...Testing the Actions of a Knight The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was translated by Burton Raffel during the Middle Ages. Actions show what your true character really is. The actions of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight addresses the code of conduct for knights during that time period. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Burton Raffel, addresses the code of conduct for knights in the Middle Ages through the actions of Sir Gawain in order to reveal his true character. The Green Knight walks in and challenges the men’s knightly-hood by submitting to a blow from the ax if he can return the blow a year and a day in the future. Every knight just starts looking around roaming the room with their eyes. His challenge sparks...
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...Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by John Gardner, is set in the Middle Ages. This was a time in history when people focused on the values and ideals of the Code of Chivalry, a code of honor intended to govern knightly behavior. As Arthur and his knights get together to feast and celebrate Christmas and the new year their festivities were interrupted by a man of green who wandered about searching for adventure so that he can disprove his chivalry. The two values that are most clearly stated in the poem are courage and honor. It will become clear by the actions of the characters that courage and honor is shown in several different areas of the poem. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, courage is defined as “mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty.” Courage can be shown in a variety of ways. In this particular instance the Green Knight challenged King Arthur or any of the knights of the roundtable to take his ax and hit his bare neck. He said to them, “And I will stand still for your stroke, steady on the floor, / provided you honor my right, when my inning comes, / to repay” (Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 213). Clearly, the Green Knight shows a tremendous amount of courage, knowing the danger that it is going to befall him if one of the knights takes up the ax to his neck. Sir Gawain is another instance where courage was lost and then found. After a year, Gawain met the Green Knight to seal his portion...
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...it is a way of life followed by knights (Grendler 154). Deriving from the French word "chevaliar," which means knight, chivalry was the social structure of Medieval Europe (154). During medieval England, values of honor, valor, courtesy, purity, and loyalty to his lord was expected (154). In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the code of chivalry and influence is demonstrated through the Green Knights test of Gawain's honor and valor and Bertilak's test of Gawain's courtesy and purity. In Medieval England, knights were the foundation of the chivalric system (155). They were soldiers with respected training. armor, and weapons (155). Knights were also known for their main focus on virtue, honor, and courtesy (155). According to the Song of Roland, there are seventeen entries in the Knights Code of Chivalry, one of which being to live by honor and for glory (156). When the Green Knight barged into the court wanting to play a game, everyone was shocked and scared (Gawain 235). The Green Knight's reason for coming was to test King Author's reputation: courtesy, valor, and honor (Gawain 257-265). However, it is Sir Gawain that stands up to take on the game, showing a great sign of courteousness to King Author (Gawain 345). The chivalric system...
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...In both John Milton’s Paradise Lost and the anonymous work Sir Gawain and the Green Knight temptation is used as a vital tool, contributing conflict to the plot. The means, purpose, and consequences of temptation lead the protagonists to different conclusions. The stories follow a parallel, diverging only when one protagonists fails and the other succeeds. With the idea that God gave mortals freedom and therefore they have the ability to choose in mind, it is arguable that the tale of Adam and Eve could have resulted in the same storybook conclusion as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The many parallels between the two stories indicate that with this God-given ability of choice, both stories could end in tragedy, such as Paradise Lost, or in...
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...Knights of the middle ages were held to a code of chivalry. Also, a knight held a prestigious position. A knight had to show bravery, loyalty, generosity, courtesy and devotion to the liege. Knights believed deeply in the code of chivalry. They had to show mercy to those they defeated. The knights in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” showed good and bad qualities when considering the codes of chivalry. The knight in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” showed loyalty to King Arthur. He showed his loyalty by taking the place of King Arthur’s challenge to the Green Knight: Gawain by Guenevere Toward the king doth now incline: “I beseech, before all here, That...
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...210-002 24 January 2013 Gawain’s Test of Chivalry The code of chivalry plays a big role in shaping the values and actions of Sir Gawain and the other characters in the poem. Throughout the poem, Gawain’s main focus is staying true to the chivalric code, even if it means he will die honoring it. Christian beliefs also have a significant impact on knightly conduct, and they are both brought together in Gawain’s symbolic shield. Gawain’s chivalry is constantly tested throughout the entire poem, and overall he does a pretty good job of staying loyal to the code. Although he does fail at one point in the poem, it only reveals his imperfect human nature. When reading “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, one should keep in mind the various moral aspects of chivalry in order to acquire a better understanding of the text. Loyalty, courage, honesty, honor, and courtesy are all some of the traits that a knight of chivalry embraces. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” tells the story of Gawain’s test of his chivalric attributes. The test administrator in the poem is the Green Knight. He wants to test the courage and integrity of Arthur and his court. When Gawain, the only knight who steps up to the Green Knight, accepts the challenge, he displays great courage and loyalty to his king. After Gawain strikes his blow unto the Green Knight, this is when the true test begins. To maintain his honor, Gawain will have to journey to the Green Chapel and fulfill his end of the agreement. In order...
