A Close Analysis of Pages 11+12 In Gawain and The Green Knight (Simon Armitage)
A Close Analysis of Pages 11 and 23 Page eleven is very near the beginning of the story, and so the page reveals the appearance of the green knight, the previous pages describe how the knights are in a banquet at Christmas and the page begins as they are about to start dinner. It starts of with ‘Now, on the subject of supper I’ll say no more as it’s obvious to everyone that no one went without.’ This shows that because they are knights they have earned their dinner, as he says he has said enough, also in this sentence he mentions that ‘no one went without’ so there was obviously a lot of wealth involved. The next sentence says ‘Because another sound, a new sound, suddenly drew near, which might signal the king to sample
his supper,’ the repetition of sound, gives the effect of the sound getting closer and closer. Then when it says ‘which might signal the king to start his supper’ this tells us the king is very wealthy and need to taste it and he might send it back, this could show he was a fussy king. The story then says ‘for barely had the horns finished blowing their breath and with starters just spooned to their seated guests’, the horns had barely finished blowing their breath, this means it could have been a timed entrance, deliberately to make it look ...
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his supper,’ the repetition of sound, gives the effect of the sound getting closer and closer. Then when it says ‘which might signal the king to start his supper’ this tells us the king is very wealthy and need to taste it and he might send it back, this could show he was a fussy king. The story then says ‘for barely had the horns finished blowing their breath and with starters just spooned to their seated guests’, the horns had barely finished blowing their breath, this means it could have been a timed entrance, deliberately to make it look grand. The guests were spooned their soup, like babies being spoon fed, this could make reference to them not actually being very tough. It then says ‘a fearful form appeared, framed in the door:’ This suggests that not only was the guest so big he filled the doorway, but also made sure they could not escape, an as if it was fate that one of them would have to undertake his challenge. Then the list begins on how he looks ‘a mountain of a man, immeasurably high, a hulk of a human from head to hips, so long and thick in his loins an his limbs I should genuinely judge him to be half-giant’ the first sentence is quite a mouthful, just as he might be quite a sight, then skipping on a few sentences it mentions he is a half giant, this is a realistic size, it is still huge, but not unbelievable (as it would have been if it had said he was a giant).It then goes on to say ‘the mightiest of mortals’ this makes you think… is he really mortal, or actually godly like. Then after telling us about his hugeness describes how his boy is actually slender and handsome ‘despite the bulk and brawn of his body his stomach and waist were slender and sleek. In fact in all features he was finely formed it seemed.’ This made me think of superman, he seems perfect in build, and no surprises ‘Amazement seized their minds no soul had ever seen a knight of such a kind entirely emerald green’ it says they were amazed an they are knights, they are meant to have travelled the world, so this must be a sight, then it says emerald green, I imagine emerald as glistening in the light, on page 30, when the months pass the leaves glisten, and this reins Gawain of the green knight, then again on page 41 it says that the lord’s castle was glistening, suspicious.Page 23 starts off, as Sir Gawain is about to strike the green knight, it says the first three lines in the present tense to make things more exciting, then further down the page it says ‘that bright steel blade took a bite from the floor’ this suggests that the axe was maybe mystical as it was hungry itself and wanted to eat Gawain also by using bite I find that it is quite, using bite as the word rather than chunk or any of the other words he could of used. Later on in the poem on that page he quotes ‘blood gutters brightly against his green gown’ we can only guess that his blood is red, it does not say, but if it was, his outfit would now make the colours of Christmas, red gold and green, the gold coming from the braids in his hair and the jewellery he wears. My favourite part of this page is the end it says ‘the court was deadened now with dread’ this is quite ironic because though Gawain cut off the green knight’s head, it is now the court that is dead.
