In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the pentangle reflects five traits of a knight and demonstrates its importance throughout the story. The shield depicts many qualities for knights to recognize is fidelity, compassion, friendship, etc. In fact, the pentangle resembles these features on Gawain’s shield as he carries it on his journey. These ideal aspects are significant because it binds to a knight’s reputation and honor to his king. In terms of the pentangle, faithfulness is a refine trait to characterize also. In this case, whenever a knight is disloyal or unfaithful to his tribe, it destroys the chivalry code and his dignity. The shield is also prevalents to Christianity as well. Christianity plays a crucial role because it mainly relates with the pentangle and the Old Testament. The number “five” is a repetitive device …show more content…
J.R.R Tolkien says, “With the pentangle portrayed in purest gold” ( 46). In accordance with the social hierarchy, the knights formally dress as aristocrats and properly speaking to their lord. The pentangle bears great fortune and riches to knights because it indicates their place of the Round Table of King Arthur. Such how Sir Gawain sits at the table with his lord and uncle, but he isn’t like any other knights. The reason for Gawain is at the Round Table because he’s King Arthur’s nephew, therefore, he shares the same ranking as the other knights. Also, Gawain admittedly acknowledges his reputation when he says when he dies, no one will remember him. On the other hand, since the pentangle texture is out of solid gold, the shield is valuable akin to Sir Gawain. Despite the fact Gawain isn’t a well-known knight, he is one of the courageous, loyal men there is, thereby, he’s worthy of appraising of King Arthur and his people. Gawain devotes himself to his fellow community to go a quest to challenge the enigmatic Green Knight at the expense of his own
Deception is one of mankind’s most versatile and powerful tools and is used nearly every day for both evil and good. Whether it be deceiving an army in battle or using exaggerations and myths to teach a child right from wrong, deceit allows one to advance his selfish or selfless intentions by providing them a source of influence on others. Such deception is evident throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight—the host’s wife’s dishonesty in particular—as it helps to spur the plot of the poem. Lady Bertilak’s purposeful deception of Gawain has questionable motives that highlight the theme of human imperfection and susceptibility to temptation.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a stranger rides into King Arthur's court with a challenge. This stranger, green in color from head to toe, proposes to play a game with a member of King Arthur's court. This game will be played by each participant taking a blow from a weapon at the hands of the opponent. The person that dies from the hit is obviously the loser. On top of this, the Green Knight offers to let his opponent take the first swing. This sets up the action in the passage beginning with line 366 and ending with line 443.
A recurrent theme in almost all Old English writings involves the number three. Beowulf fought the dragon in three rounds. In Morte Darthur, King Arthur sent Sir Bedivere to throw Excalibur into the lake three times. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the number three has a triple importance. In this story there were three different events that each happened in three stages: The three hunts of the Lord, the three seductions by the Lady, and the three swings of the ax that the Green Knight took; all three relate to each other.
The pentangle symbolizes the five virtues of knights consisting of, generosity, friendship, courtesy, chastity, and piety. All of which Gawain is striving to adhere to due to his knightly obligation to the code of chivalry. Gawain alleges that all virtues are seamlessly interconnected in the man as in the geometric figure on the shield. Together with the amour, the shield seems to complete the visi...
To establish the knight as worthy, the author first shows Gawain’s loyalty to his king. The Green Knight challenges anyone in the hall to the beheading game and no one takes him up on it. Arthur, angered by the Green Knight’s taunting, is about to accept the challenge himself when Gawain steps in saying "would you grant me this grace" (Sir Gawain, l. 343), and takes the ax from Arthur. This is a very convenient way for the author to introduce Gawain and also to show Gawain’s loyalty to Arthur, but it seems almost too convenient. There i...
Sir Gawain is presented as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. He is the perfect knight; he is so recognised by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood.
In the final scenes of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s encounter with Sir Bertilak allows Gawain to perceive his own flaws, manifested in his acceptance of the Green Girdle. The court’s reaction to his personal guilt highlights the disconnect between him and the other knights of the Round Table. Gawain’s behavior throughout the poem has been most noteworthy; his understanding of his sin, one that many of us would dismiss since it was propelled by his love of life, enhances his stature as a paragon of chivalry.
