Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Gawain is introduced relatively late in the first fitt, and with little introduction other than the speech he gives himself. In Part 2, it becomes clear that his modesty is a defining character trait. Describing the pentangle that decorates Gawain’s shield, the poet explains why a five-pointed star “is proper to that peerless prince” (623): his five senses are intact, his five fingers are strong and skillful, he keeps his thoughts fixed on the five wounds of Christ, as well as the five joys of Mary, and he demonstrates five virtues associated with knighthood (generosity, chastity, courtesy, compassion, and friendship). Gawain, in other words, seems to unite all the various threads of the chivalric code—devotion to God, skill in combat, courtly manners, etc.—in a single figure. His golden armor underscores his apparent perfection, visually evoking his rarity and value as a man and knight.

Gawain’s virtues are put to their first serious test when he leaves Camelot. Here, the natural world is an ever-present threat, not least because of the harshness of the winter weather: “Near slain by the sleet he sleeps in his irons / More nights than enough, among naked rocks” (729-730). With that said, it’s notable that the poem contains few descriptions of the physical dangers Gawain encounters; also missing are celebrations of the ways in which Gawain is able to overcome these dangers. This absence is in part because the primary threat the natural world poses in the work is symbolic. Its unruliness, like the Green Knight’s, is at odds with the strictly ordered and hierarchical world of Camelot, and, more broadly, with feudal society in general: “The hazel and the hawthorn […] all intertwined / With rough raveled moss, that raggedly hung” (744-755). Passages like this enable the poet to draw an implicit parallel between the chaos of nature and the forms that human society takes outside Arthur’s sphere of influence. In describing the “Wilderness of Wirral,” for example, the poet remarks, “few were within / That had good will toward God or man” (701-702). The residents of the wilderness may be cruel and uncivilized, but perhaps worse is the fact that they don’t respect the authority of the king or Church.

The relative lack of attention to Gawain’s exploits also reflects the nature of his quest, which is primarily spiritual rather than physical. This abstract quality is clear from the outset, since the Green Knight’s challenge doesn't require Gawain to complete any particular task, but simply to honor his word in the knowledge that doing so will likely result in his death. In many ways, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight questions the chivalry celebrated in other romances, represented by acts of chivalry that emphasize triumph over various challenges. Instead, this poem adopts the more conventionally Christian attitude that weakness (and therefore failure) are inevitable parts of the human condition.