Comparing The Poem 'Sir Gawain And The Green Knight'

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In the old English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a noble of Arthur’s court bravely volunteers to participate in a bet. The terms are set by a foreigner by the name of the Green Knight who decrees that he will allow someone to strike his neck with his own axe if in return, in a year they will reunite and Gawain will receive the same blow he dealt. The axe’s description in the text presents the kind of status and warrior like quality the Green Knight possesses’, which sets up the difficulty of the feat Gawain must perform. More broadly in the poem the axe symbolizes a challenge made on Sir Gawain’s virtues of courtesy and bravery.
Sir Gawain exhibits huge amounts of bravery in the poem. When the Green Knight confronts the knights of …show more content…

The poet describes the Green Knight as “Lightning-like he seemed/And swift to strike and stun. His dreadful blows, men deemed,/Once dealt,meant death was done.”(28) This language suggests the Knight has immense power and can kill someone from one blow. The fact that Gawain out of all the knights in the court stepped up and challenged this beast of a man, speaks to his courage. Another instance in which the Gawain displays bravery is in travelling to the Green Chapel to follow through with the Green Knight’s bet. As he traversed he was “Scaling many cliffs in country unknown.”(48) “,he slept in his armour Night after night among naked rocks,”(48) Armor is very uncomfortable and for Gawain to sleep outside in the cold just to fulfill the bet and potentially seal his fate is an act of heroism. A porter from a nearby castle escorts Gawain to the Green Chapel and makes statements about his grave chances to survive. The porter …show more content…

While staying in the lord’s lodging he meets the lord’s lady who expresses her love for him and makes advances on him several times. While these advances are not unwanted by Gawain, they are unacceptable because accepting them it would be uncivil and repudiate the values of courtesy and continence that he swears to live by. A woman who is described as “Most winsome in ways of all women alive,/ She seemed to Sir Gawain, excelling Guinevere.”(56) This is an extreme test of Gawain’s self-control because the Lady is seducing him, and with looks that rival one of the fairest women that Gawain had known. In keeping with another bet that he and the lord made, everything that Gawain received he had to give back to the Lord in exchange for the lord’s hunting game. Gawain follows through with his request giving the lord all kisses he received from his wife, except, for the green girdle he received. So when Gawain extended his neck, the Green Knight made two feints at him. The Green Knight reasoned “On account of the first night’s covenant we accorded;/ For you truthfully kept your trust in troth with me,/Giving me your gains as a good man should.”(108) Gawain dutifully always returned all the kisses he received. However the erroneous error of not revealing the girdle and a brief moment of timidity was what put Gawain at some fault towards the end. In the Knight’s feints Gawain flinched away from a descending axe, betraying

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