Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Blog: Draft #1

Lauren Chanen

Coon

AP English

October 2011

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Blog: Draft #1

            Although Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late fourteenth century medieval romance, many comparisons can be drawn between that story and situations, events, or literary pieces of today. The reason that many aspects of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are still seen in current situations is that many issues that arise in the story relate to universal truths or questions about human nature. For example, one central message of the story is that of forgiveness. This message is demonstrated through the encounter between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the end of the story. Earlier, Sir Gawain had made a deal with the host with whom he was staying that the host would go out and hunt during the day while Sir Gawain would stay at home with the women, and at the end of the day, they would exchange what they had received. However, when the host’s wife gives Gawain the magical green girdle, Gawain does not even tell the host about this gift let alone give it to him as their arrangement had dictated. In the end, when Sir Gawain meets with the Green Knight, the Green Knight knows about Gawain’s dishonorable sin of not abiding by the rules of the deal, so he says that Gawain has a “cowardly and covetous heart” and that “in [him] is villainy and vice, and virtue laid low” (162). Although the intensity and harshness of these statements demonstrate that Gawain’s transgression was seen as incredibly shameful, the Green Knight excuses Gawain’s sin very quickly and without difficulty. This easily granted forgiveness could be compared to the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur.

            Yom Kippur, the day of atonement and repentance, is a time when Jews are supposed to regret their sins, resolve never to do them again, ask for forgiveness from the persons whom the transgressions were against, and confess the sins to G-d. If they do so, G-d will forgive them, and the people whom they have hurt are supposed to do so as well. Similarly, as soon as Gawain simply confesses to his sin and asks to be back in the Green Knight’s good grace, the Green Knight says, “I hold you polished as a pearl, as pure and as bright as you had lived free of fault since first you were born” (162). In both cases, the simple acts of confession and asking for forgiveness are extremely powerful; it is so powerful, in fact, that in Judaism, on Yom Kippur, if someone asks a person whom they have hurt through a sin for forgiveness three times, and each time, the person refuses to grant the sinner forgiveness, G-d still forgives the sinner because he made an effort to ask for forgiveness.

The fact that someone can transform from being viewed as a lowly coward to as pure as a pearl after saying just a few sentences is a somewhat easier process to achieve forgiveness than that of Yom Kippur; Yom Kippur requires that the sinner truly regret the sin and never repeat it, but in Gawain’s case, readers do not know whether he truly regrets what he has done or simply wants to regain his honor. The fact that he is forgiven suggests that he probably did something to demonstrate a sense of guilt in order to prove that he learned his lesson from the situation. Before his journey, he was a knight, but he did not represent the ideal of knighthood well because he was not very humble or honorable in that sense. However, in the end, he wears the green girdle as a sign of his own sin and failure, and this action demonstrates that he deserved to be forgiven even though he had sinned. Thus, this story and Yom Kippur both teach that what one has done in the past cannot be changed, but so long as the person learns his lesson from his previous sins, does not repeat them, and acknowledges his own failure and flaws, he deserves forgiveness.