Similarities Between Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Punishment

With the reoccurring element of trials that push the characters to the edge, the authors of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” comment on the nature of punishment and forgiveness. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the author uses punishment and forgiveness to force the reader to acknowledge human pitfalls and the stumbling blocks that pride and chivalry create. Chaucer, through his work in the “Wife of Bath’s Tale,” uses punishment and forgiveness to critique the character’s actions and the idea of autonomy. As the verse romance and the frame story progress, the reader is able to glean the effects of punishment and forgiveness on the story as a whole and the characters that create the story. In the beginning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the knight’s challenge is the first brush with punishment that Sir Gawain faces. In Sir Gawain’s response to the challenge,

By sending him on the quest that is unsolvable quest, the reader is drawn to the knowledge that his death is eminent without the help of divine or magical intervention. His punishment for his crime, at this point, is his cognizance of his obvious fate. “Within his brest ful sorweful was his gost, / But hoom he goth, he mighte nat sojourne: / The day was come that hoomward moste he turne” (WBT, ls. 992-994). With the nature of his crime being one of thoughtlessness, Chaucer’s telling the story of the Knight’s comments on the nature of acting with thoughtlessness and without care for others. Chaucer believes that actions committed with a sense of carelessness should feel the sense of hopelessness that comes with the loss of freewill. This notion can be paralleled with the author’s belief that the Wife of Bath should receive punishment for the selfish maltreatment of her former husbands through Janekin’s treatment of