Human nature and its conflict with the idealized knighthood of the romance genre in Sir Gawain and

the Green Knight By Jos Luis Guerrero Cervantes The typical hero of the medieval romance genre lives in a magic world where his virtues allow him to overcome any challenge or defeat any enemy he would face. Examples of this kind of heroes are 14th-century Thomas Chestres

Breton lay Sir Launfal, or the anonymous Sir Orpheo. The characters behavior reflects the complex social and

religious patterns of the chivalry code that had to be observed at that time, that is, the Courtesan culture. Love relationships and the cult devoted to women were directly related to courteous love or amour courtois1. In Sir Gawain two and the Green of Knight it the is possible world to of

identify

elements

romance:

magic

frightening challenges and the social environment where the courteous behavior was necessary to be observed in order to fulfill a certain social stereotype. However, it does not fit completely with the characteristics of this genre. There is a third element that differentiates this work from traditional romances. Sir Gawain is not an idealized,

perfect hero that is predestinated to defeat evil in an adventure. He is a knight with exceptional virtues that possesses no more capacities or abilities than those of a simple human being. The story then takes place in a more
1

C.S. Lewis, The allegory of love. Oxford University Press. 1977. p. 2.

credible reality (since it belongs to a literary fiction after all) that the poet creates to make his hero and his conflict more credible and, therefore, more praiseworthy. The most important conflict of the story is the fulfillment of the given word of Sir Gawain to a magic being that seems to be an insurmountable obstacle for any knight:
And slashed swiftly down on the exposed part, So that the sharp blade sheared through, shattering the bones, sank deep in the sleek flesh, split it in two, and the scintillating steel struck the ground. The fair head fell from the neck, struck the floor, and people spurned it as it rolled around. Blood spurted from the body, bright against the green. Yet the fellow did not fall, nor falter one whit, but stoutly sprang forward on legs still sturdy, roughly reached out among the ranks of nobles, seized his splendid head and straightway lifted it.2 (423-433)

It is precisely the fulfillment of the given word what can be considered a physical trial since Sir Gawain has to receive a strike of the Green Knights axe in payment for the one he gave him according to what was agreed by both parts. Here it the moral trial, to break the agreement will bring shame to Gawain. Gawain is forced to a situation where he has to choose between his honor and his life. This way, the poet puts Sir Gawain not in the conventional

situation found in romances but in a more complex one. The infallibility nature.
2

of

the

knight

is

substituted

for

human

All the quotations of the poem were taken of the translation made by Bryan Stone in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Penguin, 1988, pp. 21-115.

It is possible to establish three changes in Sir Gawains behavior that determine the conflict he faces and the

elements that he uses to solve it. The first is at the very beginning of the poem, when Sir Gawain is only one member of the Rounded Table. The conflict comes up in King Arthurs court when the Green Knight challenges the king and his knights:
When none came to accord with him, he coughed aloud, then pulled himself up proudly, and spoke as follows: What, is this Arthurs house, the honour of which is bruited abroad so abundantly? Has your pride disappeared? Your prowess gone? Your victories, your valour, your vaunts, where are they?[] Upon this, he laughed so loudly that the lord grieved. His fair features filled with blood for shame. (307-318)

Until here both the reader and the people in the scene are not able to imagine who is going to accept the challenge. It has been said previously in this paper that this writing takes from romance the magic world of frightening

challenges, which is here presented. Color here plays an important role. The audience is astonished by the

appearance of the challenger, particularly, his color. It is not the body of the Green Knight what mainly stands out, but the fact that everything on him, his horse and even his hair and skin are green. It is important to remember,

Burrow states, that green was the colour of faries, the

colour of the death, and the colour of the devil.3 In fact, the Green Knight can be considered as the

representation of death itself, challenging men to lose their life in order to keep their honor. The parallelism of the Green Knight as representation of the Death itself becomes clearer if it is noticed that the deadline set by the Green Knight can perfectly work as the inevitable fate that every human being on this earth has to face someday: the end of his life. The second moment happens in the second fitt, a moment before Sir Gawain accepts to wear the green belt offered by Bertilaks wife. Until here, Sir Gawain had played the role of the ideal knight that has not violated a word of the chivalry code symbolized by the star on his shield:
First he was found faultless in his five wits. Next, his five fingers never failed the knight. And all his trust on earth was in the five wounds which came to Christ on the Cross, as the Creed tells. And whenever the bold man was busy on the battlefield, through all other things he thought on this, that his prowess all depended on the five pure Joys that the holy Queen of Heaven had of her Child. (640-647)

