By targeting one of Arthur’s flesh and blood and forcing him to sin, the author proves that no man, not even the most valiant of knights, is realistically perfect. In the poem, the Green Knight’s radiant color and luscious locks symbolize that the Green Knight is a man of nature, where chivalric laws and standards do not exist. After the Green Knight gallantly offers his game to the knights and nobody speaks up, he protests,
Where is now your arrogance and your awesome deed,/ Your valor and your vaunting words?/ Now are the revel and the renown of the Round Table/ Overwhelmed with a word of one man’s speech,/ For all cower and quake, and no cut felt!” (87-91)
Because the Green Knight embodies a natural world, free from judgment, his initial perception of the Knights of the Round Table provides the reader with a realistic view of their true nature. In order to illustrate to the reader that not even the most fearless and noble of men are without flaw, the author intentionally has the Green Knight expose their cowardice to the reader very early on in the poem. As the poem progresses, the author has the Green Knight once again reveal man’s imperfection when he disguises him as the lord that shelters Gawain on his courageous quest. In the latter parts of the poem, the Green Knight makes Gawain aware man’s shortcomings by uncovering Gawain’s only faulty decision, to conceal the green girdle from the lord. “As pearls to white peas,” the Green Knight condemns Gawain, “more precious and priced,/ So is Gawain, in good faith, to other gay knights. The author compares perfection to a pearl and man’s imperfection to a white pea in order to show that, like a white pea, a man’s ethics will “burst” if he is in fear for his life.
Instead of criticizing Gawain for his failing, the author understands Gawain’s decision to conceal the green girdle from the lord is understood because it is not done so out of greed but out of fear for his life. Contrarily, the author praises Gawain for his good intentions rather than spite him for his single wrongdoing. The author specifically has Gawain accept the Green Knight’s game because he is, “The weakest, well I know, and of wit feeblest.” (128) By intentionally singling out the weakest knight, the author proves that even the least ideal of all of Arthur’s men act with good intensions. In addition, Gawain does not seek out the Green Knight for further praise from his fellow knights. He ventures into the wilderness, despite his fear of losing his life, because he wants to prove to himself that he is an equal to the other knights. By having Gawain keep the green girdle as a symbol of his cowardice, the author shows that Gawain does not care about how other knights regard him. His journey to find the Green Knight was solely a journey to discover his inner sanctity. In the concluding words of the poem, the Green Knight proclaims, that even in spite of Gawain’s mistake, he holds Gawain to be be “polished as a pearl, as pure/ And as bright as you had lived free of fault since first you were born.” (483-484) After he had previously compared Gawain to a white pea, the author now compares him to a pearl in order to exemplify that Gawain is a still honorable man in the end. Like all other men, Gawain is not perfect.
In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, the author removes Sir Gawain from his highly structured world in order illustrate that, even though man is not perfect, he is honorable because he acts with only good intentions. While most conventional medieval romance takes an ordinary figure and transforms him into a hero by displaying ones superhuman abilities, the author of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” does not. The hero of his poem, a relative of King Arthur and a feeble knight, does not do anything phenomenal. The author admires Sir Gawain for his imperfections, a distinctly human characteristic. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” attests that even a righteous man sins. However, what makes a man righteous are his intentions and his willingness to grow from his sins.
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Works Cited
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Trans. by Marie Boroff. Prentice Hall Literature: The English Tradition. Roger Babisci, etal, eds. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice, 1989. 124-138
