Role Reversal
While the king is up before sunrise, "[making] for the hills in a hurry with his hunting horn" (1136), Sir Gawain is "slumbering in his sheets, dozing as the daylight dappled the walls" (1179-1180).
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| Yeah, I'm pro. |
Notice the contrast in action; the king is already in the thick of action, a sense of urgency permeating his morning. Sir Gawain's scene, on the other hand, is tranquil, peaceful, slow [maybe not in this GIF though!]. His lazy, sloth-like behavior taints the image of a strong, determined hero he had going on before, thereby thoroughly wimpifying him [and that is a word in our modern-day vernacular, thanks to
the Diary of a Wimpy Kid].
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| The challenges of the outdoors... xD |
This chapter sees the king and the knight switching places. Here, the king faces the challenges of the outside (if the castle represents the internal comfort and the wilderness outside an unfriendly setting) in his hunt, just as Sir Gawain faced his challenges when trying to find the Green Knight - "Here he scraps with serpents and snarling wolves, here he tangles with wodwos causing trouble in the crags, or with bulls and bears and the odd wild boar" (720-722). Here, the knight takes the king's place in his absence, enjoying luxury and being served, even getting the Lady's love (at least until we find out she was sent to seduce him by Lord Bertilak himself). He's being celebrated for his bravery of trying to find the Green Knight, even though he hasn't actually found him yet.
Also, all the game that the king brings back from the hunt, he gives to Gawain. It's his hard work that earned the kill, but it's Gawain that gets the game. The king is very much serving Gawain, when it is supposed to be the other way around, knights serving their lords.
The Significance of the Hunts and the Bedroom Scenes
"Furthermore," said the master, "let's make a pact. Here's a wager: what I win in the woods will be yours, and what you gain while I'm gone you will give to me." (1105-1108)
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| I gotta wake up... Shite, there's a turkey on my head! |
Let me just say that reading about Gawain lounging around lazily in the castle for something like twenty pages of the poem, in the days before going off to be beheaded, seemed very much like that wicked witch stuffing Hansel and Gretel with food before cooking them, or like feeding a turkey till it's big enough to kill and serve for a Thanksgiving of thirty. The assumed innocence and peace in the castle and the bedroom, compared to the wild outdoors, lures readers into a false sense of security, that nothing bad will happen to Gawain here. Sitting in a quiet, sheltered plain-walled bedroom with the sun spilling in through the curtains just isn't congruent with his impending doom. It's a lie, it's too good to be true. But perhaps it is for that same reason, that Gawain is placed in such an unusually calm environment just days before he's supposed to meet with the Green Knight, that the tension builds. You just can't help thinking that's something not quite right here. And it's true, Gawain is being tricked and tested right then and there.
The alternating hunting and bedroom scenes seem to parallel one another. Both are predator vs. prey games - the king being the hunter of the animals, and his queen chasing Sir Gawain. The behavior of the animals hunted each day tie in with Gawain's behavior, and are symbols for what could be, what should be, and what is, in that respective order.
A common perception I found on the web (I'm not sure from whom the idea originated) is that the poet, by presenting these two scenes beside and sometimes within one another, is masterfully equating the feminine pursuit of Gawain by the lady to the masculine pursuit of the beasts by the lord, thereby unveiling the chivalric code that medieval society abides by to reveal basic animal instincts - namely, the sexual drive and the desire to survive.
The First Day
In the first hunt, the master and his men chase deer. Deer are relatively weak, one of the easier animals to hunt. Remember that idiom "deer caught in the headlights"?
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| Oh... Whoops? |
The deer are portrayed as scared, easy prey - "quivering with dread" (1151) and easily controlled, as they can be herded by the men and killed easily, the arrows shot by the huntsmen easily "biting through hides with their broad heads" (1162). There is no escape for them; even if they evade the arrows, they are still forced in one direction and caught at the rivers and streams. It is a mass execution. It was an easy kill for the huntsmen, with no one dying or hurt. The game was valuable.
Notice that the deer were beheaded after they had already died, "the heads and necks of hinds were hewn off" (1353). Doesn't this have some sort of relation to the beheading game that the Green Knight lured Sir Gawain into playing? I think that this hunting scene represents one way that Sir Gawain could die. These deer were killed by the arrows, foreign elements that are not part of their natural environment. When Sir Gawain was trying to find the Green Knight, they were many things foreign to him too that threatened to kill him, "foe[s] so foul or fierce" (717) that he never had to deal with in the safety and comfort of King Arthur's castle. These deer were then only beheaded after their guts were removed, the rest of their body broken. Sir Gawain's fear of dying some other way other than the way he set out to parallels this fate. What a disappointment, what a shame, if Sir Gawain died because of some other foe out there before he could meet the Green Knight's challenge. He would have died breaking the vow and thus losing his honour.