Gawain has given his word to look for the Green Knight and fulfill his part of the agreement. He knows the date of his death and patiently travels all around England looking for the Green Chapel. There is a triple test here for Gawain:

J.A. Burrow. A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Routledge. London. 1965. p. 14.

the first is physical, implying to suffer hunger, thirst, tiredness, and the inclemency of the weather:
Half-slain by the sleet, he slept in his armour night after night among the naked rocks, where the cold streams splashed from the steep crests or hung over his head in hard icicles. (729-732)

The second is spiritual; he suffered physically for no other reward than to be beheaded. His thoughts about his present situation In this and his of own the future poem death is test his to

integrity.

part

possible

distinguish the human nature of a man in need:

He crossed himself and cried For his sins, and said, Christ speed My cause, his cross my guide! So prayed he, spurring his steed. (773-774)

Once he arrives and is hosted in Bertilaks castle, the luck of the knight seems to change. He is welcome and attended in all aspects, what gives Sir Gawain a moment of apparently relief. However, the hardest of all the tests was about to start: the moral one. After the great effort done to survive in the wild, Gawain is put in a more comfortable situation that makes him to lower his guard: The knight rejoiced anew, / For the wine his spirits whet (899-900). As the deadline is coming sooner, Gawain gets more stressed. When only three days remain to his final encounter with the Green Knight, the test is performed:

[] you shall lie long in your room, late and at ease Tomorrow till the time of mass, and the take your meal When you will, with my wife beside you To comfort you with her company till I come back to court. You stay, And I shall get up at dawn. I will to the hunt away. [] Moreover, said the man, Let us make a bargain That whatever I win in the woods be yours, and any achievement you chance on here, you exchange for it Sweet sir, truly swear to such a bartering, Whether fair fortune on foul befall from it. (1096-1109)

The test requires the creation of certain conditions that characterize the typical situation for a couple to fall in sin: the lord of the castle is away, his wife, in secret, has managed herself to enter her husbands guest.

Bertilaks wife uses the liberties that are allowed in the courtesan love code to test the hero. She uses Gawains fame to do a series of proposals about how a knight needs to behave with women. In the first encounter Gawain is taken by surprised and he had troubles for gently refusing the proposals of Bertilaks wife. During the second meeting Gawains looks more secure, however the insistence of the lady are much more erotic and tempting. In the third

meeting Gawain managed himself to resist to the solicitudes of the lady. It can be observed here that the behavior that Gawain shows needs to be perfect to the eyes of God and society, that is, to personify a society that is ruled by reason and faith. Finally, the lady finds a tiny hole in Gawains stoic

defenses: his encounter with the Green Knight.

This is the moment where the third moment takes place just when Sir Gawain accepts the belt and continues until he goes back Camelot in the fourth fitt. Gawain reflected the ideals of perfection before God and society by resisting to the ladys proposals and her gifts. But his encounter with the Green Knight (and his imminent death) has produced in Gawains human nature a feeling that is inevitable to experiment in such circumstances: the

survival sense. This feeling produces in Gawain a change in his, apparently, immovable convictions and interchange his faith for fetishism:
For the man that binds his body with this belt of green, As long as he laps it closely about him, No hero under heaven can hack him to pieces, For he cannot be killed by any cunning on earth. (1851-1854)

By accepting the belt and not telling Bertilak anything about it, Gawains loyalty toward his host fails, the

agreement is broken and Gawain becomes then in a liar and a hypocrite. Gawain faces the Green Knight and he is revealed that everything was planned by Bertilak to test him. Gawain realizes his fault and denies to return to Bertilaks

castle and return to Camelot. Here the circle is closed, despite Gawain has shown to be just a human and, therefore, fallible; Gawain goes back to take his place in the Rounded Table, just like in the

beginning of the poem, neither in a higher, nor in an inferior state. Therefore, it possible to conclude that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a narrative poem that is based on adventure and agreements in order to create tests to which the hero, Sir Gawain, is going to be exposed. The typical topic of the romance genre, the lady in help that is rescue by a knight, is put aside to create tests in three different levels: physical, spiritual and moral. The knight is exposed to lose his most valuable things: his life, his moral, and his honor. The poet creates a more real argument by using a setting that mixes magic with reality. In addition, the situations to which the hero is exposed present problematic dilemmas that deals with values and expectations related to human nature.

Bibliography Brooks and Warren. Understanding Fiction: What

character reveals. Appleton-Centruy Crofts, Division of Meredith Co. Nueva York. 1959. Burrow, J. A. A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Routledge. London. 1965. Lewis, C. S. The allegory of love. Oxford University Press. Oxford. 1977. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 2a. Edition. Bryan Stone (trad). Penguin Classics. London. 1988.