Sir Gawain’s character in the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight develops through the story. He is well known through the kingdom and is one of Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table, a respected group of knights. The Green Knight arrives during a New Year’s Eve feast seeking to play a Christmas game but with honorable people and who else better than the knights of the round table.
The Green Knight challenged the knights but King Arthur stepped up to the challenge for all of the knights thought it was foolish, however Sir Gawain is the one who takes King Arthurs place. It is at this point that Sir Gawain is encountering his first internal argument. He feels that his place at the table is least deserved. He says “I myself am the weakest,
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Sir Gawain eventually comes to the castle of Sir Bertilak who was also apart of the Green Knights test, but Sir Gawain had not yet connected the dots.
With this I would like to mention something that Howard stated and that is that “Things are arranged in pairs – there are two New Year’s days, two “beheading” scenes, two courts, two confessions; or in threes – three temptations, three hunts, three hunts, three kisses, three strokes of the ax.” (Howard 425) The story seems to follow a typical archetypal pattern with the magic number of three as well as keeping the pattern of two. Just as there are two main characters Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Not to mention that a beheading requires two people, the one dealing the blow and the receiving the blow.
Lord Bertilak similar to the Green Knight Challenged Sir Gawain to a game. Lord Bertilak would go out and hunt while Sir Gawain would stay in the castle. At the end of the day they would exchange what they won. The first two days Sir Gawain resist Lay Bertilak’s Seduction accepting only mere kisses while the king would bring back game that he had caught out in the wild while Sir Gawain would kiss the king for each time Lady Bertilak had kissed him. The third was his actual test linked Similar to the Green Knights