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| I thought I would surprise her... but I really just embarrassed myself. |
Gawain's behaviour in the bedroom imitates that of the deer. Just as the deer had been ambushed by the huntsmen, Gawain was taken unawares by the lady, and in such a vulnerable state at that - naked, in his bed! As the lady nears his bed, "the knight felt nervous" (1189); the deer had been nervous too. The deer tried so hard to escape but in the end actually ran straight into the hunters' trap. Similarly, Gawain thought he could outplay the lady, pretending he was fast asleep to force the lady to play her hand first and later changing tactics to question her outright. The lady immediately turns the tables around though.
"You're tricked and trapped! But let's make a truce, or I'll bind you in your bed, and you'd better believe me." (1210-1211)
The lady attempts to seduce Gawain. "You're free to have my all, do with me what you will" (1137-1138). Real subtle.
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| Self-explanatory. |
She is very persistent and persuasive, telling Gawain that they won't be caught, the king is out of the castle, everyone is sleeping and the door is locked. Gawain isn't persuaded.
The lady:
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| Hell yeah, let's do it tonight |
Sir Gawain:
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| Nope, ain't interested! |
He plays the I'm-not-good-enough-for-you card repeatedly to politely reject her. Gawain is really in between a rock and a hard place. Attraction isn't an issue here for him. Rather, it's a conflict in honour here. He wants to remain honest and loyal to the lord that has welcomed him with such hospitality, but at the same time, he feels the duty of courtly love obliging him to do as the lady commands. But then the lady plays a low card.
"But I know that Gawain could never be your name." (1293)
It is not just Gawain's feeling of courtly obligation to fulfill the wishes of the lady that prompt him to eventually give in and let her kiss him. If not, he would have given in long before. Part of it is that she also hit a sore spot, his weakest point - his pride, pride born from the pride of the kingdom of Camelot, pride born from being a knight of Camelot. Although he is not boastful when she flatters him excessively, he is quick to defend his pride when she accuses him of being less than who he is, as if who he is should line with her expectations of him.
"A good man like Gawain, so greatly regarded, the embodiment of courtliness to the bones of his being, could never have lingered so long with a lady without craving a kiss, as politeness requires, or coaxing a kiss with his closing words." (1297-1301)
So, when Gawain accepts the kiss, it is to meet her expectations of who he, as the great Gawain, should be. And thus he falls prey to the sins of sloth and pride, but not lust.
An alternative interpretation of this scene is given by W. R. J. Barron in his book
Trawthe and Treason: The Sin
of Gawain Reconsidered. Barron's view is that “the moral victory is Gawain’s” (29).
"The Lady snatches a token victory at the last moment by claiming a kiss
by right of courtesy; but Gawain deprives it of the impropriety which
the bedroom setting might have given it by treating it as the proper
duty of a vassal and by supinely accepting rather than giving it" (29)
His basis is that Gawain defined the terms of the kiss - the lady kissed him; he didn't kiss her. Thus, the kiss isn't improper, it is merely a knight dutifully accepting a lady's kiss. I'll leave it up to you which you agree with.
The Second Day
The second hunt is definitely harder than the first, as is already seen from the first line.
"Soon they picked up a scent at the side of a swamp" (1421)
Whereas the first hunt had the huntsmen at an advantage, the wild creatures being afraid of them even just by their sound, the prey in this hunt is decidedly more stealthy. They have to track it using the dog's keen sense of smell before catching sight of it. It's like the reader is being brought along on the journey with them, seeing when they see. The deer from the first hunt are announced from the get-go while here, the animal they are hunting isn't revealed to us until they find it themselves. There's that element of suspense; what is it going to be? We get the sense that this creature is going to be harder to kill than the deer.
It's a boar.
"The biggest of wild boars... bolted from his cover... savage and strong, a most massive swine." (1439-1441)
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| oink |
Ain't this one, man... It's THAT one.
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| I AM BOAR, HEAR ME ROAR! |
Unlike the hunt the day before, this hunt results in the death of several huntsmen, with the boar sustaining little injury. "The group were aggrieved, for three were thrown down by the first of his thrusts; then he fled away fast without further damage" (1442-1444). This highlights the vulnerability of the men despite their bows and arrows. Not only do they fail to attack it, they are defenseless against it. In fact, it always seems like the tables have been turned, almost like the prey has become the predator. Whereas the first day's hunt was a massacre, this day's hunt focuses on just one. It is a more formidable one, requiring more strategy. Boars are, after all, known for their fierceness in battle.
