Sir Gawain and the Green Knight III

Part 4: The Green Chapel I. Time in Gawain II. The tale concluded A. The three strikes B. The green girdle C. The perfidy of women D. Cross-dressing knights III. The Christmas Connection IV. The Moral of the Story

I. Time in Gawain Cyclic: Troy, Rome, Camelot Degenerative: Fall from the golden past Regenerative: Christmas

II. The tale concluded A. The three strikes 1. The agreement they made & Gawain's keeping of it the first day 2. The second day: he again kept his word 3. The third day: Gawain's partial failure in keeping the girdle

B. The green girdle C. The perfidy of women D. Cross-dressing knights

III. The Christmas Connection

IV. The Moral of the Story

"In the earliest Arthurian stories, Sir Gawain was the greatest of the Knights of the Round Table. He was famed for his prowess at arms and, above all, for his courtesy.... Here Gawain is the perfect knight; he is so recognized by the various characters in the story and, for all his modesty, implicitly in his view of himself. To the others his greatest qualities are his knightly courtesy and his success in battle. To Gawain these are important, but he seems to set an even higher value on his courage and integrity, the two central pillars of his manhood. The story is concerned with the conflict between his conception of himself and the reality. He is not quite so brave or so honorable as he thought he was, but he is still very brave, very honorable. He cannot quite see this, but the reader can....

The character of Sir Gawain is relatively fixed by tradition; he cannot act very differently from the way he does. In consequence, his character is static--is, indeed, less interesting than that of his adversary, the Green Knight. But it is for other qualities than character interest that Sir Gawain and The Green Knight is valued." (G. B. Pace, 35)