Sir Gawain Article Summary and Analysis Assignment

Samantha St. Claire

Prof. Flack

Eng 6

15 September 2012

The Mystery of Chivalry

Knightly chivalry isn’t what it seems at first blush. In Carl Grey Martin’s article, “The Cipher of Chivalry: Violence as Courtly Play in the World of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” he explains how brutality and courtly games are unexpectedly two sides of the same coin called chivalry, and how they harmonize surprisingly through the Green Knight’s queer but intentional games of ruthlessness and trickery.

Martin argues that the Green Knight (King Bertilak) may seem barbaric and cruel but in fact is the picture of chivalry. The Knight seeks a game and follows the rules of his game with steadfastness and no sign of waver. Martin adds that the Green Knight showed exemplary sportsmanship by making the rules fair to both sides: a free death strike for both sides. He acknowledges that Bertilak’s game seems at first glance incredibly unfair and swayed in his favor due to his knowledge that he would survive Gawain’s fatal strike. However, Bertilak is not only unarmed when Gawain prepares to behead him, but he is also without armor. Even more, he willingly bares his neck and does nothing to try to avoid Gawain’s swing! After all these factors are considered, Martin believes that “the Green Knight’s magic can be seen as a fair recompense for volunteering to undergo the first strike” (317). A noble knight would never stoop so low as to do battle with a man in such a state. And yet Gawain does, making himself no more chivalric and courteous than the Green Knight.  

 Sir Gawain will not avoid the pact he agreed to, as the depressed courtiers who watch the knight off on his bleak quest realize. Martin sees that they don’t see this game as an episode of true chivalry, because the ending is a guaranteed execution rather than a fair and gallant battle granting glory and honor to the winner. They see this as a waste of a perfectly noble, respectable knight of high class, deserving of rich halls and pleasure. Martin’s point is that they are being realistic, understanding that a game isn’t worth such dire risks and consequences. What they haven’t realized is that their common sense is revealing that their naïve view of chivalry and knightly games as having glory and honor but “no long-term consequences” is unrealistic and complicated. Clouded by their preferred view of chivalry, they “recognize knightly excellence, but not the obligations which it entails” (315). Especially if those obligations are to give up your rightful status and favored life for the sake of glory and righteous codes of honor.

Before the course of this game is even complete, Bertilak starts a new game with the same noble knight when he arrives at his court, with similar rules as the first: He’ll give to Gawain, and in return Gawain will give to him (essentially, “My head for yours; my daily winnings for yours”). Martin marks the foolhardiness of Gawain because “there is no trial of arms but the stakes remain high, for the young man is asked to commit himself without knowing what the ‘chaffer’ could be that he must unconditionally hand over,” and yet he once again “set[s] aside his practical concerns and jump[s] right in… despite the life-threatening experience in which games have embroiled him” (318). This is a picture of a brash, immature young man who has a lot to learn about life.

Finally, Martin makes the remarkable observation that King Bertilak is not playing games with the knight to mess with him, but to mature him and get him to understand the chivalric code he follows is impossible. The king gives Gawain the life-saving girdle through his wife, and Gawain passes the test by accepting it because he finally “comprehends that his game-playing has consequences” (319) and finally fears for his life. Unlike Sir Gawain, Martin does not consider the knight’s violation of the game’s rules as a weakness in the knight’s character, but as “a positive sign of growth, a deliberate self-assertion that reopens his collapsed future” (319). The noble Sir Gawain actually treasures his life more than he values his agreement with the king and withholds his “winnings” in the hopes of preserving his own life.

I found this observation to be incredibly insightful and makes sense to the story as a whole. Is that why the Green Knight appeared in King Arthur’s court in the first place? To find if there was a man dumb enough to willingly agree to go to his own death? In the end, the girdle did truly protect Sir Gawain from the death blow, because by taking it from the queen and keeping it for the sake of his own protection, he learned the lesson the king was trying to teach him all along: his lengthy, righteous list of virtues listed in the beginning of the poem are impossible to uphold. As the king said in the end, "I sent [my wife] to test you... /... it was loyalty that you lacked: / not because you're wicked, or a womanizer, or worse, / but you loved your own life; so I blame you less" (lines 2362-68). Gawain needed to look death square in the face in order to get a good dose of reality and common sense. With the lesson learned, the king was done with his game and let the matured knight leave with his head on his shoulders. The green girdle isn’t so much a sign of Sir Gawain’s failure of character as it is an emblem of the continual struggle to uphold our own personal standards.

 Martin, Carl Grey. “The Cipher of Chivalry: Violence as Courtly Play in the World of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Chaucer Review. 43:3. 2009. 311-329. Web.