The Morals of a Knight, An Essay on "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight".

Authors Avatar

The Morals of a Knight

An Essay on “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

By: Carly Young

For: D. Laird

Course: Engl. 211

Due: Sept. 25, 2003


Carly Young

English 211

D. Laird

Due: Sept. 25, 2003        

The Morals of a Knight

An Essay on “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”

To be covetousness is to have a great desire for wealth and possessions, either of your own or belonging to someone else.  In the poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,”  “Gawain, bound to chivalry, is torn between his knightly edicts, his courtly obligations, and his mortal thoughts of self preservation” (2).  Thus, a main theme of covetousness versus being a noble and honorable knight is developed as Gawain moves through northwest Britain in search of the Green Knight.  The idea of “temptation is an ancient Celtic theme, and retains its purpose to test the worth of the Christian knight” (1).

This conflict becomes very evident when Gawain is given three tests by Bertilak (the Green Knight).  Bertilak gives these tests to Gawain in accordance with him staying:

Join now!

Within a moat, on a mound, bright amid boughs

Of many a tree great of girth that grew by the water –

A castle as comely as a knight could own,

On grounds fair and green, in a goodly park. (ll. 765-769)

At this castle, Morgan le Fay (the host’s lady) tries to tempt Gawain with her “bosom all but bare” (ll. 1741) in order to “fool him into actions that contrast the knightly ideal” (2).  However, when Gawain realizes that she is trying to persuade him:

The fair knight lay feigning for a long while,

Conning in his ...

This is a preview of the whole essay