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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a chivalric romance
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a chivalric romance
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a chivalric romance
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Sir Gawain, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight written by an unknown author in the late 14th century, is a chivalrous knight because he stays in line of the code of chivalry and stays true to not only his king, but all kings. In the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight challenges the temerity of Sir Gawain’s kingdom. The king of the kingdom stands up for his castle to challenge the Knight, consequently, Sir Gawain steps in his place to save the kingdom and serve the king. Sir Gawain exemplifies the code of chivalry with this duty, among other duties performed along the way. He shows the utmost loyalty to the kings, the prowess of a bull, and an immeasurable amount of courtesy all directly following the guidelines on how chivalry is defined. …show more content…
The most chivalrous characteristic a knight can hold and be distinct about, is loyalty.
Loyalty to their king is extremely important because it shows their willingness to serve the king; if a knight is not willing to serve a king, then they are not chivalrous. Sir Gawain is extremely loyal and his loyalty is even tested in the story. The king has his wife tempt and try to seduce Sir Gawain to see if he would go behind his back and cheat with his wife. The knight does not and this is concrete evidence proving to the king he is loyal to him. Without loyalty the king can not trust the knight to fight and protect the kingdom’s name so loyalty is extremely important. The actions that Sir Gawain show in this scene prove him to be
chivalrous. The second characteristic that Sir Gawain possesses is prowess. Prowess is the ability to fight and stand your ground; similar to courage if a knight lacks prowess then they cannot be chivalrous or successful in their life. Sir Gawain exemplifies his prowess two times: when he stands up for the king and when he pays up to the bet with the Green Knight. The first example is when the king stands up for his kingdom to protect it’s name against the Green Knight, consequently, Sir Gawain stands up for the king and the kingdom because that is his duty as a knight. This simple action defines Sir Gawain in the first couple passages of the poem to be extremely chivalrous; he is not scared of a challenge and contains the prowess to challenge the Green Knight. The second example of his prowess is when he goes to the Green Chapel to accept his punishment. He does not run away or try to hide from this punishment; Sir Gawain shows up to the Chapel with pride and readies himself for a beheading. This action shows how prowess he is because he does not back away he presents himself fearless to the Green Knight ready to accept the punishment. Running and hiding would have been and action for an unchivalrous knight. The final characteristic Sir Gawain possesses is courtesy. He acts toward the queen with nothing but the utmost respect and courtesy. The queen tries to seduce him and he knows that is not right so without blowing her off he tells her off easily to avoid all opportunities of dispute. Courtesy is important as a knight because in society a person is looked at more positively if they respect women; all of a knight’s actions reflect on the kingdom he serves for so the best image he can portray is the best interest for the kingdom.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain shows qualities of a chivalrous knight. He demonstrates that by showing generosity, courtesy, and loyalty during his travels. A mysterious knight shows up at the king’s castle and calls himself the Green Knight. The Green Knight then challenges one to play a game which he challenges the king to strike him with his axe if he will take a return hit in a year and a day. Sir Gawain steps forward to accept the challenge for his uncle King Arthur when nobody else in the castle would. He took the King’s role in the game to protect him from the Green Knight. He must learn to accept his responsibility as a knight, in accepting his fate.He demonstrates goodness at the hand of the Green Knight. He shows courage by accepting what is to come upon him during his voyage. His journey to find the Green Knight is filled with temptations.In the conversation with him and the “Lady”, Sir Gawain showed a Chivalrous code by keeping his loyalty to the king by not kissing his wife. The lady states “if I should exchange at my cho...
He is not brave, selfless, chivalrous, or noble; with an immoral thought he only performs great acts in front of an audience. Knights are supposed to be fearless warriors, Gawain contradicts that stereotype. Once Gawain ventures towards the green chapel, he is overcome by fear. However, fear of death is not of the essence. When his escort offers to help him avoid the fight, Gawain had already obtained the green sash; he fights knowing he will not die. Gawain fears his kingdom will recognize his lack of pure motive and moral courage if he abandons the game, concerned that if he “forsook this place for fear, and fled,” Camelot will find out he is “a caitiff coward” who “could not be excused” for his lack of inner-chivalry (2130-2131). He does not go to the fight to prove he is chivalrous; his impure motive is to hide his immoral nature from
Despite being a knight, Sir Gawain sinned. He was greedy. He accepted a woman’s girdle because it would literally save his neck in the covenant he had with the Green Giant. The woman’s girdle was magical and saved people from every thrust or strike they would endure. Sir Gawain learned his lesson through all the guilt he feels when he was caught. Moreover, when Sir Gawain says, “Dread of the death blow and cowardly doubts meant I gave into greed, and in doing so forgot the freedom and fidelity every knight knows to follow,” (“Sir Gawain” 235). Even though Sir Gawain was a noble knight he still sinned against the knightly code and also against the Ten Commandments.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a fourteenth-century tale written by an anonymous poet, chronicles how Sir Gawain of King Arthur’s Round Table finds his virtue compromised. A noble and truthful knight, Gawain accepts the Green Knight’s challenge at Arthur’s New Years feast. On his way to the Green Chapel, Gawain takes shelter from the cold winter at Lord Bercilak’s castle. The lord makes an agreement with Gawain to exchange what they have one at the end of the day. During the three days that the lord is out hunting, his wife attempts to seduce Gawain. At the end of the story, it is revealed that Morgan le Faye has orchestrated the entire situation to disgrace the Knights of the Round Table by revealing that one of their best, Sir Gawain, is not perfect.
