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The Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The Role of Women in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
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A great terror struck our nation September 11, 2001, two aircraft’s hit the world trade centers, killing 2000 people and injuring over twice as many. A third aircraft flew into the Pentagon while a fourth crashed in a rural area in Pennsylvania. This day will forever be engrained into history as one of the worst terror attacks faced in this nation. Nearly three years later, in an attempt to figure out what happened on that tragic day, scholars came together to discuss the possible parallels between foreign and domestic terrorist. The author, Michael Kimmel, outlines the possible cause of the 2001 attacks and offers us a link between both foreign and domestic terrorism.
Albeit many perusing this sonnet would state the real conflict was between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, these two men are just pawns in a bigger clash between the ladies Morgan le Fay and Queen
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”.
Unfortunately over many years, society has portrayed females as objects, submissive, and property. Females have been neglected in societies and throughout the world from a variety of opportunities. Misogyny is a word used to describe a dislike of or ingrained prejudice against women. In most cases, an author can easily glossify their content to deceive the reader and use that to their advantage, however, one should always be alert because there is a fault in every published piece. For example, one can even see misogyny in many famous literary works such as Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.
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.
Women in the middle ages tend to be push aside as the Chaucer displayed in “The Knight’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”. In the medieval system, people believed that women are to be educated by their husbands, that women are vicious, and therefore they believe men were always right. Women’s position in society was determined by the unfavorable attitudes of leaders. Women also was to seem to be following the Mother of Christ example to preserve their virginity. When the Wife of Bath was created there was no awareness of feminine desire for equality.
Gender role is basically an arrangement of societal standards directing what sorts of practices are by and large viewed as satisfactory, suitable or alluring for a man in view of their real or actual sex. In this paper I will focus on the gender roles with reference to the mini-epic” the tain” This piece of Irish literature presents a very good distinction between the old period and the medieval time period. Formerly, men were the protagonists, leaders or the saviors in the literature. A man had to go to the wars and fights, to preserve the territory and honor (women) was their duty.
In his award-winning adaptation of Le Morte d’Arthur, which is titled The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, John Steinbeck colorfully depicts the adventures of the King Arthur and various knights who claim him as their leader. Together, they mend the rifts created in the kingdom by the death of Arthur’s father, King Uther, and shape the future of the realm. Equally as important and impactful as their male counterparts, however, are the many female characters who serve as their muses, guides, mothers, wives, lovers, daughters, friends, enemies, and bearers of doom. The portrayal of women in The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights demonstrates what various aspects of femininity represented to society at the time of the book’s writing.
The lines 1550-1553 from the Pearl poets epic Sir Gawain and the Green Knight epitomizes two of the most important virtues of a noble knight, and Sir Gawain, the man the story follows, defines what is a true knight. He holds a place next to King Arthur and the queen as well as exemplifying two of a knights most important virtues. The first being chastity and the second being courteousness, both however, are very much entwined in this tale. Throughout this epic and many other Arthurian legends praised these traits in the knight and as we shall see, Sir Gawain although still very much human, is a master of both. The virtue of chastity is extremely important in Arthurian legend and we can see this from examining Gawain’s shield.
Medieval society had the idea to illustrate women under two Biblical figures Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. This caused clashes in many aspects to question what loyalty must be. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the lady who is married is portrayed to be a lion towards Gawain, wanting sex from him and making him believe the stereotype of married women unable to control her sexual desires.. Also, young women who were married were depicted wild. In Miller’s Tale, Allison is portrayed as the unfaithful young wife of John, who could not control her desires of wanting Nicholas under her sheets.
Many historians believe that Richard was a homosexual, and rumors of his dalliances with other men were whispered during his lifetime. I will argue that the Gawain poet shaped his subject matter, a tale of Arthurian legend, to suit the secret tastes of his king. The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight uses homoerotic imagery, homosocial bonding, and triangulation of desire to reveal a coded celebration of homosexual love. The poet uses homoerotic imagery throughout the poem to reveal the desire that Sir Gawain and Lord Bertilak feel for each other. Throughout the course of
Throughout Old English Literature, women were seen as evil. Like in Beowulf where the woman with the most power was a monstrous sea creature who destroyed things. Or in Lanval and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight where women were dishonest and corrupted men, or like in The Wife of Bath where women manipulated men to get what they wanted; owned them in a way. In old English texts women are seen as an evil force; a force of destruction, corruption and cunning.
Women of the Medieval Times Women have always had a significant role in history even though they were treated horrible in most cases. During the Medieval Times was really the first time women were allowed to become more than just a house wife. The fight for equality has always been a struggle and even in today’s society is still an ongoing battle. Although women of lower and middle class were treated poorly in the Medieval Times, some powerful women held great responsibility and were looked up too by both men and children; despite being admired, “men were thought to be not only physically stronger but more emotionally stable, more intelligent, and morally less feeble” (Hopkins 5). “The position of women in the Medieval Society was greatly influenced by the views of the Roman Catholic Church” (Heeve).
Beowulf and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” are both narratives in which gender acts as an important theme within their individual communities; both have underlying meanings when it comes to defining what the role men and women in a good community should be. Or in other words, both stories paint a vivid picture of the role of women during the medieval time period, by suggesting that one gender had more power over another. However, these two narratives take alternative paths when expressing their views; Beowulf conveys its message through what is missing, while “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” incorporates satire and uses explicit narrative when telling the experience of a woman that is highly different from other women in her time. Furthermore, another difference that is appealing to the reader’s eyes, besides the way the two narratives reflect to women’s role in medieval times, is that men become the hero in Beowulf, while “the wife”, so a woman, becomes the authority figure in the story of “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.” I want to first introduce the two main differences between the two narratives and then I will explain how regardless of the differences, both of these narratives’ main goal is to show that women had less power and a good community back that time was male dominated.
Medieval literature portrayed women as either proper or monstrous. Lanval, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Beowulf all carry the pattern of women’s roles throughout the period of time. In Beowulf, women are portrayed in two ways, confined and unconfined. The women that adhere to the roles of wives, mothers, and