"Testing him time and time again." (1448-1449)
The lord isn't just testing the boar. Looking over this scene, knowing that the lord is the Green Knight, the correlation between the hunting games and the bedroom games becomes even more obvious. The lord is also testing Sir Gawain's honour, loyalty, morals. The boar puts up great resistance, just as Gawain does, continuously rejecting the lady's advances. It's like each of the men that the boar kills is like each of the flattering words the lady says to seduce Gawain, which Gawain doesn't fall prey to. Each of the arrows that the huntsmen shoot fail to pierce through the boar's tough hide, which is quite reflective of Gawain deftly and politely blocking each advance of the lady. For every move she makes, Gawain counters appropriately. Until.
It is very important to note that the boar meets the lord in battle. He does not run away from death, as the deer did, but instead gives quite a struggle, determined not to go easily. His lordship brandishes a sword and charges at the beast. Instead of backing away, it "burst forward, bound at the lord" (1589). This displays a lack of fear, that the boar will not go down without a fight. In a way, this is a metaphor for what Gawain should do, and has been and is doing. Just as the boar runs forward to meet its killer, Gawain sets out into the world to find and meet the Green Knight. By venturing out into the world to find the Green Knight who will surely behead him, Gawain displays initiative, true bravery, and activeness. If it were the other way around, with the Green Knight tracking down Gawain to get his due, Gawain would take on a very passive role, just waiting in the same place for the Green Knight to find him. In fact, this opposite would make Gawain seem very cowardly.
The Third Day
The last day, the lord and his huntsmen chase after a fox. The poem's description of the fox's attempt to escape is as such: "Now and then he doubles back through thorny thickets, or halts and harkens in the hem of a hedge, until finally, by a hollow, he hurdles a fence..." (1707-1709) Notice the abundance in alliteration. The fox is really trying to cleverly lose his chasers, darting in and out of places to confuse them and perhaps throw them off his scent. It'd also slow them down if they have to twist and turn to follow him, rather than just pursue it in a straight line. Thus, from this description, it is evident that the fox is cleverly deceptive, and this is backed up by the common ideas of foxes being sly and mistrustful, cunning.
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| The huntsmen: Wait up! |
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| The fox: No can do, bucko! |
Gawain, too, is being mistrustful this day. By taking the girdle from the lady and promising not to tell her husband about the gift, he betrays the pact he has with him. This does not go without consequence; just as the fox is eventually caught despite all its attempts to thwart its pursuers, Gawain's omission, too, is caught by the Lord Bertilak / Green Knight in part 4.
Also, the fox is the least valuable of all the game that the lord brought back. Both the deer and the boar were to proud of, valuable as trophies of the rigorous hunt and as food. However, the fox is only good for its pelt. Primarily, it is pretty much considered a rodent, and so worth little in value. It is also a great load of effort for very little gain; the lord and his huntsmen are shown chasing after the fox for the entire day, only catching him mid-afternoon. In this way, they could have felt quite cheated - which is how Lord Bertilak might have felt, having Gawain honour the pact for the first two days and then bailing on the last.
It is curious that it is this most worthless animal that deserves personification. The fox is branded a thief and even given a name - Reynard!
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| Reynard the Fox |
The fact the huntsmen have taken to calling the fox a thief shows their annoyance with it, having chased it for so long and still not caught it. The fox has stolen their pride and their time. This is contrasted to the previous two hunts, when the huntsmen didn't do any name-calling, on account that the first hunt was fairly easy and the second hunt had resulted in many deaths; they feared the boar instead. In this scene, the hunt becomes less of that noble traditional sport and more of a task, a dare. Maybe if it had been early in the game, they could have backed out and gone hunting for something else. But this fox had been evading them for the majority of the day; to let him go would be to admit defeat. The parallel in the bedroom scene is that the lady is tired of Gawain's rejections and steps up her game to eventually make him succumb. Instead of tempting him with lust, as she found out does not work, she tempts him the desire to stay alive - offering him her magical girdle to save him from dying.
