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Use of symbols in sir gawain and the green knight
Sir Gawain and the green knight as a romance poem
Sir gawain and the green knight symbolism
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The main theme of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the journey to maturity of Gawain, the hero. During the passage, Gawain goes through three tests on his development. First, Gawain shows courage and resourcefulness when he volunteers to take the Green Knight’s challenge instead of Arthur doing so. Second, Gawain shows authority, self-restraint, and integrity when he denies the sexual endeavours of the lady of the house. Lastly, Gawain shows bravery when he faces death by keeping his meeting with the Green
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the author’s rhetorical purpose is to entertain the reader by telling a story of a knight learning truth and honesty. The author uses color, alliteration, repetition, bob and wheel, and antanaclasis to keep you interested in reading the poem. The first rhetorical device is color. The author uses color to help you picture what the characters look like. The uses sentences like “Splendid that the knight errant stood in a splay of green, and green, too, was the mane of his destrier.”
The style of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is written with extreme imagery and detail. It's the kind of story that uses imagery and details to make it so that the reader almost feels the weather, sees the sights, and feels the emotion happening in each scene. He describes things with words I don't quite understand, but still with enough detail to make it seem very vivid. 2. Symbols: His pentangle: is a sign that Solomon composed to stand for truth, because it has five points and lines, all of which interlace with the other.
After reading the poems from, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” it seemed like the pentangle meant a lot to Gawain. The pentangle throughout the story was a magical seal that symbolized truth. The golden pentangle was also known as the endless knot. As stated in the reading from line 620-630 reads: “With the pentangle painted on it in pure gold.
In the enlightening poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a noble and honorable knight is set with a task that will challenge his honor and his chivalry. When an astonishing green knight appears and proves to possess surreal characteristics, he makes a deal with Gawain to strike him with his axe as long as he can strike him back in one year time. To keep his word Gawain takes a journey that will illustrate true human characteristics possessed by the poems hero. It is kind of silly to relate the two stories because they are completely different, but I found some relevance in them.
This scar from the Green Knight helped Gawain to realize his faults and the things that make us human in life. As he realizes these imperfections it says, “Gawain stood their speechless for what felt like a century, so shocked and ashamed that his stomach churned and the fire of his blood brought flames to his face and he wriggled and writhed at the other man’s words.” (179). The Green Knight had tested Gawain and by being honest two-thirds of the time, Gawain was allowed to live, even though he would always live in shame from that moment on. Others believed that he was brave and stood up, but Gawain was ashamed while the knights thought he was honorable.
The ideals of Christian morality and knightly qualities are represented by Gawain’s gold, star-shaped pentangle. The five knightly virtues that Sir Gawain expresses are: generosity, chastity, friendship, piety, and courtesy. From the beginning of the poem, Sir Gawain portrays his generosity by agreeing to cut the Green Knight’s head with an axe. He makes this decision after King Arthur fails to do so (Cathell, 2014).
During the Medieval times chivalry was one of the most important characteristics a knight could display. Chivalry was viewed as a moral obligation that involved bravery, honor, respect, and gallantry. Knights were expected to uphold this code or face social consequences for any infractions, with punishments ranging from humiliation to termination of their knighthood. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” presents the struggles knights faced with honoring the chivalrous code at all times. Sir Gawain, while imperfect, exhibits qualities expected of knights and embodies the internal struggle between honoring the chivalrous code and giving into selfish desires.
What is chivalry, exactly, and how does Gawain demonstrate the chivalric ethos in the first two sections of the poem? [ ethos= ethical philosophy] Chivalry is the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms. The way Gawain demonstrates chivalric ethos is that he honors the King and shows bravery and humility by accepting the Christmas challenge and not allowing the king to do so. He keeps his word by going to the Green Chapel on the day agreed. He keeps his word by giving the Lord the kisses he gets from his wife.
Canto four almost resembles Canto two in the very beginning, especially in terms of themes. That recurring theme of man and the natural world appears yet again in this Canto. The more recurring part having to do with the fact that Gawain has to reenter the forest, but instead of him being scared and alone like he was the first time, he is confident and with an escort. Aside from this, the main focus of this Canto is on the theme of chivalry. The Green Knight praises Gawain for carrying out his quest like a true knight, but he still broke the chivalric code because he wanted to live.
At the beginning of the story Gawain is described as a great knight and as a courteous man "the man to whom all excellence and valour belongs, / Whose refined manners are everywhere praised" (911-912). The pentangle that can be found on his shield shows his aspiration to become perfect in each of the five senses. But this aspiration seems to be unattainable at the end of the poem when Gawain is portrayed as the imperfect
In the poem of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” written by the Pearl Poet, there are very prevalent amounts of symbolism. Some of the symbols within the poem are easy to see while other symbols are not so easily found or even understood by the reader. The easy symbols the reader can clearly see in the poem would be the Pentangle, the Girdle, and the color green. The symbols that are harder to see in the poem, is the number three, and certain objects such as the axe and the rose. The symbolism used by the author gives the poem a deeper plot and a more important meaning.
Sir Gawain and the Green depicts this importance of faith by testing Gawain’s moral and knightly code. Gawain is the epitome of what a knight ought to be, with a strong moral code and an unquestioning faith, which he proudly displays on his shield with the Virgin Mary painted on the inside and the Pentangle on the outside. This faith is soon meet with a test the castle of the lord and his once strong faith in God falters. While Gawain is able to remain innocent when it comes to the seductive ways of the lord’s wife, he is unable to stop himself from accepting her magical girdle that would protect him against any harm, even though it is in opposition to both his faith and his loyalties. Gawain comprises his morals due to fear about his impending encounter with the Green Knight and he give into his fear and takes the magical protection the girdle offers.
In Titus 3:2 it says “to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle, and to show perfect courtesy toward all people (ESV).” If there were a verse to symbolize the idea of a perfect knight, it would be Titus 3:2. It exemplifies the rules of chivalry back in the medieval romance period very well. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain illustrates the rules of chivalry and event to the point where some consider him the perfect knight. Unfortunately though, there are times throughout the poem that he displays his imperfections, but do they outweigh all the multiple other positive attributes and decisions he makes?
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written by an author who is unknown to all, is a story, in the genre of Arthurian Romance/Epic, containing certain qualities of the symbolism of the Christian variety. “ So the star on this spangling shield he sported / shone royally, in gold, on a ruby red background… “ (Part 2, Lines 662-663 ) The meaning of this Pentangle has to do with Christianity. The fact that Sir Gawain displays this shield so proudly means he thinks of himself as a chivalrous and holy
