Knighthood Virtue In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Many scholars offer different interpretations to the meaning of the poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Several of them interpret the poem as a test of knighthood virtues and believe the first failure of Sir Gawain’s knightly virtue happens during the green girdle test. A particular journal, “The Meaning of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,’” by Gordon M. Shedd suggests the heroic struggle that Sir Gawain faces is the truth about “the nature of man” and “the code he finds lacking” (Shedd 4). In addition, he believes medieval romance stories ignore the fact that even the most virtuous men fail: “The poem constitutes a glaring violation of the traditional success-story pattern, and the hero’s lapses of courage and honour, those twin corner-stones of the chivalric edifice, are highly untypical of the knightly conduct we find illustrated with such stultifying sameness in medieval story” (Shedd 4). Although this theory is scholarly
Because Sir Gawain exchanged his gifts during the first two days at the castle, the green knight does not strike him during the first two blows. However, upon the third strike the green knight nicks Sir Gawain’s neck, resulting in Sir Gawain jumping up and stating, “Have done with your hacking-harry me no more” (Page 1691, Line 2322)! Gawain finally realizes even a strike to the neck does not have to result in death and every life has value. Furthermore, to prove the green knight accomplished what he wanted he states, “The cause was not cunning, not courtship either, / But that you loved your own life; the less, then, to blame” (Page 1692, Lines 2367-2368). William A Paris brings this analysis to light by stating, “Sir Gawain’s recognition of his own mortality is what ultimately precipitates failure; but in coming to grips with the dilemma in his own way, he learns what he is made of… a man among men and hero among heroes