Men are said to be the head of the household and are usually the breadwinners with their main role consisting of providing for their families. On the other hand, as stated in the comedy My Big Fat Greek Wedding, women act as the neck of the household, therefore they have the ability to turn the “head”, or their husbands, in any direction they choose. Women had no ways of expressing their feelings directly in society, but instead expressed them through manipulation of their husbands. The ladies in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight exercise control in many momentous situations that if had not gone their way could’ve completely changed the ending of the game. For example, Morgana Le fay, an evil but extremely clever sorceress, had power over most situations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Without her influence, the game wouldn’t have existed. Thus, although women had no direct power in medieval society, the ability of the ladies in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to influence and manipulate the men around them was the one method available to assert their desire and control the men’s action.
In medieval history, women were mainly viewed as property. However little did men know that women had their own beliefs and desires. In Twentieth Century Interpretations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Cecily Clark states, “Apart from the minor point concerning pronouns of address, her style bears no resemblance to her husbands” (Clark 36). Most women would agree with Clark in his saying that the only thing women have the same as their husband’s is their last name, which recently isn’t always the case.
Women were also led on to believe that housewifery and motherhood were the only two occupations available to them. In most girls’ lives, ...
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...ies who aspire to hold positions of power in the near future, just as women did.
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Sir Gawain and The Green Knight has prompted scholars to examine and diversely interpret the medieval narrative. One of the underlying questions that has been proposed embodies the analysis of the relationship between Christian and Pagan ideals and how knightly chivalry is influenced by religion during the Arthurian Romance period. It is no mistake that the two varied religious ideals are intertwined throughout the poem due to the nature of classical antiquity. Amidst the overlap between superstitious rituals and Orthodox- Christian beliefs it is clear that Sir Gawain has a sense of personal integrity guided by a moral compass.
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Howard, DR, et al Eds. Critical Studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Notre Dame:University of Notre Dame Press, 1968
Morgan, Gerald. "Medieval misogyny and Gawain's outburst against women in 'Sir Gawain and the green Knight'." The Modern Language Review 97.2 (2002): 265+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
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.
Thesis Statement: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows the struggle between a good Christian man against the temptations of this world.
“Culture does not make people. People make culture” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and educator, in a presentation on feminism in a TedTalk. The culture in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written was misogynistic and it shows in the writing of the poem. Medieval cultural misogyny manifests itself in multiple ways in SGGK. This paper will examine the negative relationships between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and gender by discussing: the representation of female characters, gendered violence, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.
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The Character of Sir Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell
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``Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.'' Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Pearl: Verse Translations. Tr. Marie Borroff. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2001. 15-74.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
Cox, Catherine S. "Genesis and Gender in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Chaucer Review 35.4 (2001): 378-90. Print.