Comparison Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

In the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the author (aka Pearl Poet) arranges the story so that one scene has a correlating scenario with other scenes, thus tying the story together. In this story Sir Gawain rests at a lords castle for three days before he continues on to the Green Chapel where he is suppose to meet the Green Knight. Gawain is to meet the Green Knight there because he accepted the challenge for him to give a cut with an ax to the Green Knight and he would return the same to him at the Green Chapel. The lord of the castle that Gawain stays at is also known as the Green Knight, but does not reveal that to Gawain till he arrives at the Green Chapel and takes his part of the challenge. During those three days him and the Green Knight have many struggles. This essay will explore the three correlating relationships that happen between the three scenes of the lord’s hunt, Sir Gawain's bedroom, and the strokes of the Green Knight’s ax that he inflicts upon Sir Gawain.

The

first scene of interest happens during the lord’s first hunt as he is hunting deer. As many hunters know, deer are easily hunted and killed. There wasn’t a great deal of strategic planning to capture and kill a deer so it was a favorable hunt for the Lord and he brought plenty of meat back to the castle. While the Green Knight was dealing with hunting Gawain wakes up to find a different but relatable situation in his bedroom. Alarmed and confused at the woman sitting on his bed, Gawain wonders what she could want. Yet as the two of them talk, Gawain becomes comfortable with this peculiar woman. Before this strange woman leaves she asks Gawain for a kiss. She did this knowing that Gawain would give her one because he is an honorable knight and he would feel that it was his duty to her as a knight. As a knight in this time period you had to uphold and follow the chivalric code, which meant that you had qualities of courage, honor, courtesy, justice. One way that Gawain didn’t follow the code of chivalry was at the scene of the Green Chapel. At the Green Chapel, the Green Knight’s first swing of the ax didn’t injure Gawain because he dodged the ax. The correlation between the Lord’s hunt, the bedroom scene, and the swing of the ax was that all the scenarios were effortless. Both the Green Knight and the beautiful woman didn’t have to put in a lot of hard work to carry out what they wanted. In the bedroom the woman obtained a kiss from Gawain without doing much, she just asked for one and Gawain gave it to her. Likewise, in the hunt the Lord didn’t put much effort in to kill the deer or swing the ax in the Green chapel, and Gawain didn’t feel the pain. The events at first were effortless and painless, but as the story goes on they become more of a challenge for all the characters involved.
The Lord’s second hunt was extremely unlike the first. Instead of having a laid back time hunting deer, he was hunting a boar who was not happy. This boar brought “disaster to those that stood in his path, a magnificent beast...fierce and huge” (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 350). The Lord has a tough time trying to find the boar and get close enough to kill it with a spear. The boar was powerful and kept fighting with a vicious determination to live. The same determination to get what she wants is shown in Gawain's bedroom. The woman is becoming more fastidious, nevertheless Gawain stays strong. She does everything in her power to test and tempt his honor and get him to break the law of chivalry, and as a result she gets not one, but two kisses. Not only do we see that the story is intensifying but also that things are getting harder for Gawain to deal with. The Green Knight’s second swing doesn’t hurt Gawain either, but he dreaded it. This dread can be seen in the other stories as well.
On the third day when the Lord goes on his hunt, he is hunting a fox.

Hunting a fox is laborious and tiring because the fox is a very sly, cunning creature. The fox would trick the hounds that hunted him by crossing a river to get rid of his scent, or he would follow back the way he came and then jump and go a different direction so there was a dead-end. This trickery is basically what happens in Gawain’s bedroom. Using scheming and cunning, the woman manages to get three kisses, exactly what she wanted. Also, she pressed upon Gawain to take a magical girdle, which would make anyone who wears it invincible, thus having Gawain fail in his chivalry code. He also fails in his chivalry code when he takes the third stroke of the ax from the Green Knight. He fails because he was no longer courageous as a good knight should be and ran away after the Green Knight inflicted a little cut upon him. This was the most intense part of the story and it was the hardest for Gawain to

handle.
Therefore we see that in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” the challenges for Gawain and the lord get harder as the story progresses. Throughout the story each trial is related and shares a paralleled intensity, reward, and punishment. Each new day and each new hunt brings not only bring a more valuable and satisfying reward but also bring a more serious punishment. The first day the characters got: one kiss and some deer, two kisses and a boar. and finally three kisses and a fox. Likewise the punishment for Gawain was harder and more dangerous. Nevertheless, at the end of the story, Gawain learns his lesson and wears the magic girdle as a reminder to be not only a better knight and an overall better person.