Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Study Guide Flashcards
Sir Gawain is a Christian knight, striving to be Christ-like and to honor God, but failing, as all of us do. How is Sir Gawain Christ-like? What aspects of his character are as yet immature and weak?
Christ
-faithful: still prays to God after trails in the wilderness (cold and wild animals) / 1) Mary asking for rest and 2) thanks Jesus and St. Julian
-humble: disowns himself before Arthur and Bertilak’s wife
Foolish and cowardly:
-to think the girdle would protect him
-trying to protect his life
Temptations
-succumbs to desires with girdle even if it could be considered adulterous
How is Bertilak’s wife like the seductress in Proverbs 7?
- Verse 10: dressed like a prostitute
- Verse 13: kisses
- Verse 19: tells him her husband is not at home
Discuss Felix culpa (St. Augustine once said, “For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist”). Do you see this in SGGK?
Gives girdle back to Bertilak originally but he wanted him to keep it to remind him of cowardice
Shows it to people he stays with on the way home
Shows it to Round Table to learn and grow in their courage (party)
Discuss the meaning of the pentangle.
- SGGK=first English story to mention it as a religious symbol
- 5 wounds of Jesus: head, hands, and feet
- continuous knot represents eternity
One of the accusations that virtuous people face when they refuse to succumb to a temptation is that they appear to look condescendingly on those who do not share their standards. We can see this in how Bertilak’s wife treats Gawain when he rejects her advances. Discuss.
- insults his courtly love and knighthood
- kisses
- ring and girdle
4 rules of courtly love
- Inspired the Kingston to do great deeds
- Obedience and submission to the lady
- Ennobled the knight (brought him honor)
- Not necessarily between a husband and a wife
Name the temptations and how Sir Gawain gets our of them.
- Challenges knighthood and tells him he can do anything with her but he says she had the better husband and gives her 1 kiss
- Praises strength but he says he’s not worthy (not a good knight) and gives 2 kisses
- Barely wearing anything, offers ring and girdle but he refuses the ring and accepts the girdle and 3 kisses
Why does Sir Gawain keep the girdle? Why does the court desire to share in his shame? Do we need reminders of our weak nature?
- reminds him of cowardice and to be courageous / learns from his mistakes
- be even more courageous, continuously grow in character as Morgan le Fay likes to test them
- straight and narrow path, would we learn from our mistakes?, think that would help more because as sinners, we perform the same sin over and over again
What is the “bob and wheel”?
Pattern of rhyme in an a, b, a, b, a form with the first a being the bob
Bob- the last word before the wheel
Wheel- the indented stanza
Is the Green Knight and entity of good, evil, or neither? Does he remind you of any other characters we’ve read about this year?
- tool for Morgan le Fay
- tests them
- to strengthen character
- seduction with wife: kinda of fails
- courage: fails
- forgives Gawain and only makes a small cut on his neck
- when Oliver slanders Ganelon, Roland tells him not to and forgives Ganelon.
The Gawain poet shows the difference between the knightly interpretation of gentilesse (nobility) and the Bible’s teaching on this virtue. Discuss.
Love
- courtly love vs. faithful love
- not necessarily between husband and wife
- even kisses are considered adulterous in the bible - you should not kiss anyone besides your husband
- Bertilak’s wife and Gawain: 6 kisses total, she’s trying to seduce him and Bertilak later addresses this
- David and Bathsheba and her husband
