Comparing Fear In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight, Canterbury Tales, And

A common theme among the Great Books is fear. Three books that have this theme within them are the Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Canterbury Tales, and The Inferno. Sir Gawain is a poem about one of King Arthur’s knights making a deal with a Green Knight. The Canterbury Tales is a series of stories by Chaucer. As a whole they tell the stories of a group of pilgrims on their way to The Shrine of Saint Thomas Becket. The Tale of the Wife of Bath is one of the Canterbury Tales. It tells the story of a knight who is trying to save himself from his death sentence by finding out what women most desire. The Inferno by Dante is the story of Dante being guided through Hell, and tells the punishments for all the various sins of the world. They each make you think about fear in different ways. Was it okay for Sir Gawain to cheat his host, because he was afraid for his life? What are these pilgrims doing, telling dirty stories on their pilgrimage? Do they have any fear of The Lord? If Hell is anything like how Dante describes it, what are we all doing with our lives? In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain shows us how not to act when we are in fear. He acts cowardly, but he should have had courage, especially considering what a devout Christian he was. When the Green Knight first

She is the only female voice among the Canterbury Tales, and uses her position to talk about women’s issues. She begins her Prologue with: ”experience, though no other authority were in this world, is quite enough for me to speak of woe, that is marriage” She considers herself to be the expert on marriage, because she has had five husbands. She considers three of her husband’s bad and two of them to be good. The ones she considers good are the ones who let her have control of her relationship. Her story reflects this idea that a good husband submits to his wife. She also asserts her expertise on marriage in saying she knows what all women want