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Gawain and the Green Knight
Ryan Renfro
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a wonderful heroic poem
with a theme that is not uncommon to the heroic literature of its
genre. Gawain is the ordinary embodiment of piety, valor,
purity and chivalry who descends into darkness where he risks his
life to perform some sworn task and then immerges stronger with
something gained in wit or wisdom. However, Gawain’s
tale does not stand out as the fascinating one that it does for
any of these shared traits. Instead, it is the different
judgements of Gawain’s performance in his trails presented
within the poem which make his story stand out amongst other
heroic literature.
The extent to which Gawain is able to fulfill his covenant made
with the Green Knight in the poem is determined by three judges:
The Green Knight, Arthur’s court, and Gawain himself. Of
these judgements the Green Knight’s is the most mature
according to Anderson (347) and thus can be seen as the most
fully-developed, which should come of little surprise considering
that the Green Knight is the means by which Morgan la Faye is
testing Sir Gawain. Many scholars have come to this
conclusion, either supporting the Green Knight’s judgement
such as Engelhardt seems to (66-67) or stating that of the three
judgements in the poem Bercilak’s displays the greatest
understanding to which Anderson alludes, even though he thinks
that a implied judgement is the one which should be accepted
(348-353). However, despite the fact that some would turn
to a fourth view of Gawain’s accomplishments, the judgement
presented by the Green Knight shows the wisest and most
fully-developed judgement of Gawain not merely because it is
issued by the person in control of the challenge, but mainly
because it is the only judgement by which Gawain is both humbled
and yet forgiven.
The authority of the Green Knight’s judgement springs from
his position of power in the poem. From the moment in which
he presents his powerful physic before Arthur’s court
through his appearance as judge and possible executioner at the
end of the poem the Green Knight takes complete control of the
happenings within the lyric (Anderson, 344). De Roo demonstrates
that his power comes in part from the fact that he remains
unidentified or unnamed until the end of the poem, in contrast
with Gawain whose name is known (234-236). The Green
Knight’s power also lies his magical abilities and his
mystical presence. At first Arthur considers
his proposed game to be foolish, telling him, “Hathel, by
heven thyn askying is nys” (323), however once the Green
Knight is able to pick up his head the challenge becomes a
serious one and he proves himself to be more than an intimidating
presence.
The Green Knight’s power is made apparent through the way in
which he seizes control. As De Roo points out he uses the
informal with Arthur in the first scene, thus exerting his power
through belittlement (235). It is he who defines the rules
for the game at Camelot and then once again in the second
agreement at his castle to share what they each receive. When
Gawain finally reaches the Green Chapel, it is the Green Knight
who takes upon himself the task of passing judgement over
Gawain’s performance.
Gawain’s penalty of one blow as agreed upon at Arthur’s
court is carried out first and then the Green Knight explains his
judgement. He explains that the first two feints were for
the first two days at his castle, in which Gawain kept his word
and exchanged that which he acquired on each of those days.
The blow Gawain received on the third swing is the result of his
failure to exchange the girdle on the third day: “At the
third, thou fayled thore,/ And therfor that tappe ta thee”
(2356-2357). The Green Knight’s ability to carry
through with his judgement and bring about physical harm to
Gawain lends credit to his judgement.
Of the three judgements of Gawain the Green Knight’s should
represent the ideal of the society which produced the lyric
because of its emphasis on forgiveness. One of the
principle requirements in the Christian faith is that one forgive
one’s neighbors of their trespasses and that redemption for
sins is possible. Gawain confesses to Bercilak, “I
biknowe yow, knyght, here stylle, /Al fawty is my fare”
(2385-2386), and then asks for his forgiveness, “Letes me
overtake your wylle, /And efte I schal be ware” (2387-2388).
The Green Knight hears his confession and replies that he
considers it healed and that Gawain has been absolved from his
sin and is as if he had never sinned since birth. It is very
important for a Christian knight to forgive others their wrongs,
thus the Green Knight’s forgiveness displays a more mature
judgement in that he is able to forgive Gawain, something which
Gawain himself is not able to do.
The Green Knight’s compassionate forgiveness of Sir Gawain
shows what at first appears to be a new side to his character,
but when one looks more closely this pious, peaceful man was
always a side of his personality. When the Green Knight
first appears before Arthur’s court he is carrying a holly
branch, exclaiming, “Ye may be seker bi this braunch that I
bere here, /That I passe as in pes, and no plyght seche”
(265-266). The Green Knight is revealed in the end to be a
friend of sorts to Gawain because he shows Gawain his greatest
fault – his pride. The Green Knight reveals himself to
be sent by Morgan la Faye to “assay the surquidre, yif hit
soth were /That rennes of the grete renoun of the Rounde
Table” (2457-2458). Although she is normally portrayed
has having evil intentions, Morgan la Faye teaches Gawain and the
knights at Camelot humility through Gawain’s trails. This
is a valuable lesson, for pride is considered one of the worst
sins. Thus it is through the Green Knight and his judgement
of Sir Gawain of having failed the third night that allows Gawain
to see his pride and how stands on a broken foundation, for he is
an imperfect human as is everyone else.