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...The Role of Lady Bertilak in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The role of women was a key role in medieval times. In the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, two women represent this role. They are Lady Bertilak, who is Lord Bertilak’s wife, and Morgan La Faye. It all starts when Sir Gawain is welcomed to Lord Bertilak’s castle and then he meets these two women living there. At all times, Bertilak requests Gawain to feel at home and socialize with these women without problems. Bertilak trusts Gawain even though he would be away and Gawain would remain alone with women. However, his nameless wife uses many different ways to chase Sir Gawain and take advantage of her condition as the host’s wife. Lady Bertilak is a superior being that uses seduction and a supernatural power as a tool to hunt Sir Gawain in order to break his Christian, chivalric and loyal codes. Scholars, that I’ll mention it later, agree that women can emotionally manipulate men, but lacked political power in real life. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight poem is represented by two women mentioned above. “Morgan the Goddess therefore is now her name; none has such high haughtiness that she cannot make full tame” (¶ 98, P. 83). Even though Morgan la Faye, considered to be “The Goddess”, does not appear much in the poem, she represents a certain passive feminine power. Nonetheless, Lord Bertilak’s wife is shown as an active feminine power. She embodies a male character and specifically in the room scenes...
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...the green knight is a story about knighthood, it does not celebrate nights in the same ways other stories do. Gawain may be a knight other the round table who embodies knightly virtue, but eh ultimately fais to be an ideal knight because of the conflicting messages of the chivalry code and christrian doctrine. The question then becomes, why did the Gawain poet choose to portray gawain as a failed knight, instead of an idea one? To understand the situation better, it is best to outline the chilvalric code: A knight must always serve the king in valor, live for honor and glory, remain faithful to god, refrain from offending people, obey those above him, speak the truth. These are the major components that...
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...(Three Primary Elements of Chivalry) The first thing that often comes to a person’s head when they hear medieval times is knights. They think of all of the bright shiny armour with the big swords and all of those tags that go along with it. That is really all that they think of when they think of a knight though, they think battle and bright and shiny armour. What people generally don’t perceive is what it took the knight to become a knight. Along with that they don’t realize what really even makes the knight a knight other than the fact that he has to go to battle and fight. In the stories Sir Gawain and the Green Knight translated by Marie Borroff and Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, they go a little deeper into what it actually means to be a knight. They begin to point out the things that actually classify one as a knight. There are three primary elements that classify a knight: courage, loyalty, and honor....
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...The Truth Behind the Knight: The Presence of Archetypes in Sir Gawain & the Green Knight In the medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we are introduced to a young man, who, like many of young men, is trying to discover himself and travel through his rite of passage. He is trying to figure out who he is in life, and while in his journey, passes through many phases that mold him into one of the great Knights of the Round Table that old King Arthur wanted to serve with him. These phases affect everyone at some point in their lives. Whether it causes someone to take an iconoclastic stand against a certain more or folkway or if it enables a person to give serious thought to what life could mean, archetypes enable any protagonist in any story to take a journey to find the treasure of their true self. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain was willing to take on the heroic quest and say yes to himself and, in doing so, became more fully alive and more effective to the knightly community and, inadvertently, the literary world. The purpose of the heroic quest is to find the gift retrieved from the journey and give the gift to help transform the kingdom, and in the process, the hero himself. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, three archetypes are present that displays the qualities of a heroic quest that leads Gawain to become a true knight in shining armor. The Innocent Hero Archetype, the Seeker Archetype, and the Lover Archetype forms the mold that Sir Gawain conforms...
