Neither Gawain nor the poet offers any comment on the acceptance of the gift at this point; its consequences become apparent only later. However, the poet puts a marvelous ambiguity into the lady's description of the belt. But if Gawain understood the costs that are bound up in the belt, he would realize that it will come at a high price for him, at least in a spiritual sense. The nature of Gawain's failure in accepting the belt is open to interpretation, but several factors are involved.
Gawain is offending against courtesy by taking a love-token from his host's wife. Furthermore, by swearing to keep it secret, he is breaking his agreement with his host to exchange their winnings each day. The poet calls the belt a "luf-lace" or love-lace, line 1, In one sense, the gift is an offer of the lady's love, but it is also a representation of Gawain's self-love.
Gawain is displaying a lack of courage in relying on a supposedly magical talisman to save him from death, as well as a lack of faith in not relying on God to protect him. He is also breaking faith, in a way, with the Green Knight.
The bargain was that he take the blow he gave, but Gawain is looking for a way to stack the deck in his favor. The lace that must be knotted around him for protection calls to mind the endless knot of the pentangle, but the knot of the belt clearly has ends — the poet even comments that the ends of the belt have gold pendants.
Where the pentangle symbolized perfect virtue, the knotted love-lace represents the failure of that virtue: When one part is undone, the knot of perfection unravels. After hiding the belt, Gawain goes to the chapel as he did on the previous two days, but this time, he goes to make his confession.
On one level, Gawain is simply acting as a pious Christian knight: He wants to receive absolution for his sins before facing death. Many critics have questioned, however, whether Gawain's confession is actually valid. To be considered genuine by the church, an act of confession has to involve three factors: confession acknowledgement of one's sin , contrition sincere regret over the sin , and satisfaction an attempt to make amends for the sin, particularly if others were injured by it.
The poet does not say what sins Gawain confesses, but he evidently does not regret taking the belt nor does he intend to give it up. Perhaps Gawain simply does not consider taking the belt a sin.
If piety is one of the five virtues the poet ascribes to him, Gawain has complied with the outward form of piety here, but he has none of the spirit that should go with it, because he has failed even to recognize that he has committed a wrong. The confession also points to a peculiar lapse: If Gawain still expects to die the next day, perhaps he is not entirely convinced of the belt's power.
Nonetheless, the poet's description does not indicate anything odd or invalid about Gawain's confession, because the poet states he confessed completely and was absolved by the priest. The prey for the day's hunt is a fox, an animal considered to be vermin and traditionally hunted strictly for the chase, not for any value of its meat or fur.
Then as now, foxes symbolized cunning and cleverness, but they also represented deceit and dishonesty. The poet has the dogs crying, "Thief! The symbolism of the fox can be applied to both the lady and Gawain.
The lady shows her cleverness in finally producing a temptation to which Gawain will succumb, and Gawain shows his treachery in accepting the belt. In a sense, he, too, is a thief, in taking what he should not. The trio of animals hunted deer, boar, and fox can be seen as representative of qualities a perfect Christian knight must overcome: fear, aggression, and deceit. The three animals also recall the medieval notion of the three souls or appetites of man a formula ultimately derived from Plato.
To make literature truly great is to have a character whose personality is believable. When the character is believable, the reader is more likely to relate to the character and be drawn into the work.
There are three basic ways a character's personality can be revealed to a reader: what the character thinks about him or herself, how others think and feel about the character, and the character's actions help define his or her personality. When these three methods are in sync, then the character becomes a real person. However it is very easy for a writer to make the character become too perfect and the illusion of reality is lost.
The way an author can work around this is to allow certain aspects to become out of sync, such as a flaw in personality which can only be brought to light when the character is pushed to his limits.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a great medieval poem written by an unknown author who is believed to be a contemporary of Chaucer. The poem takes place in Arthurian England. Sir Gawain begins his rise to greatness when he takes a challenge given by an ominous figure known as the Green Knight.
Throughout the poem, Gawain is tested and is found to be truthful until he is tested in the gift-giving game in which his flaw is revealed to the reader. The events in the poem make the character of Sir Gawain very believable and is part of the reason why Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of the greatest literary works of Middle English.
I n the first segment of the poem, we are introduced to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He is very large and completely green. He challenges the court to a beheading game in which one of the knights must cut off the Green Knight's head and then in 12 months and a day find the Green Knight and allow the Green Knight to chop his head off. When none of the knights of the Round Table take up his challenge, he taunts them and says, "What, is this Arthur's house This angers Arthur and he gets up to take the challenge.