Symbolism is used throughout literature to give deeper meaning to a variety of literary works. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight symbolism is seen through the actions of Sir Gawain against the trials he faces. The poem is first set during Christmas time at Camelot, showing that they were Christian for they were celebrating Christmas. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight shows the struggle between a good Christian man against the temptations of this world. Symbolically, one can see Sir Gawain holding true to Christian values: first, by standing up for what he believes in; second, by staying true to a future mate; and thirdly by repenting from sins due to a broken promise.
“Culture does not make people. People make culture” said Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a Nigerian writer and educator, in a presentation on feminism in a TedTalk. The culture in which Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written was misogynistic and it shows in the writing of the poem. Medieval cultural misogyny manifests itself in multiple ways in SGGK. This paper will examine the negative relationships between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and gender by discussing: the representation of female characters, gendered violence, and Christianity in the Middle Ages.
In the anonymous poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the character of Sir Gawain is portrayed as the imperfect hero. His flaws create interest and intrigue. Such qualities of imperfection cannot be found in the symbol of the pentangle, which he displays on his shield. This contrast between character and symbol is exposed a number of times throughout the poem allowing human qualities to emerge from Gawain’s knightly portrayal. The expectations the pentangle presents proves too much for Gawain as he falls victim to black magic, strays from God, is seduced by an adulterous woman, and ultimately breaks the chivalric code by lying to the Green Knight.
The first symbol in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that I will discuss is Sir Gawain’s knightly shield. On Gawain’s shield is a pentangle, the five points on this pentangle represent the five virtues of the perfect knight; piety, friendship, generosity, chastity and courtesy. Each of the five virtues is tested on Gawain throughout the poem creating an emphasised importance on the shield’s representation and meaning. “Now alle þese fyue syþez, for soþe, were fetled on þis knyȝt, And vchone halched in oþer, þat non ende hade, And fyched vpon fyue poyntez, þat fayld neuer” (SGGK, 656-8). This quote tells of the pentangle’s design, how each line of the pentangles composition is endlessly linked to one another, suggesting that each virtue depends on th...
Of all the themes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the one which stood out the most to me was that of deception. With the Green Knight, the “evil” and Sir Gawain, the “good”, we see both forces partake in deceptive practices to achieve the desired outcome they sought. Throughout the poem, Sir Gawain’s moral compass was constantly being tested with deception being used to gage his level of loyalty, morality, and chivalry. The “game” that the Green Knight was hell bent on playing was not an honest one. He utilized a host of deceptions to gain the results that he sought after—there was little to no room for error with him. First, he presented a challenge in which he alone knew that he would not perish. When he asked for a volunteer to strike him with the ax, the Green Knight
Sir Gawain's shield is a symbol with multiple meanings, offering both moral and physical protection. Through the display of the Pentangle and the Virgin Mary on his shield, Sir Gawain shows his belief in God and his trust in him. Each point on the Pentangle shows his virtues of free-giving, friendliness, chastity, chivalry, and piety. But also shows his five senses, five fingers, the five wounds of Christ, and the Five Joys. The Pentangle also shows that there is no beginning and no end. By the time Gawain thought it was over and he was going to die, it was...
The symbolism of the girdle in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight changes and grows as the poem progresses, adding Gawain's honor and sin to seemingly separate ideas of an untamed nature related to the otherworld and animal instincts. Piotr Sadowski, in his The Knight on His Quest: Symbolic Patterns of Transition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, calls the girdle a symbol of “complex moral truth” that the other knights of the Round Table fail to learn from, as Gawain does. While I agree that the girdle's most important function is the message it conveys about morality as it pertains to courtly behavior, I argue that the moral ideal the girdle sets is not higher than the knights achieve, but rather is balanced between humanity and the godliness Gawain strives for – that is, the moral standard by which these knights should abide does not call for absolute purity, like their chivalric codes do, but allows for the minor sins that humans fall into by their very nature. By combining knightly honor, Gawain's sins, and the Green Knight's Otherworldliness in one symbol, a moral truth contrary to Sadowski's strict, traditional chivalry emerges that embraces humanity and nature, rather than rejecting them entirely in favor of godly ideals. When Bertilak's wife first presents the girdle to Gawain, it is described simply as being of green silk and gold trim, which should instantly remind the reader of the description of the Green Knight when he enters Arthur's court.
The perfect, archetypal knight, one who seamlessly, simultaneously embodies all of the qualities so harmoniously unified on Gawain 's shield, cannot exist, as the five points of Gawain 's pentangle cannot fully be kept