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... King arthur satire essay Chivalry was the great code of conduct respected by the knights and heroes during the romantic medieval era. Marked by honor, courtesy, and generosity, chivalry included skill, valor, loyalty to both God and the king, having sympathy towards the sick, oppressed. Within the same general area of chivalry was courtly love. The men fought to attain their ladys affections and love by waging war in their name, or by romancing them. Knights were to devote themselves entirely to one woman.This love was was between a knight and a married woman. However, in each of these pieces are also characters who stray from this ideal code of conduct, Seen in Monty python and the holy grail. Sir Gawain in the Green Knight is a story about chivalrous values and trickery. This story involves the Green knight’s arrival at King Arthur’s feast one evening. The green knight challenges the king to his game and just as King Arthur accepts Sir Gawain insists on accepting the challenge instead. The Green knight is beheaded, but picks his head up and tells Sir Gawain that he must meet him in one year so that he can return the challenge. Sir Gawain sets off on his journey one year later and arrives at a castle. He is graciously let inside where he stays a few days. The lord / the green knight creates a game of his own involving the Lord hunting and Sir Gawain remaining at the castle with the game to test his chivalry and his faith. In m...
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...Beowulf, a medieval epic, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a poem emerging from the mid to late 14th century, exhibit protagonists that mirror the idealistic persona of their respective ages. Beowulf, in his namesake epic, steps up to face every challenge he is presented and performs a flawless display bravery and strength. Sir Gawain is a flawed, more human character, yet continues to strive for glory and the greater good. As a reflection of the ideal hero of their periods, Beowulf and Sir Gawain differ in their values, noble qualities, and the motivations behind their achievements. Beowulf establishes a clear-cut vision of the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideals- devotion to bloodlines, demonstrating one’s valor in battle, and accepting the spoils of war with...
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...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 pentangle, also called the “endless knot,” (630) is a five-pointed star enclosed in a circle, worn as an amulet to “avert evil from or bring fortune to the wearer” (Talisman, OED). Writer Eliphas Levi says that when the pentangle is pointing up it represents spiritual dominance over the material. Presented the other way, the physical world rules over the spiritual -often associated with dark magic (Pentagram, Wikipedia). This parallel foreshadows the trickery played on Sir Gawain by the Green Knight. The Green Knight challenges Gawain to a “Christmas game” (283) in an attempt to humble Gawain, tempting him with worldly pleasures and proving that even the greatest of knights are not perfect. Upon finding the Green Chapel, Gawain suggests that “Here might / The devil himself be seen / …at black midnight” (2186-8). Comparing the Green Knight to the devil proves...
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...Green Chivalry During the Renaissance period, many prestigious virtues were important parts of culture and life. Lords and knights were expected to display numerous traits such as courtly love, chivalry, and piety. The knights were expected to follow a certain code at all times. Throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain displays many chivalrous acts; however, he has to overcome his fears to remain a chivalrous knight. One example of chivalry in the poem is when Gawain makes an engagement with the Green Knight that he will chop off the Green Knight’s head. Gawain agreed to return in a year to allow the Green Knight to return his blow. Gawain’s chivalry is clear when he returns to receive his end of the contract with the Green Knight. This is clear as Tolkien translates, “‘On my word, sir, I welcome thee with a will to my place, / and thou hast timed thy travels as trusty man should, / and...
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...defeat, heros would not exist. In two texts, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf, a hero battles his respective villain to uphold his values, and as such, save his world. Challenged by a green knight, Sir Gawain must receive blows to the neck by the creature after staying in the house of a Sir Bertilak. All the while, he must try to conciliate two differing moral codes. Beowulf, on the other hand, must defeat various monsters to protect his people and his allies. Although both must prove their worth, Sir Gawain must resist temptation to sin, while Beowulf must protect his people and their allies. A giant, green warrior rides into a hall full of King Arthur’s men. Sir Gawain stands up, in place of King Arthur, and delivers a decapitating blow to the Green Knight after Sir Gawain promises to find him to receive a blow in return. As Sir Gawain searches for the Green Knight, he finds shelter in the castle of a local lord, Lord Bertilak, and his wife, Lady Bertilak. In the Church, desires of the flesh are considered evil, and should be avoided. In the chivalric code, one must always obey authority. These two values come in contradiction when Sir Gawain is asked by Lady Bertilak to give a kiss to her. “‘One gracious as Gawain is rightly held to be, with courtesy contained so clear in himself, could not lightly have lingered so long with a lady, but he craved a kiss out of...
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