SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT
Context
This poem was approximately written in the mid to late fourteenth century by anonymous author but this author was known as Pearl-poet. The poem survives in a manuscript that also includes three religious poems, Pearl, Patience and Purity, all thought to have been written by the same author, thi poem contains more 2.500 words. Sir Gawain was written in northwestern England, it's written in a dialect of Middle English called North West Midland. It also has a lot of holdovers from Anglo-Saxon, the language spoken in England before it mixed with French. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to connect the two halves of each poetic line through alliteration, or repetition of consonants, it contains irregular meter called Bob and Wheel. This is a chilvaric romance and Arthurian romance containing loyalty, masculinity, code of honor, quest, knight, service to a lady, love, sensual, sex, magic, supernatural powers.
Plot Overview
During a New Year’s Eve feast at King Arthur’s court, a strange figure, referred to only as the Green Knight, pays the court an unexpected visit. He challenges the group’s leader or any other brave representative to a game. The Green Knight says that he will allow whomever accepts the challenge to strike him with his own axe, on the condition that the challenger find him in exactly one year to receive a blow in return.
Stunned, Arthur hesitates to respond, but when the Green Knight mocks Arthur’s silence, the king steps forward to take the challenge. As soon as Arthur grips the Green Knight’s axe, Sir Gawain leaps up and asks to take the challenge himself. He takes hold of the axe and, in one deadly blow, cuts off the knight’s head. To the amazement of the court, the now-headless Green Knight picks up his severed head. Before riding away, the head reiterates the terms of the pact, reminding the young Gawain to seek him in a year and a day at the Green Chapel. After the Green Knight leaves, the company goes back to its festival, but Gawain is uneasy.
Time passes, and autumn arrives. On the Day of All Saints, Gawain prepares to leave Camelot and find the Green Knight. He puts on his best armor, mounts his horse, Gringolet, and starts off toward North Wales, traveling through the wilderness of northwest Britain. Gawain encounters all sorts of beasts, suffers from hunger and cold, and grows more desperate as the days pass. On Christmas Day, he prays to find a place to hear Mass, then looks up to see a castle shimmering in the distance. The lord of the castle welcomes Gawain warmly, introducing him to his lady and to the old woman who sits beside her. For sport, the host (whose name is later revealed to be Bertilak) strikes a deal with Gawain: the host will go out hunting with his men every day, and when he returns in the evening, he will exchange his winnings for anything Gawain has managed to acquire by staying behind at the castle. Gawain happily agrees to the pact, and goes to bed.
The first day, the lord hunts a herd of does, while Gawain sleeps late in his bedchambers. On the morning of the first day, the lord’s wife sneaks into Gawain’s chambers and attempts to seduce him. Gawain puts her off, but before she leaves she steals one kiss from him. That evening, when the host gives Gawain the venison he has captured, Gawain kisses him, since he has won one kiss from the lady. The second day, the lord hunts a wild boar. The lady again enters Gawain’s chambers, and this time she kisses Gawain twice. That evening Gawain gives the host the two kisses in exchange for the boar’s head.
The third day, the lord hunts a fox, and the lady kisses Gawain three times. She also asks him for a love token, such as a ring or a glove. Gawain refuses to give her anything and refuses to take anything from her, until the lady mentions her girdle. The green silk girdle she wears around her waist is no ordinary piece of cloth, the lady claims, but possesses the magical ability to protect the person who wears it from death. Intrigued, Gawain accepts the cloth, but when it comes time to exchange his winnings with the host, Gawain gives the three kisses but does not mention the lady’s green girdle. The host gives Gawain the fox skin he won that day, and they all go to bed happy, but weighed down with the fact that Gawain must leave for the Green Chapel the following morning to find the Green Knight.
New Year’s Day arrives, and Gawain dons his armor, including the girdle, then sets off with Gringolet to seek the Green Knight. A guide accompanies him out of the estate grounds. When they reach the border of the forest, the guide promises not to tell anyone if Gawain decides to give up the quest. Gawain refuses, determined to meet his fate head-on. Eventually, he comes to a kind of crevice in a rock, visible through the tall grasses. He hears the whirring of a grindstone, confirming his suspicion that this strange cavern is in fact the Green Chapel. Gawain calls out, and the Green Knight emerges to greet him. Intent on fulfilling the terms of the contract, Gawain presents his neck to the Green Knight, who proceeds to feign two blows. On the third feint, the Green Knight nicks Gawain’s neck, barely drawing blood. Angered, Gawain shouts that their contract has been met, but the Green Knight merely laughs.The Green Knight reveals his name, Bertilak, and explains that he is the lord of the castle where Gawain recently stayed. Because Gawain did not honestly exchange all of his winnings on the third day, Bertilak drew blood on his third blow. Nevertheless, Gawain has proven himself a worthy knight, without equal in all the land. When Gawain questions Bertilak further, Bertilak explains that the old woman at the castle is really Morgan le Faye, Gawain’s aunt and King Arthur’s half sister. She sent the Green Knight on his original errand and used her magic to change Bertilak’s appearance. Relieved to be alive but extremely guilty about his sinful failure to tell the whole truth, Gawain wears the girdle on his arm as a reminder of his own failure. He returns to Arthur’s court, where all the knights join Gawain, wearing girdles on their arms to show their support.
