Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay

When we hear the word knight, we imagine Arthurian-tales of glorious battles between men and dragons, fierce jousting competitions, rivalries between kingdoms, and knightly chivalry. Several of these tales center on the bravery of knights against mighty foes or on their ability to resist earthly temptations. Sir Gawain is the nephew of King Arthur and is a knight of the round table. He appears in more Arthurian-tales than any other knight and is known as the ideal that all knights should strive for. (Joe) In the Arthurian-Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain faces many challenges and his decisions based on those challenges shape him into the Knight that many know now. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Sir Gawain faces many challenges that shape him as a knight. In the legend, Sir Gawain faces trials against his character, his purity, and his symbol as the perfect knight. When he fails to tell Bertilak of Hautdesert that he has his wife’s girdle he therefore falls from knightly perfection. However, his failure to resist the girdle was not because of his failure to resist the sexual advances of Bertilak of Hautdesert’s wife, but because he valued his life which doesn’t make him a failure of a knight, but instead makes him more respectable and honorable man.
The people, his fellow knights, and Arthur hold Gawain as …show more content…
On the first day, Bertilak goes hunting for deer which bears a resemblance to the sexual advances his wife makes on Gawain. “The deer represents the innocence and purity of Gawain as a knight.”(Holz). Gawain is able to refuse the lady’s sexual advances without insulting her. A knight, even when put into a difficult situation such as that, has to deny the lady in a cautious fashion or else he is uncourtly. This first interaction between Gawain and the lady demonstrates that Gawain can masterfully resist the lady’s advances and avoid