Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
The animalistic nature of the human tends to reveal itself in different forms. Sometimes in the form of violence and madness, while other times in forms of lusts and incest. In the epic poem, Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, Sir Gawain’s accepting of the challenge and hunting of the Green Knight by the eve of New Year reveals his human egotistical ambition to establish authority and to maintain his integrity in society. Perhaps possibly also to extend his supremacy to the limits where it becomes a choice of life and death. Whether it is establishing supremacy or maintaining honor, the human ambitions to defend their belief system and existence make them inconsistent and unfaithful to their own virtue.
It was a Christmas day, and King’s Arthur court was celebrating Christmas Month when a humongous Green colored Knight entered the palace and challenged the court to play against him in a game. As King Arthur accepts his challenge and advances, Sir Gawain beseeches that he may take the place of King Arthur. He says, “I beseech in plain speech that this mêlée be mine.” The sudden eruption of aspiration that Sir Gawain shows by taking Arthur’s place reveals his desperation to prove himself and become deserving of the praise and respect that he holds in the court. This action of accepting the challenge seems purely to emerge from his inner conflict of personal ambition or brotherly love.
Additionally, he also appears to be entangled in an outer conflict between showing his bravery to the Knights and holding the nobility of the remarkable King Arthur Court, perhaps an ambition to become the epitome of a Knight. Whether it is an inner conflict or external, Sir Gawain does exhibits an outrageous animalistic form represented by his action of decapitating the Green Knight. Despite how virtuous they are, humans sometimes get locked into the dilemma of pride and virtuousness, which, when unresolved, turns them into savages.
Bravery and Cowardice are conflicts that often include gore, murder, and corpses in the life of knights. The feature that makes this conflict problematic is that Bravery and Cowardice are neither learned nor taught but are instinctually embodied within the human psyche. Individually both the characteristics are the weapons of humans that aid them in their survival, but when these two clash, they transform civilized people into animals. “If they were like stone before, they were stiller now, Every last lord in the hall, both high and low;” The author describes the utter silence that covers up the royal court, which was moments before jocular. The Green Knight stirs the Bravery of the knights, but the Cowardice of the man against their life holds them back, creating this conflict of either to stand for a Knight’s virtue of the Bravery or to save their own lives. King Arthur’s court was known for the most virtuous Knights, but this sudden silence and exhibition of Cowardice represents human flaws. This scene of the poem suggests that human affinity to life is far more prestigious than any virtue. Although every Knight is entangled in this conflict, the bravest knights, King Arthur and Sir Gawain, turn away from the human norm of survival and agree to the challenge to keep the integrity of the nobility that they hold in this earthly life. But when the Green Knight is decapitated, and Sir Gawain has absorbed the overwhelming fear of death, Green Knight’s head is kicked around by the Knights, revealing the human species’ inconsistencies. This binary opposition of Bravery and Cowardice seems to be purposely set up by the author to display this motif of human inconsistencies in their virtuousness of life when the danger of death rides over their shoulder.
Showing virtuousness when a person’s existence is at stake makes most humans stumble upon their path of virtuousness and break all their oaths and pledges of life to preserve life. Sir Gawain accepts the green girdle to protect his life. Keeping the integrity of Knight’s virtues was the sole purpose for which Sir Gawain started this journey, but he broke his oath to his faith by accepting this green girdle offered him by Queen Bertilak. This action of Sir Gawain suggests the fear that resides in his heart; a fear of defeat, humiliation, and death. It represents the human apprehension and insecurity that one carries everywhere, especially in a dangerous situation. This is significant as this makes most humans deviate from the path they swore to take and may betray their dearest, betray their obligations, betray the path of god, and turn away to preserve their own life.
Bravery, Cowardice, Fear, Lies, Truth, Ambition, Passion, Inconsistency are the qualities that compose humans, and indeed, these are the qualities that provide a purpose for humans to live for. Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is a sophisticated tale that drives on the quest to assess the potency of the human persona of virtue that he wears in front of the civilization in the ambition to become renowned. Sir Gawain is the character of the poem that exhibits the virtuousness and inconsistencies of humans. The fear of loss of his virtue and the love for his life becomes the reason for Sir Gawain, perhaps the king Arthur’s Court, to stumble upon their stringent virtues and lean towards the leniency of the indulgent way of life.
The work as a whole is an expedition to measure the human ability to control their overwhelming selfish desire that constantly lingers their mind to put their lives at stake for pride and ambition even if they have walked a path of pure altruism and virtue for a long time.
© Faizan Anwar 2021