Deception is one of mankind’s most versatile and powerful tools and is used nearly every day for both evil and good. Whether it be deceiving an army in battle or using exaggerations and myths to teach a child right from wrong, deceit allows one to advance his selfish or selfless intentions by providing them a source of influence on others. Such deception is evident throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—the host’s wife’s dishonesty in particular—as it helps to spur the plot of the poem. Lady Bertilak’s purposeful deception of Gawain has questionable motives that highlight the theme of human imperfection and susceptibility to temptation.
It is easy to read _Sir Gawain and the Green Knight_ as a romantic celebration of chivalry, but Ruth Hamilton believes that "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight contains a more wide-ranging, more serious criticism of chivalry than has heretofore been noticed" (113). Specifically, she feels that the poet is showing Gawain's reliance on chivalry's outside form and substance at the expense of the original values of the Christian religion from which it sprang. As she shows, "the first order of knights were monastic ones, who took vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity. The first duties th...
To establish the knight as worthy, the author first shows Gawain’s loyalty to his king. The Green Knight challenges anyone in the hall to the beheading game and no one takes him up on it. Arthur, angered by the Green Knight’s taunting, is about to accept the challenge himself when Gawain steps in saying "would you grant me this grace" (Sir Gawain, l. 343), and takes the ax from Arthur. This is a very convenient way for the author to introduce Gawain and also to show Gawain’s loyalty to Arthur, but it seems almost too convenient. There i...
Sir Gawain is presented as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. He is the perfect knight; he is so recognised by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood.
According to Shedd’s “Knight in Tarnished Armour: The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Sir Gawain’s conflict is with the duality of human nature, not the Green Knight. His idea that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight breaks the traditions of medieval romance is especially
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur gets ready to commit in the battle of the Green Knight until Sir Gawain stepped up and insisted that he be the one to fight. Sir Gawain said to King Arthur, “I beseech you, Sire, / Let this game be mine” (Gawain Poet 124-25). By Sir Gawain requesting to King Arthur that he must step before the Green Knight instead of the King, Gawain showed many acts of bravery and loyalty to his people, which gave him the characteristics of showing honor and being an Anglo-Saxon Hero. Sir Gawain stepped up to this incredible mission because he knew he was the weakest of the knights, and believed that no one would miss him, but instead when Gawain went up for battle the Green Knight refused to strike. The Green Knight has said, “It was I who sent her to test you. I’m convinced / You’re the finest man that ever walked this earth” (Gawain Poet 354-55). The Green Knight had his wife give Gawain the green sash in order to test him, the Green Knight knew Gawain had the courage to compete against him but he just wanted the knights to realize it. Sir Gawain shows honor in this literary work, because even when he wanted to doubt himself and give up he never did, he kept fighting and eventually made it to the Green Castle even though he knew he might not make it out alive. He insisted to follow
Another trait of Gawain that is tested in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is his loyalty. While in search of the Green Chapel where he must face the Green Knight, Sir Gawain is tested by the lady of the castle he is lodging at. The lady tries to seduce Gawain, but he does not fall into her trap by sleeping with her. Instead, Sir Gawain remains loyal to the lord of the castle whom he has promised to be honest with, and the lady describes him as the "noblest knight alive.
The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight revolves around the knights and their chivalry as well as their romance through courtly love. The era in which this story takes place is male-dominated, where the men are supposed to be brave and honorable. On the other hand, the knight is also to court a lady and to follow her commands. Sir Gawain comes to conflict when he finds himself needing to balance the two by being honorable to chivalry as well as respectful to courtly love.
Gawain's actions reflect the social mores of 14th century England, where a good knight was expected to adhere firmly to the code of chivalry. Gawain is the model knight, gallant and valorous, not to mention a devout Christian. Gawain's superb character traits are bolstered by his status as a member of King Arthur's court. The Gawain poet writes of Camelot: "With all delights on earth they housed there together, / ...
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight fit in with the concept of a romance; it has all the elements that would make one consider the text as so. The tale holds adventure, magic, a quest and an unexpected reality check that even those who are considered “perfect” are also just humans. The author used this story as a way of revealing faults in some of the aspects of knighthood through the use of intertwining chivalric duty with natural human acts; thus showing to be perfectly chivalrous would be inhuman.
Sir Gawain from Sir Gawain & the Green Knight was regarded as one of the best knights to grace the table and he was considered to be modest because he always denied everyone’s boastful words about him. Gawain is a prime example of humility, devotion, integrity, loyalty, and honesty, also known as the five points of chivalry. He prides himself on his observance of the five points of chivalry in every aspect of his life. His only flaw turns out to be that he loves his own life so much that he’ll abandon his hard earned reputation of honesty to save