Plot Analysis
Initial Situation
Arthur and his knights have gathered at his castle for the Christmas holiday season, but Arthur has a custom of refusing to eat until he has heard a marvelous tale or witnessed a wonder. Suddenly, an enormous, completely green man carrying a giant axe rides in on a completely green horse.
Conflict
Gawain chops off the Green Knight’s head, but he picks it right back up and clatters out of the castle on his horse.
Complication
Gawain spends the next holiday season at a mysterious castle in the middle of an enchanted forest.
Climax
Gawain meets the Green Knight.
Suspense
Gawain withstands two feints (blows that aren’t carried through) and one blow that breaks the skin on his neck.
Denouement
The Green Knight explains that he is actually Lord Bertilak, and that the feints represent the days on which Gawain honorably followed the rules of their exchange-of-winnings game, whereas the last stroke represents his dishonesty in withholding the magic girdle. Furthermore, Bertilak tells Gawain that the old lady in his castle is Morgan le Fay, a powerful sorceress who enchanted him and sent him to Arthur’s court in order to test the knights and frighten Guinevere.
Conclusion
Gawain returns to Arthur’s court and recounts his adventure, explaining that he will wear the green girdle forever as a symbol of his failure and of how his misdeeds can never be erased. The knights of the round table decide to wear a similar belt in honor of Gawain, and it becomes a symbol of honor.
Character List
Sir GawainGreen Knight
Bertilak of Hautdesert
Bertilak’s wife
Morgan le Faye
Queen Guinevere
Gringolet
Archetypes
Hero: (Gawain)
Trickster: (Bercilak)
Temptress: (Lady)
Magic: (Bercilak)
Symbolism
Symbolism: THE PENTANGLE
The narrator of Sir Gawain is very clear about what the pentangle (five-pointed star) on Gawain’s shield represents:
It is a symbol that Solomon designed long ago
As an emblem of fidelity, and justly so;
[...]
Therefore it suits this knight and his shining arms,
For always faithful in five ways, and five times in each case,
Gawain was reputed as virtuous,
(625-626; 631-633)
These five ways in which Gawain is virtuous are in the dexterity of his five fingers, the perfection of his five senses, his devotion to the five wounds of Christ, his reflection on the five joys of Mary in Christ and, finally, five virtues: generosity, fellowship, chastity, courtesy, and charity. Wow, that’s a lot of virtue.
The pentangle is an appropriate representation of these five areas of virtue because each of the five sides of the pentangle transitions seamlessly into the next. This aspect of its geometry might represent the way in which the virtues are interrelated, each area feeding into and supporting the other.
Symbolism: THE COLOR GREEN
The mysterious, gigantic man who interrupts the feast at Arthur’s court on New Year’s Eve is green from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. We can use other things we know about the Green Knight to figure out what the symbolism of the color might be. For example, instead of carrying traditional knightly weapons, he carries a holly branch in one hand and a large axe in the other. Both of these objects connect him to nature, particularly the woods. The Green Knight’s test of Gawain makes him very aware of his strong survival instinct, something he shares with animals. And the place where Gawain must meet the Green Knight – the Green Chapel – is one of the most wild, natural places in the poem. Based on these clues, we’re pretty sure that the color green represents nature. People, places, and things in the poem that are green somehow have a significant connection to nature.
Symbolism: THE GREEN GIRDLE
The green girdle, or belt, that Lady Bertilak gives to Gawain as a "lover’s token" is another symbol whose meaning is made very clear to the reader. When Lady Bertilak presses Gawain to accept it, she presents it as something to remember her by, but happens to mention that it will make the wearer invincible. For Gawain, then, the green girdle represents his survival. Since Gawain fails to exchange the girdle with Bertilak as the terms of the men’s agreement dictate, it also symbolizes to the reader Gawain’s desperate desire to survive at the expense of his code of honor. Only after Gawain "fails" the Green Knight’s test does this meaning become clear to him.
Gawain promises himself that he will wear the girdle forever as a symbol of his failure, but also as a reminder of how "a man may hide his misdeed, but never erase it" (2511). After all the men in Arthur’s court decide to wear a similar belt, however, the girdle takes on a new meaning – it becomes a symbol of honor. More than any in the poem, then, this girdle is a multi-dimensional object whose meaning depends upon the interpreter and the moment of interpretation.
References
SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 24 Jul. 2016.
