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Comparing Women In Sir Gawain And The Canterbury Tales

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Since the beginning of literature, women have been depicted as devious individuals. As a result, women put use to this stereotype to get what they want. This is proven, especially in medieval literature. Examples of this are shown in works like “Macbeth,” *Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” and “The Canterbury Tales”. In medieval literature women use men to further their agendas.
Women influence men to do their dirty work. For example in the book “Macbeth” Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to kill his friend, King Duncan, so they could rule Scotland. Her influence being to call his manhood into question. “What beast was ’t, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man; and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man” (Macbeth, act 1, scene 7.) Her words did the trick and he killed the king, thus keeping her hands clean and proving that women can easily control a man.
Women tempt men’s willpower with their seductive nature. Medieval women are known for their sexual prowess. One woman in particular is Lady Bertilak from “Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.” The lady uses her beauty and seduction skills to proposition Sir Gawain …show more content…

A great example of this is found in the medieval literature “The Canterbury Tales.” In the tale “The Wife of Bath's” the wife gloats about the power she has over all five of her husbands. “I kept my husbands well in hand. I told them they were drunk and their unfitness to judge my conduct forced me to take witness that they were lying” (Canterbury Tales, page 268.) The Wife’s deception against her husband gave her the upper hand in marriage. Stating that trickery was instinct in a woman. “Lies, tears and spinning are the things God gives by nature to a woman, while she lives” (The Canterbury Tales, page, 269.) The Wife’s manipulative ways insured that her husband was always wrapped around her finger, waiting to grant her any

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In the thirteenth century when Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was composed, and also in the Arthurian period in which it occurred, Christian conventions made a male-commanded society in which ladies had next to no apparent power. The worldview of ladies in this time was a fragile Catch 22 they were treated with worshipful admiration and worship, however were not regarded as fit creatures in their own particular right. A significant part of the chivalric code that knights prided themselves on depended on the supposition that ladies couldn't accomplish much for themselves, and in this way men needed to accomplish it for them. Be that as it may, the plot of this lyric demonstrates that ladies had the capacity to accomplish their necessities and

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Chivalric romances are often centered upon the efforts of gallant knights seeking to achieve a concept known as “true knighthood” which involves embarking on quests or adventures to obtain honor, love, and Christian virtue. The brave knights of these stories are met with many obstacles to overcome, commonly in regards to rescuing or protecting a lady. In other words, the typical role of women in this period is that of the damsel in distress or a helpless, dependent lady in need of a hero. However, the stories of Chrétien de Troyes’ Yvain, the Knight of the Lion and Friedrich Heinrich Karl La Motte-Fouqué’s The Magic Ring strays from the typical role of women as the damsel in distress.

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Women play a prominent role in medieval literature as they break tradition by gaining power and using it to their advantage. At this time, societies only allowed men to have power; however, the female characters in The Merchant’s Tale and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight defy this tradition. May and Lady Bertilak, Proserpina and Morgan le Fay, both have common tactics in order to gain power. Using the art of deception give May and Lady Bertilak the power to gain control over men. One day, in the garden, May asks if she can get on January’s back so she can get a pear.

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Gawain is courteous to no end, even asking for permission to “abandon [his] bench and stand by [Arthur]” (Pearl Poet l. 344) so he may risk his own life instead of his kings to abide by the Green Knights game. He even humbly states that he “[is] the weakest” (l. 354) and that it would be the least lost of he was to parish which is untrue. Gawain is also extremely courteous when he is denying the wife’s attempts to seduce him saying he is “a knight unworthy” (l.1245). He plays a game of wits as he must not offend her advances but at the same time must not let the wife win the “game” because then he would have to lay with her and that would be uncourteous to his host, Lord Bertilak. The only time Gawain faults in his courteousness is when he refuses to acknowledge the agreement he made with Lord Bertilak which was “whatever [Lord Bertilak] win[s] in the wood shall at once be [Gawain’s] and whatever gain [Gawain] may get [he] shall give in exchange” (ll. 1107-08).

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