The Girdle: a Symbol of Temptation
"I have tested you twice and found you truthful. But think tomorrow third time throw best." (1679-1680)
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| Temptation on a hot summer's day |
On hindsight, these lines foreshadow Gawain's downfall. The last test of the set might very well be the one that Gawain fails, and as it turns out, it is. The possibility of temptation does not lie with the kisses that the lady convinces him to allow her to give; it lies in whether he feels that he cannot be honest with the lord. He allows an increasing number of kisses each day, and he gives that same number to the lord without hesitance. In that way, he did not succumb to temptation, honouring the pact he made with the king. That was, after all, the important thing in the Green Knight's eyes - keeping his promise. He didn't care much about the fact that Gawain was being intimate with his wife behind his back, because he had sent her to him; he cared more about Gawain telling him the truth about it. Then the third day comes and his acceptance of the girdle and his promise not to tell the king about it, thus breaking the pact he had with the king, symbolizes his fall into temptation. It is not really the acceptance of the girdle that is his fall into temptation but rather the fact that he chooses to honour the lady's request rather than the pact he made with the lord.
The girdle is a very intimate possession. It's described "from around her body, she unbuckled the belt which fastened the frock beneath her fair mantle" (1830-1831). There are clear sexual tones going on in this scene. She's basically giving Gawain her undergarment, when she is spoken for by another. By giving him her girdle, she's testing his attraction to her, challenging his morals and loyalty to her husband, and culminating the three days' events into one 'trophy'. She wants to give him a token to remember her by, since he has nothing to give her. To say the least, it is a very loaded item.
"For the body which is bound within this green belt, as long as it is buckled robustly about him, will be safe against anyone who seeks to strike him, and all the slyness on earth wouldn't see him slain." (1851-1854)
Gawain doesn't accept it initially, praise his will. But upon hearing of its magical ability to protect him, he immediately sees this as a loophole out of the Green Knight's challenge. Although he is determined to meet his challenge and prove his honour, any safe card from death would be appreciated. But that is cheating; it lessens the honour of going to his death, knowing that he has something to protect him from it as opposed to before he received the girdle, knowing he was going without. Not that he can be blamed for self-preservation.
In order to play down his betrayal of the hospitable king, he disassociates the girdle from the lady's body and takes it as a shield. But just because one pretends it isn't something doesn't mean it's not.
"She gave with good grace, though went on to beg him not to whisper a word of this gift to her husband." (1861-1863)
When will this woman quit giving him grief?
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| I'm fine. No, really. I can handle this dog. |
"No sooner can he say how much it matters, when the third kiss comes his way." (1867-1869)
Uh, I guess never.
A redeeming point for Gawain is that after the lady leaves him and he doesn't have to keep up an air of polite pretense, he becomes remorseful and guilty about his failure to keep his word to the king. It's very much an internal struggle, trying to balance the obligations to a lady and to a lord. It's not really his fault when they inevitably cross over and contradict each other. Gawain is quite serious about his remorse; he feels the need for honour so intensively that he considers what he's done a sin, proof of his flaws. He goes to a chapel and confesses to the priest, in hopes that he will be forgiven.
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| Forgive me? |
"A green silk girdle trimmed with gold" (1832)
Warning sign. Flashing lights. Howling alarm.
Flip back to the description of the Green Knight in the first part of the story. He's not just the Green Knight, but the Green
and Gold Knight. Whoops, guess that was a typo on their part.
If Gawain had been more alert, he would have noticed the similarity between the girdle and the Green Knight and realized that the lady was in cahoots with the Green Knight and that he was already being tested for truth and honour, days before they were destined to cross paths again. The Green Knight / Lord Bertilak knew when Gawain was telling the truth, because he would hear the story from Lady Bertilak first.
Hence, if you read this story as a Christian text, with the Green Knight being God and Gawain being your everyday Christian, this represents the all-knowing power of God, that he watches all and knows all. The girdle represents temptation that man should avoid so that he does not commit sins.
Though Gawain has managed not to be seduced into sleeping with the lady, he was still seduced into breaking the first vow he made with the lord. He might have been honest about the three kisses but he omitted the gift of the girdle knowingly. He regrets his weakness later on, in part 4, and the girdle is transformed. From a belt, Gawain loops it around his body like a sash, "as a sign that his honour was stained by sin" (2488). He declares it boldly on his body, to prove his repentance and to apologize for his missing strength at a time it was greatly called for.
The girdle represents his failure, his weakness, his very humanity (he is not God, nor does he have superpowers; he is just human, and so weaknesses are part of the deal). He hid the girdle before, and that was his downfall, so now he openly wears it to remind him not to commit the same mistake again.
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| yeah... I'm just going to go now. |
Done by Chin Xiu Qi
For a presentation in my 300-level Medieval Literature class (8th June, 2013).
Attributions:
1. Michael Hall - The Temptation of Gawain: An analysis of the bedroom scenes in Fitt III
2. The Unemployed Writer - Animal Parallelism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The Importance of the Hunt
