Chivalry In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an anonymous author in approximately 1390, is one of the most well-known poems from the Arthurian cycle. The questions of honor and chivalry are among the main themes that this poem thoroughly explores. Near the end of the poem, the protagonist, the knight of the Round Table called Gawain, violates his chivalric obligations when, in order to save his life, he breaks his oath given to a hospitable lord of a castle, so, after being justly punished by the Green Knight, Gawain appropriately – though in an extreme manner – starts feeling remorse and self-disgust.
Though generally a very decent person, the protagonist violates a knight’s code of behavior when he breaks an oath to save his life while being

on a quest. Gawain’s adventure starts when he accepts a challenge from the Green Knight, a mysterious green warrior who comes to the hall of Camelot with no protective armor and dares anyone to lend him a deathly blow. The visitor claims he will not fight back on a condition that he would be granted an equal strike to his unprotected and not-defending attacker in a year and a day. With his blow, Gawain beheads the Green Knight, but the creature does not die and urges the protagonist to seek him in the green chapel for the promised second strike. While searching for the Green Knight, Gawain – who is eager to keep his word this time though it is likely to cost him his life – finds shelter in a beautiful castle of a hospitable lord, who conveniently claims to know where the green chapel is. The lord urges the protagonist to rest longer in the castle, while the former spends time hunting, and makes a covenant with the knight: “. . . a bargain we’ll make: / whatever I win in the woods is worthily yours, / and whatever here you achieve, exchange me for it” (Sir Gawain 2.45). To this, Gawain replies, “By God . . . I grant it you . . .” (Sir Gawain 2.45). This is the oath the protagonist eventually breaks. The lord’s beautiful wife seems particularly inclined to seduce Gawain, pursuing the knight in his chamber every morning, while her husband is hunting. The protagonist abhors adultery and does not want to be rude to the lady, so he courteously dismisses her advances, but allows her to politely kiss him. For two days, the lady’s kisses remain the only things Gawain receives. So when the lord, according to their covenant, presents the knight with the animals he hunted, Gawain pays him back with the kisses he received from the lady. But on the third day, along with her kisses, the lord’s wife offers the protagonist a parting gift, a magic belt, explaining that “. . . whatever man is girt with this green lace, / while he has it closely fastened about him, / there is no man under heaven might hew him . . .” (Sir Gawain 3.74). Gawain understands this belt can save him from the Green Knight, accepts the gift, and does not give it back to the lord of the castle, as he should have, according to his oath. However, the protagonist does not feel remorse because of his misdeed before the Green Knight, who turns out to be the lord of the castle, reproaches him for it.
During Gawain’s encounter with the Green Knight, the latter reveals he tested the protagonist all the time as the lord of the castle and punishes him for breaking the oath by keeping the belt through lightly injuring Gawain’s neck with his axe.

This is the third blow the Green Knight delivers, with the first two being feinted and leaving the protagonist unscathed. As the lord puts it, “Truth for the truth restore, / then man need dread no wraith. / On the third you failed for sure, / and so took that blow, in faith” (Sir Gawain 4.94). However, the Green Knight’s punishment is so mild because he finds a justification for Gawain’s misconduct, which happened “for love of your life – so I blame you the less” (Sir Gawain 4.95). Still, at that moment, the protagonist starts feeling severe remorse and self-disgust: “For fear of your knock cowardice me taught / to accord with covetousness, forsake my kind, / the largesse and loyalty that belongs to knights” (Sir Gawain 4.95). Gawain decides to accept and wear the lord’s belt all the time “as a sign of . . . [his] sin” (Sir Gawain 4.98). Although the protagonist’s remorse does seem somewhat extreme, taking into account that even his victim, the Green Knight, forgave him, it is easy to understand Gawain’s reasoning. He essentially broke his oath to save his life. However, for a knight, his honor must be more valuable than his life; and a reliability of one’s word is an essential part of one’s honor. Thus breaking an oath, even to survive, is a severe violation of chivalric norms of behavior. So, in a way, in this particular instance, Gawain failed as a knight and his realization of it tortures

him.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the protagonist fails his knightly obligations by breaking an oath. Although this is the only misconduct he engages into and he only does it to save his life, Gawain does not escape neither external nor internal punishment for his deed. This way the poem teaches the readers the severity of breaking an oath and an inconsistency of such an act with the norms of chivalry and honor.