English Literature Essay

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – The Literature

• Author: Unknown

• The Pearl Poet

• The Gawain Poet

• Written in 14th Century

Major Characters

• Sir Gawain – the story’s protagonist.

• A loyal knight to King Arthur, as well as his nephew.

• Gawain goes on his quest to meet the Green Knight in order to uphold his knightly values.

Major Characters – The Green Knight

• Green Knight

• Sir Gawain’s main opposition in the story.

• He is a richly decorated knight, who has green skin and hair.

Major Characters – King Arthur

• King Arthur

• The king of Camelot.

• Uncle of Sir Gawain.

• It is at his celebration feast that the Green Knight challenges the court to a game.

Minor Characters

• Bertilak’s Wife

• – During the competition between Gawain and her husband, she tests Gawain’s integrity and honesty

• Morgan le Faye (The old lady)

• Powerful sorceress trained by Merlin. Assists Lady Bertilak in testing Gawain

• Guinevere

• King Arthur’s wife and Queen. Seated next to Gawain during the court’s feast.

Settings - Camelot

• The holiday celebrations take place at King Arthur’s castle in Camelot.

• It is here that the Green Knight challenges Gawain to exchanges blows with him.

Settings – Bertilak’s Home

On his quest to meet the Green Knight, Gawain stays here for a short period of time.

Settings – The Green Chapel

The supposed home of the Green Knight.

Gawain is sent here to keep his end of the bargain which he made with the Green Knight at Arthur’s holiday celebration a year prior.

Anticipation Guide

1. Men often act macho to try to impress women. 2. Women are impressed when men act macho. 3. There are many double standards in society regarding men and women. 4. Women should be treated equally to men in all aspects of life. 5. The expectations for the ability of women should be equal to that of men

in every career. 6. Chivalry is dead. 7. If a married man/woman is unhappy he/she should seek companionship

elsewhere. 8. The lives of kings are worth more than the lives of peasants. 9. Most people try to live their lives by proper morals and virtues. 10. It is worth it to die to save one’s honor.

Major Conflict

• Gawain’s struggle to decide between his duties as a knight and the worth of his own life

Rising Action

• Gawain accepts the Green Knight’s challenge and cuts off his head.

• The Green Knight survives the blow and Gawain is then required to maintain his half of the challenge.

Climax

• Gawain meets the Green Knight at the Green Chapel.

• After taking his first two swings, the Green Knight nicks Gawain on his third swing, only slightly cutting his neck.

Falling Action

• Confession

• Shame and mortification

• Statement of Sin: Gawain admits cowardice, covetousness, and untruth

• Request for penance

Examples of the Code of Chivalry

• Thou shalt defend the Church.

• Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them.

• Live to serve King and Country.

• Live to defend Crown and Country and all it holds dear.

• Live one's life so that it is worthy of respect and honor.

• Live for freedom, justice and all that is good.

• Never attack an unarmed foe.

Examples from the Laws of Courtly Love

• Thou shalt avoid avarice like the deadly pestilence and shalt embrace its opposite.

• Thou shalt keep thyself chaste for the sake of her whom thou lovest.

• Boys do not love until they reach the age of maturity.

• When one lover dies, a widowhood of two years is required of the survivor.

• No one should be deprived of love without the very best of reasons.

• No one can love unless he is propelled by the persuasion of love.

Motif

-a motif is the recurrence of an object, concept or idea within a piece of literature.

-one of the largest motifs presented in Sir Gawain is the use of color…how is this true?

Symbolism

• In medieval symbology, red signifies humility as the blood of Christ

• Gold signifies perfection. • Gawain’s shield – a tool of protection • Green – symbolizes fertility and

rebirth • Axe – a symbol of execution • Holly bob – associated with death and

ghosts • An analysis of “Sir Gawain and the

Green Knight” indicates that symbols are prevalent in the poem and the Gawain-poet intended to use these symbols as tools of hidden meanings.

• The Pentangle – five-pointed star, a symbol of truth, virtues, and value

• The green girdle – represents cowardice and excessive love of a mortal life.

• The green girdle is also a symbol paralleling the crown of thorns that was worn by Jesus during crucifixion.

• Most of the symbols in this story dwell on the subjects of death, human triumph, defeat, temptation, and honor.

Gold Spurs?

• Immediately upon reading/hearing these lines about the Green Knight who has burst into Arthur’s Christmas festivities, wearing gold spurs, the audience would know that he was a guy not to be messed with.

• He was got up in green from head to heel: a tunic worn tight, tucked to his ribs; and a rich cloak cast over it, covered inside with a fine fur lining, fitted and sewn with ermine trim that stood out in contrast from his hair where his hood lay folded flat; and handsome hose of the same green hue which clung to his calves, with clustered spurs of bright gold; (ll. 151-55)

Why the Green Knight?

• In medieval England, the “Green Man” was a pagan representation of nature. The “Green Man” was not Satanic but did symbolize the nature worship that characterized pre- Christian tribal paganism.

• The “Green Man” is not evil but is also not Christian  a battle between any of Arthur’s knights and any creature reminiscent of Britain’s pagan past is, by extension, a battle between “good” and “evil” – or between the Christian piety of Arthur’s knights and their tribal, non- Christian predecessors.

Sir Gawain’s Shield

• In the poem, Gawain’s shield is very clearly described as a golden pentangle on a field of red.

• The pentangle, the poem goes on to tell us, represents Gawain’s Five Fifths.

• The pentangle is also called the “endless knot.”

“Five-Fifths”

• Gawain was said to possess five qualities – one for each of the pentangle’s points – wherein he far excelled all other knights.

• The first of these “Five Fifths” was his faultlessness in his five senses.

• The next (second) of these “Five Fifths” was his faultlessness in his five fingers.

“Five-Fifths” Continued

• The next (third) of these “Five Fifths” was the strength Gawain drew from his devotion to the “Five wounds of Christ.”

1.One through each of his hands or wrists

2.One through each of his feet

3.The final wound in the side of Christ

More on the “Five-Fifths”

• The last of these “Five Fifths” was Gawain’s well-known practice of the “five social graces.”

• The five social graces which Gawain exemplifies above all others are:

1.free-giving (generosity)

2.brotherly love

3.chastity

4.pure manners (courtesie)

5.piety

Gawain Faced Five Challenges

1.to voluntarily confront the Green Knight

2.to strike his blow properly

3.to keep his vow to meet the Green Knight in a year and a day.

4.to survive journey to the green chapel

5.to resist the lady’s temptations

Gawain’s Fifth Challenge

• The FIFTH TEST are the temptations and the three gifts; it tests especially the fifth point of the pentangle, the social virtues.

• Gawain fails: his acceptance of the girdle is not a fault; his hiding of it is a potential fault; his actual withholding of it from Bertilak is his fall.

• Had he given it back to the lady, he would have erased his potential fault.

• The real fault, from Gawain's point of view, is that the reality of his own mortality induces him to break the endless knot.

• Thus two effects of original sin are reasserted: cowardice (bodily mortality) and covetousness (willful cupidity).

• His nature as a man is asserting itself against his nature as a knight.

Chastity? Piety? Respect for the King?

• Gawain knows that he is facing certain death – and SOON – when he finally confronts the Green Knight and accepts his half of the bargain.

• Why would he still adhere to courtesie and resist the Lady’s temptation?

What’s Next?

Read the literature, take notes, and prepare for the essay exam.