Analysis: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Essay Example

This story tells of his adventures to meet the mysterious Green Knight who met Sir Gawain at Camelot one Christmas feast. A Christmas feast was held every year by King Arthur for all his knights to enjoy and revel in their adventures. At the same time, hopefully, a new adventure would prevent itself to one of his knights. And one Christmas feast, it did, as the main celebrations fell upon New Year’s Day. A knight completely dressed in green armor from head to toe with the hooded cloak made of the finest fabrics walked into the feast after hearing of King Arthur and his vaunted Knights of the Round Table.

This knight also carried jades encrusted into the hilt of his battle axe. He got a laugh after seeing the Knights of the Round Table that evening. The Green Knight thought of all of Arthur’s knights as beardless children. Only one knight dared to challenge the Green Knight after he slammed his battle axe into the stone floor. He offered a chance for the challenger to take the first blow at his neck. Gawain picked up the axe and beheaded the Green Knight, but the knight’s body did not fall though his blood, green in color, spilt.

His body picked up the head and returned it to its place upon his shoulders. As he rode off, the head just gave instructions for Gawain to meet him in one year’s time at the Green Chapel. This green blood and the fact that even, though the Green Knight was beheaded he still lived, allows one to believe that this knight was no mere human or even human at all. Maybe he was one of the first recorded aliens brought down in folklore with a tale that includes mysticism. One may never know for certain (Chaucer p 173).

Though the Green Knight, on the eve of battle with Gawain, sent his trusted wife to tempt Gawain into dishonoring himself, Gawain himself managed to ward off the temptation of the Green Knight’s wife. She had given him as a token of their night a