Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Term Paper Example

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Reading medieval literature can be difficult to understand not only because the English used was different in that time, but because the way in which the stories were written was intended for an oral audience rather than a literate one. There are several reasons for this. First, because the printing press had not yet been invented in the late 14th century, all books appeared in hand-written, hand-bound manuscripts which would have been expensive to produce because of the time-consuming nature of the work and the skills needed for scribes to copy out the words. Secondly, because of the first issue, there were not many written works in wide circulation and therefore not many people who were fully educated enough to both enjoy reading as a past-time or to serve as scribes to create more manuscripts. Within the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the story opens at a point where Gawain is a young knight in the service of the legendary King Arthur and thus addresses the historical existence of this figure. However, the narrative story is not considered a reliable source of information because there are few existent facts to support it and there is sufficient evidence to suggest that the Gawain author borrowed from older legends, such as the legend of Cuchulain (Brewer, 1992), to create his story. Despite this, the story still has numerous merits that help us understand more about life in medieval times such as the important elements of being a knight and the latent criticism of the male-ordered ‘civility’ represented by King Arthur and his knights as they turned their backs on nature and the natural element in man. At the beginning of the story, Gawain comes to the realization that he is the only knight capable of accepting the challenge of the Green Knight who has come bursting into Arthur’s court issuing a New Year’s Day challenge. This is because he feels he is the least valuable knight in the court and therefore the one most expendable should he fail to win the challenge. “I am the weakest, the most wanting in wisdom, I know, and my life, if lost, would be least missed, truly” (I.16.354-355). This reveals the context of defining the true knight in which humility is seen to be prized over bravery regardless if it is true. According to Garbis, the concept of the reluctant hero is an important element of the Arthurian tradition. “Some kind of shock occurs that makes one aware of the self” (Garbis, 2002). However, it often goes unnoticed that the Green Knight is clearly a supernatural figure that has forced his way into the civilized world of the court. His unique coloring and the unusual coloring of his horse indicate that he is most closely associated with nature. His ability to survive the trauma of having his head cut off further associates him with nature’s power of regeneration and recovery. Gawain is the most inferior and thus most ‘womanly’ of the knights. Within the sharply defined world of men and women that existed in the medieval age, this womanly aspect places him in closer communion with nature, or at least indicates that he is more willing to explore it, and this contributes to his willingness to take up the knight’s challenge. The Gawain author seems to be trying to send a very subtle message that being ‘womanly’ is not the tremendous crime it was considered to be by medieval standards. The concept of civility was also obviously an important element of the true knight and medieval society as revealed through this story. It is an important part of the heroic code of the Christian-minded society of Sir Gawain which is made clear because it is a great component of the lessons that Gawain learns during this adventure. Over the course of the three days that Gawain spends with Lord Bercilak and his wife, a pattern of living is established. Each day, the lord goes hunting and each day the lady attempts to seduce Gawain. The agreement Gawain has with Lord Bercilak is that everything he wins during the day will be given to the Lord in the evening and the Lord will do the same. Over the first two days, Gawain successfully resists the lady’s temptations by accepting only a few relatively chaste kisses from her. He dutifully gives the lord the same sort of kisses he received each evening in honor of their agreement. However, this is more complicated than it seems because each choice Gawain makes causes him to break a different part of the chivalric code he is sworn to uphold. His natural inclination is to accept what the lady so arduously insists he take. This can easily be justified by the chivalric code which insists that a knight is never supposed to refuse a lady (Price, 1997). However, it was also important that a true knight adhere to the Christian codes of morality which included avoiding any participation in adultery and upholding the expectations of society. By refusing the lady, he adheres to the Christian morality and remains somewhat within the boundaries of polite, civilized society. Again, though, this is called into question as polite, civilized society functioned on the belief that women did not have the necessary sexual drive to cause them to attempt seduction. Again, the Gawain author seems to be calling the standard beliefs of his time into question. On the third day, the day before his scheduled trial with the Green Knight, Gawain fails to produce the green girdle the lady provides him during his nightly exchange with the Lord of the house. This is because the lady has promised him that the girdle will offer him protection from death when the Green Knight strikes: “For the man that binds his body with this belt of green, as long as he laps it closely about him, no hero under heaven can hack him to pieces, for he cannot be killed by any cunning on earth” (II.74.1851-1854). For love of his life, Gawain chooses to keep the girdle and wear it the next day. When Gawain faces the Green Knight, though, he learns it is really Lord Bercilak. The Lord delivers two false blows of the axe in repayment for Gawain’s faithfulness and honesty during his first two days at his house. On the third blow, he barely nicks Gawain as punishment for failing to return the girdle. The Green Knight explains that he did not kill Gawain because Gawain showed an appropriate sense of his own mortality in desiring to keep the lady’s gift and his own life. “Gawain is forced to make a choice between courtesy and adultery, either of which would result in the dishonor of either the lady or his host, respectively” (Kallday, 2007), but accepting the green girdle suggests that Gawain is at least willing to consider the needs of nature and this gains him some leniency. Through this exchange, the Green Knight has been teaching Gawain the necessity of staying true to the knight’s code within reason. As has been suggested, there are several important meanings hidden behind the hunting and the green girdle that aren’t explicitly mentioned in the story. While the lord goes outside to hunt the wild game of the forest, he leaves his lady behind to hunt in the interior spaces of the castle. In doing this, he seems to acknowledge that her need for sport and game is easily as strong as his own. This is an important element of the story because women often were seen to embody nature, so to understand nature was to understand women and to neglect women was to neglect nature. In showing that he understood and accepted her nature, the Green Knight was given powers over nature that went above and beyond the normal abilities of men. Gawain struggles throughout his stay at Lord Bercilak’s home to balance his commitment to man and civilization through his agreement with Lord Bercilak and his commitment to nature and the laws of women that run contradictory to civilized understandings. The Lady Bercilak is often seen in green gowns to reinforce this connection and the green girdle she gives him is both symbolic of nature’s protection and an item of women’s clothing. Gawain’s decision to keep the girdle rather than handing it over to Lord Bercilak in fulfillment of his agreement indicates his final understanding that the powers of nature will always override the powers of man as Gawain keeps the girdle in order to survive his meeting with the Green Knight the next day. In keeping with his true hero’s humility, Gawain returns to Arthur’s castle with nothing more than a small cut on his neck and a green girdle as prize for his adventure. His hero’s story is reduced to a confession of great sin and his grand memorial is not to attain a throne of his own but to be reminded of his shame and humiliation by every knight of the realm wearing a bit of green to commemorate the occasion. Gawain tells the court, “this is the figure of the faithlessness found in me, which I must needs wear while I live. For man can conceal sin but not dissever from it, so when it is once fixed, it will never be worked loose” (IV.101.2509-2512). The other knights adopt green adornments in amicable agreement with Gawain that they must have something to keep them humble and with a half-joking spirit, but they have little idea of the true meaning in this action as they acknowledge, along with Gawain, that nature is by far more powerful than any force they might bring to bear. Works Cited Garbis, Michelle R. Archetypes. (2002). Kallday, TM. “Gawain: Noble or Naïve?” (2007). Price, Brian R. “A Code of Chivalry.” Chronique. (1997). Stone, Brian (Trans.). Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New York: Penguin Classics, 1974. Read More