Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

a) The City versus Wilderness conflict, described in the notes on setting, plays a major part in shaping the action of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In your essay, please identify four things: What locale represents the City? Who is the main agent for the City? What locale represents the Wilderness? Who is the main agent for the Wilderness? Remember that both external and internal landscapes come into play when describing City and Wilderness, so your answers to these questions should include proofs from both external and internal features. A brief definition of the City versus Wilderness conflict should appear after the intro. In your conclusion, state how you think the conflict between City and Wilderness is resolved (who wins? on what terms?). Your paper should be organized as follows (minimum of one paragraph for each box):

Intro (with translator and title of poem, premise, and thesis)

Definition of City versus Wilderness:
a) What is at the center of this conflict?
b) What are the characteristics of the City?
c) What are the characteristics of the Wilderness? (For b and c, you may need one paragraph for interior features and one paragraph for exterior features.)

Locale of City:
a) What and where is this locale?
b) What characteristics of the City (from those you list above) identify this locale as such?

Agent of City:
a) Who is the character?
b) How does this character embody the values of the City?

Locale of Wilderness:
a) What and where is this locale?
b) What characteristics of the Wilderness (from those you list above) identify this locale as such?

Agent of Wilderness:
a) Who is the character?
b) How does this character embody the values of the Wilderness?

Conclusion

(Back ground information)

City and Wilderness

1. Arthur’s court represents the city: Arthur and Gawain are the agents of the city.

2. The Green Chapel and Bercilak’s castle represent the wilderness: the Green Knight, the Crone (Morgan le Fay), and the lady represent the agents of the wilderness.

3. As in The Odyssey and Beowulf, the wilderness attacks the city’s stronghold, and the hero must repel it, thus giving us overtones of a Deluge story.

a. Gawain takes on Noah’s role, riding the ark.

b. The Pentangled Shield (note that a shield’s shape resembles a boat) represents his ark, his sanctuary.

c. The bed on which Gawain is tempted by the lady also represents an ark, a place of sanctuary, though that sanctuary is violated and actually becomes the place of Gawain’s downfall.

d. And unlike in the Deluge stories of The Odyssey and in Beowulf, the hero fails to overcome the wilderness: the story becomes a precursor to the fall of Camelot.

4. Exterior–wilderness challenges the laws and customs of the city: Gawain must defend those laws (which he takes with him in the form of the shield) in the wilderness

5. Interior–wilderness challenges the mental weaknesses of the court and of the hero.

a. Bercilak says the test was meant to see if the court was guilty of pride (4.2456-8).

b. He also tests Gawain’s fortitude

i. Gawain fails in part because he cannot deal with his own fears, not because he’s facing a magical being.

ii. The Green Knight thus can represent Gawain’s own insecurities, and Gawain’s failure comes because he cannot overcome his insecurities

By admin in Essays on August 2, 2016