Lady Bertilak's Femininity In Sir Gawain

Sir Gawain says that he laid aside all the pointed speeches that came out of Lady Bertilak's mouth, “All the speches of specialte that sprange of her mouthe” (1778). This is because she has destroyed his masculinity with her words. She offered herself to him at first, and by rejecting her, he automatically began to walk the path towards femininity. Lady Bertilak has feminized Sir Gawain's body, and in a way is preparing him to accept the girdle which she offers to him later on (Kinney 53). The girdle in a sense repents the identity of what Sir Gawain has become after his meetings with Lady Bertilak (Heng 504). Lady Bertilak acted as a facilitator in Sir Gawain's transformation into a feminine and homoerotic character. The bedroom scene symbolizes this feminine influence that overtakes
This highlights the importance of Lady Bertilak's influence on Sir Gawain's transformation into femininity. Lady Bertilak with her words and actions pushes Sir Gawain further into this homosexual possibility that he can be used by men just like her. The bedroom scene exposes the potential of homoerotic relations in the poem as it feminizes Sir Gawain.

As the fragility of Sir Gawain's masculine identity transforms him into a more feminine character, the homoerotic potential between him and Sir Bertilak threatens to break the heterosexual identity of the poem. This can be seen in the passages of the first and last encounter between Sir Gawain and Lady Bertilak. Lady Bertilak questions Sir Gawain's identity and he responds: “'Wherfore?' quoth the freke, and freschly he askes, / Ferde lest he had fayled in forme of his castes” (1294-95). This is about the construction of his identity and how he is losing who he is. Not being a chivalric knight breaks the rules of Medieval heterosexuality. Sir Gawain is afraid that he is not accomplishing this as he is questioned by Lady Bertilak. He is pressured into kissing her so that he abides to the laws of the