“The Fifty - First Dragon”
Settings: The first setting is in a knight school where Gawaine is taught how to be a knight. It also takes place in the forest where he beheads all the dragons and is almost fooled into being eaten.
Plot: This story is about a student becoming a knight with no spirit at all named Gawaine le Coeur-Hardy. He was considered the least promising of all the pupils. The headmaster of the school thought he make better of Gawaine. He discussed about Gawaine with the Professor of Pleasaunce about how to make him more enthusiastic about training as a knight. Then they thought about training him as a dragon slayer. They knew that slaying dragons was dangerous but they knew they could find someway to trick him. The headmaster said that after Gawaine’ s training he would give him a magic word. He trained for a few months using papier-mâché and wooden dragons using a battle-ax as a weapon. Gawaine felt that it was going to be a lot harder to behead a dragon later on. When a dragon ate the lettuce patch, they skipped his test and gave him his diploma, his battle-ax, and his magic. The magic word was Rumplesnitz. The headmaster said that if he says this word before slaying a dragon, he would be perfectly safe. When he goes to slaughter his first dragon, the dragon rushes towards him quickly, but he has enough time to say the magic word and he beheads the dragon. He goes out slaughtering many dr...
8[8] Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Marie Borroff. Norton Anthology of British Literature Vol. 1, New York: WW Norton, 1993.
To begin with, the Green Knight, similar to God, bestows a trial to Sir Gawain in order to test his faith and loyalty to his promise. The beheading agreement made between these characters is organized to assess the truth to Sir Gawain’s knightly
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.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes its protagonist, the noble Gawain, through
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.
In the final scenes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s encounter with Sir Bertilak allows Gawain to perceive his own flaws, manifested in his acceptance of the Green Girdle. The court’s reaction to his personal guilt highlights the disconnect between him and the other knights of the Round Table. Gawain’s behavior throughout the poem has been most noteworthy; his understanding of his sin, one that many of us would dismiss since it was propelled by his love of life, enhances his stature as a paragon of chivalry.
The lord planned to go hunting and invited Sir Gawain to eschange what he recieved in the castle for what the Lord recieved in the woods. For the first two days, the Lord gave Sir gawain venision, bear and a goose. And for every day, Sir Gawain recieved kisses from the Lady, so in return he must kiss the Lord. But on the third day, Sir Gawainj recieved three kisses and a green silk gridle. This gridle was magical according to the Lady. She said ""My knight, you must face many foes. This is a magic girdle; it has the power to protect whoever wears it against any weapon." Sir Gawains desire to live was overpowering so he accepted the gift. He failed to give the Lord this gift, but instead he gave him three kisses. Days passed and eventually Sir Gawain had to face the Green Knight. As scared as Sir Gawain was, he was determined to commit to his word so he allowed the Green Knight to swing his axe with the intent to decapitate him. Oddly enough, the Knight swung his axe three times and only cut Sir Gawains neck slightly.
Sir Gawain is, undoubtably, the most varied of the Arthurian characters: from his first minor appearance as Gwalchmei in the Welsh tales to his usually side-line participation in the modern retelling of the tales, no other character has gone from such exalted heights (being regarded as a paragon of virtue) to such dismal depths (being reduced to a borderline rapist, murderer, and uncouth bore), as he. This degree of metamorphosis in character, however, has allowed for a staggering number of different approaches and studies in Gawain.
On his quest God protects him. Praying faithfully as weather begins to worsen in the winter months, he is revealed a castle in the woods. Once at the castle he faces his next trial, a trial of staying true to a future mate. The three hunts that take place parallel the three times Gawain is tempted by the lady of the castle. On the first hunt Bertilak and his servants slay a deer.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 162-213.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. Brian Stone. The Middle Ages, Volume 1A. Eds. Christopher Baswell and Anne Howland Schotter. The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Fourth ed. Gen.eds David Damrosch, and Kevin J. H. Dettmar. New York: Pearson-Longman, 2010. 222-77. Print.
Weiss, Victoria L. "Gawain's First Failure: The Beheading Scene in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"" Penn State University Press 10.4 (1976): 361-66. JSTOR. Web. 11 Sept. 2013
The Character of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell
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.
...howing cowardice and not giving it to the Host, Sir Gawain is only nicked in the neck. This shows that there was no danger, as no adultery was committed, but Sir Gawain still committed a lie. Each blow represents the way Sir Gawain responds to the Lady in the seductions. In each scene the animals that are hunted represented the Lady and her style of seduction to Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain returns to the round table and is able to show his fellow knights about Cowardice and that even the strongest man can have flaws. Sir Gawain's fellow knights don a Green Sash in remembrance of Sir Gawain and his act of heroics.