Comparing Imagery In Beowulf And Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

“The Book of Margery Kempe” portrays similar ideas of social manipulation. Appearance and dress are important elements to the females depicted in “Beowulf” and “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” as through their distinctive ornamentation these women are defined. Before her religious conversion, Margery is best described as being a rather gaudy and eye drawing dresser “that it should be more staring to men’s sight and herself be more worshipped”, conjuring images of drab that contrast the perfection of Guenevere and Wealhtheow and thus a strange image is illustrated to the reader when she switches her attire from gaudy to virginal white as though oddly mimicking the characters of such perfect queens. Through such a contrast it is obvious that

Margery is using feminine dress conventions to cater to (as opposed to conforming to) male responses. She attempts to use her clothing to invoke a sympathetic response to her as a maiden dressed in pure white.

When standing before the archbishop she is “kneeling on her knees before him”, the image of a virginal and humble subservient maiden. Margery knows how to change her personality, in particular her feminine side, to adjust to her surroundings, invoking a response in the males so that they don’t have her executed right away. She continues to break down into a crying fit. “At last she cried loud therewith that the Archbishop and his clerks and much people had great wonder of her, for they had not heard such crying before.” Margery Kempe realizes the immense power of traditional images of confined women and seeks to present herself as such comparable to Guenevere and Wealhtheow while actually behaving according to the opposite. She is both the “crone and the coquette” as described in Sir Gawain and through obvious manipulation of the stagnant stereotypes in a Middle Ages society she, like Lady Macbeth, is able to exploit any situation she finds herself in so she can benefit. This understanding could have been crucial for women in the Middle Ages as it serves to be a gateway to an expressive freedom in a world where women could otherwise have no expression at

all.
As society continues to evolve, antifeminism has slowly begun to decay as women become more assertive, justly pursuing social, reproductive and economic rights that otherwise would not exist in the male dominated society established by these texts.

Yet, the concept of confinement even outside that of feminism is surely one that still exists today. Maya Angelo states that “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Such a statement, while aimed at the modern society, reflects the characters such as Guenevere and Margery – Guenevere is relegated to an ornamental representation of conformity, and is thus unable to express herself as a character and has little growth whereas Margery is able to develop as a character due to her lack of conformity to antifeminism in particular. The pursuit of conformity, the desire to “fit in” is a desire in our modern society that deeply reflects the lack of development of these characters in literature – to these attitudes shared by both fiction and reality, social confinement is no prison; rather it is a label of acceptance even if one is unable to express themselves as a result and such an idea has been present since before the Middle Ages. Likewise, breaking the rules of conformity labels one as an apparent outcast to those who do conform. This makes it safe to conclude that by pursuing a similar path as Margery and presenting oneself as an icon of traditional confinement while actually behaving in the

opposite allows one to experience the best of both ideals, to allow one to act as themselves without being frowned upon by a society. Such a link between our modern society and a Middle Ages society indicates that while our attitude towards social constructs such as feminism has changed over time, the idea of conformity in itself and its consequences is one which is unchanging throughout literature’s evolution.
In conclusion, while women of earlier texts such as “Sir Gawain” and “Beowulf” seemed happy to be ornaments that were confined, reflecting the patriarchal nature of the Middle Ages, eventually there is a sense of dissatisfaction with this. As a result, there are more detailed and fuller pictures of women that manipulate the particularly medieval social construct of feminism in texts such as “Macbeth” and “The Book of Margery Kempe”. Such characters are interesting because of whom they are rather than because of their role in influencing male affairs as objects of desire or of peace. Thus, using the lens of feminism through “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, “Beowulf”, “Macbeth” and “The Book of Margery Kempe” as context, it becomes evident that lack of social conformity is what produces truly unique and powerful characters. The uniqueness and power of these characters is what must be taken into account in our modern world as it illustrates that personal uniqueness from conformity in any individual, fiction or otherwise, is what makes an individual truly powerful.