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Compare and contrast beowulf and gawain
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Compare and contrast beowulf and gawain
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Gawain and Beowulf: Heroic Traits
Gawain and Beowulf are heroes from different time periods, and it explains their varied traits. Gawain is intently focused on a chivalric code, and Beowulf is just worried about getting recognition as a good hero and keeping it. These traits are ideal within the separate texts, and there is little crossover between them. Gawain’s ideal traits are represented by his pentangle, and Beowulf’s ideal traits are represented by his actions. The poets both show these traits (or lack thereof) through the heroes’ actions, so it’s apparent whether the heroes are living up to these ideals or not. The poets are questioning the heroic codes using the poems as their medium.
Gawain’s shield with the pentangle encompasses all the traits that Gawain idealizes: “Watz fraunchyse and felaghschyp forbe al thyng, His clannes and his cortaysye croked were never, And pité, that passez alle poyntez: thyse pure five” (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 652-654). The terms used for the purpose of this essay will be generosity, fellowship, chastity, courtesy, and compassion. Gawain embodies generosity when he partly honors Lord Bertilak’s exchanging of their gains for the day game, whole bunch of smooching but no girdle. Gawain shows chastity by not sleeping with Lady Bertilak during
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her hunt of Gawain. Gawain shows courtesy when he enters Lord Bertilak’s property because he treats the Lord and his people with the utmost courtesy required of a knight, e.g., “ ‘Graunt mercy,’ quoth Gawayn, ‘Ther Kryst hit yow foryelde’ ”(“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 838-839). Beowulf’s code consists of strength, courage, honor, loyalty, generosity, and hospitality. Beowulf embodies strength and courage when he fights Grendel while nude. He shows honor when he defends it against Unferth’s accusations. He shows loyalty supporting the heir to the throne, instead of seizing it for himself, which is also fulfilling an oath he gave to Hrothgar’s wife. He embodies generosity while he is king for 50 years by rewarding his people well. Hospitality is shown to Beowulf by Hrothgar, but there really isn’t a scene where Beowulf is the host. A similarity between Beowulf and Gawain is their need to prove themselves through speech.
Gawain displays this ideal trait by getting his king out of the zero sum game with Lord Bertilak, and Beowulf displays the trait by riposting Unferth’s accusations with his deflective boast. They are similar actions, but they are embodiments of different idealized traits. Beowulf is staying true to his idealized traits of honor and pride; Unferth is threatening Beowulf’s reputation as a hero by calling him out publicly like that. However, Gawain’s speech isn’t for self-benefit. He is focused on being the dutiful servant to his lord and allowing him to save face, i.e., adhering to
fellowship. A contrast between the traits of Gawain and Beowulf would be Beowulf is compassionate, while Gawain is not, until he learns a lesson from Lord Bertilak. Gawain went for the Green Knight’s head instead of showing the idealized trait of mercy/compassion. Beowulf is compassionate in his poem by sharing wealth with his people, which is seen when he is king and secures one last gift before he dies. Yes, the pagan hero has more compassion than Sir Gawain of King Arthur’s court. Gawain’s code is all flash and little substance; it’s contrived and shallow like his pentangle. Beowulf lives up to his code’s ideals, and Gawain fails to uphold his code. Chivalry is an unattainable goal for humans because we’re flawed, and the poet of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” makes this clear when he has Lord Bertilak make a fool of Gawain. This is a stark contrast to the earthly values of Beowulf, which are criticized by the overtly Christian tone at the end of the “Beowulf”: “let the earth hold the treasures of the earls, gold in the ground, where it yet remains, just as useless as it was before” (“Beowulf “3166-3168).
