself for breaking his word, as a knight he is expected to be honorable at all times. Because of this reputation it was hard for Sir Gawain to accept that he made a mistake. Because of this, he took the green girdle to wear as a symbol of his fault and was honored by his fellow knights because of

    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.

Sacrifice is a quality that many people choose to ignore. But Sir Gawain magnified this virtue to its extent, even to the brink of death. When the Green Knight challenged the knights of King Arthur for a game, and King Arthur volunteered, it was Sir Gawain who stepped in. Gawain takes on the Green Knight game and goes for the blow. Gawain chops off the Green Knight’s head, but in shocking disbelief, the Green Knight picks up his head and gives a speech. The Green Knight then instructs Gawain to get his way to the Green Chapel to receive his blow in return. Lines (347-350) states, “For I find it

After the establishing of the threat, Gawain agrees to the “fateful region of both treasure and danger…” (Campbell 53), also known as the call. The Green Knight himself initiates the quest, originally representing the herald. As Gawain rose the sword and let it fall on the knight’s neck, the Green Knight “neither faltered nor fell; he started forward with outstretched hand and caught the head…” (Weston, 9). At the attempt to decapitate the Green Knight, Gawain realizes that he will not be easily killed and rethinks what he has agreed to. At this point, the reader can define the Green Knight as a trickster for misleading Gawain into his death. Time flew by for Gawain and soon took off on his journey to find the mysterious knight. On a chilly winter night, Sir Gawain prays to God to help guide him to a safe place to spend the rest of the night. He comes across a castle in which he stays in for three days. The castle’s owner shelters Gawain and tests his loyalty.

Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem about of honor, courage, and knightliness. Gawain had to go on an adventure to face the Green Knight after cutting off his head. He faced many challenges to his honor and his faith. The section that showed his faith and honor the most was the hunting scene and the courtly scene. Gawain and the Lord’s scene were very similar because they both had main ideas connected to them, such as fate, courage, and deceit. The hunting scene and the courting scene portrayed Gawain and Reynard escaping their fate for a while. Reynard escaped the hunt for a while by hiding before dawn. Gawain rejected the ring the lady gave him but could not reject the girdle. Reynard’s fate was to die as Gawain’s fate was to accept the

Sir Gawain is reluctant to accept the Green Knight’s challenge. He fears for his life. In the end he only accepts the challenge to protect King Arthur’s life and honor. He knows it is his duty to protect King Arthur, but only volunteers to do so at the last second. Sir Gawain also breaks his oath to the Lord of the castle he is staying in. He broke their vow to trade whatever they had earned during the day when he keeps a sash the Lady of the castle gives him because he believes it will protect him during his battle with the Green Knight.

Sir Gawain finally moves on from the castle and goes to the Green chapel, which happens to be a mound. He gets there, and is admittedly scared, but ready to die. The Green knight goes to strike Sir Gawain with his axe, but does not. The Green knight notices Sir Gawain flinches and begins to mock him. Sir Gawain proceeds to tell the Green knight that he will not be able to pick up his head like the Green knight did. The Green Knight goes to strike Sir Gawain a second time and Sir Gawain does not flinch this time. Sir Gawain is ready to die now after the first flinch. The Green knight then went to strike Sir Gawain a third time and he began to get frustrated, the Green knight began to talk with Sir

The Green Knight agrees if Gawain will come to wherever he thinks the Green Knight will be. Of course, Gawain has no clue where he would find him, so the Green Knight says that he will tell him if Gawain can hit him square on the neck. Then Sir Gawain strikes him directly on his neck, and the Green Knights head rolls off. The Green Knight proceeds to pick up his head and leave, while bleeding terribly from the neck as if he were unharmed. Before he leaves, he tells Sir Gawain to come to the Green Chapel when they agreed. So then a year passes before Gawain comes across his second trial. It occurs while Gawain stays in the castle of a hospitable lord before he is to meet again with the Green Knight. During his stay, the lord and Sir Gawain agree to "exchange what each has won during the day" (Ponsor 128). For three days the lord brings back what he has hunted, and Gawain gives him the kisses he has received from the lady of the castle. However, he also received a magical green scarf from the lady on the third day, but fails to exchange it for it is a token of good luck. When Sir Gawain finally meets with the Green Knight, he prepares to be struck with a scythe, but the Green Knight ends up only giving him a minor scratch on the neck. This is because the knight was testing his honor, and he scratched him because he did not maintain his honor on that third day. He was supposed to hand over

As Sir Gawain presses on in his search for the Green Chapel, he faces numerous physical challenges. Yet he overcomes them all to the point that "to tell but the tenth part would tax my wits" (1719) as he has countless battles with serpents, wolves, and the like. The true challenges come after he arrives at Bercilak's castle. There, he is tempted three times by Lady Bercilak's advances--yet he does not give in to her advances, nor spurn her completely in an uncourtly manner. Further, he does not accept her gift of the ring which she offers as a remembrance. However, when she offers her green girdle, proclaiming its properties of protection:

In order for Sir Gawain to fulfill his contract he needed the Green Knight to hit his skin. Since the first two hit did nothing, the third hit finally drew some blood from Sir Gawain. Once all of that is done, he had shown himself to be proven as a worthy knight. The cost of Gawain’s failure is when the Green Knight revealed his name and told Sir Gawain that he is not completely honest, especially with the last day of the exchange. Due to Sir Gawain being honest later, Bertilak told him, “God bless you for this gift/

At the beginning of the tale, Sir Gawain struggles with loyalty. The Green Knight came to test the honesty of one person, so he announces a game. No one volunteers because they are stunned by the weirdness of his request. The Green Knight calls out King Arthur himself to take the challenge. So, Arthur takes the challenge but Sir Gawain steps forward to accept his challenge when he was confronted by the Green Knight. Gawain accepts the challenge to chop off the Green Knight’s head, Before he knew that the Green Knight has supernatural abilities. So, after he chops the Green Knights head off, he stills survive. Instead of dying, the Green Knight walked over to his own head, picks it up, turns it to face Gawain, and tells him to meet him at the Green Chapel in a year and a day. Sir Gawain leaves to find the Green Chapel and fulfil his pledge as the end of the year approaches. After riding through many dangers he comes upon a castle. He was welcome by the lord of the castle and the lord decides to invite him in to