This is the point where we see the first glimpse of Sir Gawain's character. Sir Gawain asks Arthur to allow him to take the challenge. We see how Sir Gawain feels about himself when he gives his reasons for being allowed to take the challenge.
Sir Gawain tells Arthur that he is ".. Sir Gawain does not think highly of himself and feels that the only reason he is a knight of Arthur's court is because he is Arthur's nephew. His takeing of the challenge is seen as a deed of selflessness and not one of pride. This combined with the fact that none of the other knights are willing to take the challenge causes Gawain to be seen as the greatest of all knights.
After Gawain beheads the Green Knight, he must complete the challenge by seeking out the Green Knight in one year's time and allowing the Green Knight to chop off his head. When it comes time for Gawain to leave for his journey, all of the knights in king Arthur's court come to see him leave. This is when Gawain's bravery is revealed when he says "'Why should I tarry? Gawain shows how he is unafraid of facing his destiny.
Gawain is dressed in the finest armor. The author points out the shield he is given which has the five-pointed star of Solomon on the face and a picture of St. Mary on the back. The five-pointed star of Solomon symbolizes truth, and the author writes that Gawain is worthy of it He leaves Arthur's court around the beginning of November. This means that Sir Gawain has to bear the worst of weather, traveling around and looking for the Green Chapel where he must meet the Green Knight.
He travels on horseback in his armor and never turns back. This, in itself, show his perserverance and dedication. I n the next segment of the poem, Gawain finds a castle in the middle of a mist. The lord of the castle is clearly an excellent hunter, and he loves his sport. The poet displays an intimate knowledge of the details of a noble hunt: the packs of hounds, the "beaters" who circle the prey to direct it toward the hunting party, the rules and regulations of hunting, and the best ways to butcher a deer.
The poet even notes two different breeds of deer involved in the hunt and also includes the fact that only the barren females of one breed could lawfully be hunted at that time of year. But amid the energy and gusto of the hunt, the poet still finds space for touches of pathos, like the terrified cries of the deer as they die on the hillsides. In sharp contrast to the action and energy of the hunt, Gawain is being decidedly unheroic by lying in bed all morning; he is already awake when the lady of the castle slips into his room.
There is something comical about the way he fakes being asleep in the hope that she will leave him alone and then crosses himself — a defense against evil — when he "wakes up" and sees her. Another comedic touch, but one that is not directly stated, is that Gawain cannot get away from the lady because he is naked as most medieval people were in bed , and if he gets out of bed he will be indecently exposed.
The assertive lady is in complete control of the situation, leaving Gawain constantly on the defensive. This is a reversal of the usual courtly love scenario, where the man initiates the relationship.
The lady comments that she will bind him in bed, and Gawain calls himself her prisoner, comically surrendering to his captor. Their light and witty battle of words is full of double entendres and veiled references. The poet supplies an interesting bit of wordplay at line 1,, where the lady tells Gawain that he is welcome to her "cors. However, cors can also refer to a band of silk fabric, and this foreshadows the lace that finally tempts Gawain.
He invokes the Virgin Mary at one point, as if using the purest of women as a defense against the lady's advances, but she does not take the hint. She blatantly says that Gawain would have been her first choice for a husband.
Gawain delicately turns away the remark by complimenting his host, saying that she made the better choice already; in doing so, he also gently reminds her that she is married. The poet provides a curious view into the lady's thoughts at lines 1,—1, Unfortunately, the syntax of the passage is obscure, and scholars have debated how much of the thought is the lady's and how much is an observation made by the poet about the situation.
One way of reading the passage: The lady thinks to herself that even if she were the most beautiful of women, Gawain could not love her, preoccupied as he is by his impending death-stroke at the Green Chapel. Some readers have objected to this reading on the grounds that the lady could not know anything of Gawain's situation, because he has not mentioned the promised ax blow while at the castle.
However, the host makes clear later that his wife was his ally in the deception of Gawain, so it is quite possible the host has explained the entire situation to her, and the poet's mention of it at this point is meant to alert the audience to the deception. Whatever her thoughts, the lady finally relents, but not without demanding a kiss from Gawain, if only for the sake of courtesy.
The lady's major line of attack against Gawain is his reputation as the most courteous of knights — meaning, in the lady's view, the most adept at courtly love. If Gawain really is the courteous knight everyone thinks he is, surely he cannot refuse a lovely lady's advances.
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