In the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Poet Pearl, Sir Gawain, knight of the Round Table, acts chivalrously, yet his intents are insincere and selfish. It is the advent season in Middle Age Camelot, ruled by King Arthur when Poet Pearl begins the story. In this era citizens valued morals and expected them to be demonstrated, especially by the highly respected Knights of the Round Table. As one of Arthur’s knights, Sir Gawain commits to behaving perfectly chivalrous; however, Gawain falls short of this promise. Yes, he acts properly, but he is not genuine. The way one behaves is not enough to categorize him as moral; one must also be sincere in thought. Gawain desires to be valued as
The three heroes discussed here, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and King Arthur, are heroes for different reasons. Beowulf, our earliest hero, is brave but his motivation is different than then other two. To Sir Gawain personal honor and valor is what is important. King Arthur, Sir Gawain's uncle, is naturally the quintessential king of the medieval period. Though all men to a certain extent share the same qualities, some are more pronounced than in the others. It is important to see how these qualities are central to their respective stories and how it helps (or hinders) them in their journeys.
When Gawain spurns the lady 's advances, she questions the validity of his reputation: "So good a night as Gawain is rightly reputed / In whom courtesy is so completely embodied / Could not easily have spent so much time with a lady / Without begging a kiss, to comply with politeness / By some hint or suggestion at the end of a remark. " Here we see the first example of Gawain 's values being thrown into opposition: he cannot hope to hold his honor, fellowship, and chastity without calling his chivalry and courtesy into question. Gawain faces a fork in the road in the first bedroom scene, yet it quickly becomes clear that neither road ends with perfection. The perfect, archetypal knight, one who seamlessly, simultaneously embodies all of the qualities so harmoniously unified on Gawain 's shield, cannot exist, as the five points of Gawain 's pentangle cannot fully be kept
In the poem Beowulf, the protagonist is portrayed as a heroic figure who strives to spread his name and glory out across the land in order to be remembered. Although his acts may not entirely be for the right reasons, Beowulf does express his heroic qualities of bravery, arrogance, and brute force.
In conclusion many poems have different types of people or thing that can harm their society. This goes for heroes and villains. With Grendel in Beowulf he just wanted to want by the human society. They exiled him by the way he looks. With Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight he wanted to show his society braver, representation, chivalry, and nobility. Both Grendel and Sir Gawain societies mean a lot to them and represents them in a major way.
Heroes come in many forms. The construction of "the heroic" has taken many forms, yet traits such as: courage, honor, and loyalty, reappear as themes throughout the "hero" personality. The characters of Beowulf and Sir Gawain each represent a version of a hero, yet each comes across quite differently in their story. A hero can be said to truly win if he remains constant to his noble values when put in any situation that crosses his way. When measured by that criterion, Sir Gawain stands out above Beowulf as a true hero, due to his command of both personal and spiritual power through the use of thought, as well as valiant deeds.
Both of these poems tell about two different stories and many different people in those stories, but that does not make the characters any different. Beowulf and Sir Gawain proved their courage by either clashing with a monster or choosing a deadly game. They both also showed their desire to help and save the people they care about by battling the supernatural. Despite the different journeys that Beowulf and Sir Gawain went on and the people they meet both characters share courage, the desire to save the people they love, and conquering the supernatural which are the qualities that make them an epic hero.
Gawain’s acceptance of Lady Bertilak’s girdle causes him to progressively lose himself internally in order to save his physical life. Gawain appears to be the perfect image of a knight, who exhibits himself as worthy and noble when he accepts the Green Knight’s challenge. Known to be “honored all over the world,” his remarkable valor and devout behavior define his character. He loses his honorable reputation, though, when he disrespects the honor of King Bertilak. Disgracing his knightly code, Gawain fails to exchange all of his gifts with the king and lies, without hesitation, to the king when he claims that “what [he] owed [King Bertilak] [he has] paid [King Bertilak]” (1941). Gawain directly lies to him without hesitation, proving that his conscience does not seem to be effecting his actions. Lying is a common action, but generally, it causes us to feel remorseful and guilty over our wrongs. Gawain breaks the code of chivalry that requires a knight to be loyal and honest, but he is not regretful due to his apparent selfish nature (“Code of Chivalry, 2 and 15”). He makes a deal with the king to “[trade] profit for profit,” yet he dishonestly “[hides] [Lady Bertilak’s] love gift” rather than honoring the king’s wishes (1677, 1874). Gawain makes a promise that he fails to fulfill. The girdle drives him to destruction because it pulls him away from what he knows to be good and
Although Gawain's actions are not chivalrous and makes the court appear foolish, he learns a lesson from his actions. He realizes the disgrace in his actions, calling his own heart "cowardly and covetous" (2374). By taking responsibility for his actions, Gawain allows the reader to forgive him. This forgiveness is allowed because the conflicts within Gawain force him into situations that will result in unavoidable disaster. By showing the reader that even the best of knights is not perfect, the poet reveals that the balance between knightly morals, courtliness, and thoughts of selfishness is able to be breached.