The Green Knight shows an understanding of Gawain’s guilt in
that he tries to put his sin in context: “Bot that was
for no wylyde werke, ne wowyng nauther, /Bot for ye lufed your
lyf. The lasse I yow blame!” (2367-2368). He
goes on to exclaim that Gawain is “On the fautlest freke
that ever on fote yede” (2363), and even states that he is
to the other knights as a pearl is to a white pea; an interesting
comparison when one considers the pearl comparison in the poem Pearl,
believed to be composed by the same poet. The Green Knight
sees how harshly Gawain takes his failure and through his
understanding of the whole situation is able to give the best
judgement of Gawain because it takes into account his faults, yet
at the same time gives Gawain the support and forgiveness needed
to deal with them.
Some of the aspects of the Green Knight’s judgement are
present in the other judgements by Gawain and Arthur’s
court, but neither exhibits all of them. Gawain certainly
understands that he has fallen short of perfection and even after
he has shifted some of the blame onto women and their aptitude
toward leading men to folly he still lacks the ability to forgive
himself. When he returns to Arthur’s court and is
asked about the green girdle he replies, “This is the lathe
and the losse that I laght have /Of cowardise and covetyse that I
haf caght thare” (2507-2508). Gawain sees that girdle
only as a sign of his failure, whereas the Green Knight had
already told him to see it otherwise, saying, “and this a
pure token /Of the chaunce of the grene chapel, at chevalrous
knyghtes” (2398-2399). Gawain’s judgement of
himself is too harsh, and in the end he is left as a failure with
no hope of redemption (Anderson, 353). The principle
problem with this judgement is that it not only fails to account
for the forgiveness available to all in Christendom, but it is
even in opposition to Christianity. To deny one’s
ability to be forgiven is ultimately to deny Christ’s
sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind, therefore
Gawain’s cannot be the best judgement.
The judgement of Gawain by Arthur’s court is by far the most
ambiguous and under-developed of the three judgements. At
first it appears to be much like the Green Knight’s in that
the king attempts to comfort Gawain and all present agree to also
wear a green girdle, of which they have the same understanding as
Gawain and thus their agreement to take on this symbol must be
caused by their acceptance of his faults. However, one
should approach their understanding of the situation with care
since they are hearing the story secondhand and are portrayed as
young and immature in the first half of the poem. As for
their laughing at Gawain, Anderson claims that it is heedless and
a reflection of their shallow view of the world (342-343), but it
is important to keep in mind that the Green Knight also laughs at
one of Gawain’s responses in line 2389 and therefore one
should be hesitant in holding this against them. While it
is possible that the court has a good idea of what really took
place during Gawain’s trial, their judgement is not nearly
developed enough to make an accurate assessment of their
judgement.
As concerning the two main symbols in the poem, i.e. the
pentangle and the green girdle, the Green knight’s judgement
allows both to remain intact simultaneously. Anderson
writes that once Gawain failed, his honor and indeed the
pentangle were broken (353). Thus, in Gawain’s mind, once he
failed to give the girdle to Bercilak the pentangle was forever
shattered and he was left with only the girdle to remind him of
his failure. As previously mentioned, the Green Knight
gives an alternative view of the girdle which allows it to remain
coexistent with the pentangle according to his judgement. Because
the Green Knight forgives Gawain and offers him absolution for
his trespasses the pentangle is able to remain intact because
Gawain is “confessed so clene” (2391). Forgiveness
is even inherit in the pentangle itself, for the third aspect of
the pentangle mentioned was “the fyve woundes /That Cryst
kaght on the croys” (642-643). This serves to
reiterate the presence of forgiveness and Christian morality in
the Green Knight’s judgement and to solidify its claim as
the judgement which should at least in theory if not in practice
be the one accepted as the best judgement within the contexts of
a Christian society.
In the end Gawain fails to fully understand the lesson which the
Green Knight seeks to teach him. His ultimate failure is
not his neglect to hand over the green girdle but his inability
to forgive himself. In fact Gawain misses the central moral
or lesson of the poem by failing to come to the realization that
he is imperfect but may still obtain forgiveness. Indeed,
the poem is brilliantly summed up in the last four lines:
“Mony
aunters here biforne
Haf
fallen suche er this.
Now
that bere the croun of thorne,
He
bryng uus to his blysse! AMEN” (2526-2530)
Works Cited:
Anderson, J.J. “The three
judgements and the ethos of in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight.’”
The Chaucer Review 24: 337-355.
De Roo, Harvey. "What's in a name?
Power Dynamics in Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight." The
Chaucer Review (31.3): 232-255.
Engelhardt, George J. “The
predicament of Gawain.” Medieval English Survey.
Ed.
Edward Vasta.
Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965.