Although Gawain and Beowulf share many similarities, their characters are almost complete opposites. Both aim for some sort of fame, one more than the other; differing in the way they attempt to achieve this success. Gawain remains true and looks to humility to guide him, whereas Beowulf is very prideful and selfish, loving nothing more than boasting about his virtues. Regardless, both go through tremendous changes throughout their quests, dealing with repercussions, and many challenging obstacles along the way.
Beowulf is an epic poem that describes the heroics of a man with superhuman strength and bravery to go with it. The poem starts with a journey across the sea to defeat an enemy that has plagued the land of Herot for twelve years. The poem ends with Beowulf’s final deed of defeating a dragon that was plaguing his own land, but with the defeat of the dragon also comes the death of Beowulf. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem of bravery by one of King Arthur’s knights. Sir Gawain takes up the deed of playing a Christmas game with the challenging Green Knight. The Green Knight takes a blow from an ax at the hand of Sir Gawain, and in one year and one day, the Green Knight is to reciprocate the action to Sir Gawain. While Sir Gawain was heroic in his deed, Beowulf shows a certain selflessness in his bouts makes him a better hero than Sir Gawain.
In the anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the character of Sir Gawain is portrayed as the imperfect hero. His flaws create interest and intrigue. Such qualities of imperfection cannot be found in the symbol of the pentangle, which he displays on his shield. This contrast between character and symbol is exposed a number of times throughout the poem allowing human qualities to emerge from Gawain’s knightly portrayal. The expectations the pentangle presents proves too much for Gawain as he falls victim to black magic, strays from God, is seduced by an adulterous woman, and ultimately breaks the chivalric code by lying to the Green Knight.
The first symbol in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that I will discuss is Sir Gawain’s knightly shield. On Gawain’s shield is a pentangle, the five points on this pentangle represent the five virtues of the perfect knight; piety, friendship, generosity, chastity and courtesy. Each of the five virtues is tested on Gawain throughout the poem creating an emphasised importance on the shield’s representation and meaning. “Now alle þese fyue syþez, for soþe, were fetled on þis knyȝt, And vchone halched in oþer, þat non ende hade, And fyched vpon fyue poyntez, þat fayld neuer” (SGGK, 656-8). This quote tells of the pentangle’s design, how each line of the pentangles composition is endlessly linked to one another, suggesting that each virtue depends on th...
Beowulf and Gawain are shown as great leaders. Sir Gawain is liked by most people he has met. Beowulf has many loyal followers by his side. Beowulf and Sir Gawain are both brave and loyal. They attempt to honor their kings and kingdoms. Those are all qualities of a hero.
Both characters abided by a code of honor that they were willing to protect with their lives. Today, that trait is at the very least, rare, if not altogether absent from our increasingly materialistic and self-centered society. Both Gawain and Beowulf saw themselves as means by which the end of achieving glory for their society could be achieved. They didn't leech on to society and drain precious resources, as do many of today's corrupt leaders. On the contrary, they gave back to their people and lived up to the ancient notion of the "good citizen" as first advanced by Plato.