Custom «Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Cooper» Essay Paper Sample

The story of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” began at the end of year’s feast in the court of King Arthur. It is at this time that a green knight entered and asked the others if they wanted to play. In this game, the knight that chose to challenge him was to swing with an ax and try to chop off his head. As the story develops, three elements of romance: bravery, chivalry and quest come up. Love is not clearly defined in this work, but demonstrated by Sir Gawain when he accepts Green knight’s challenge. In giving in, Gawain had to overcome the love he had for a high ideal risk. Bravery is also demonstrated in this story. At the time of Sir Gawain quest, he remains brave and courageous at all times. Gawain accepted the challenge that no other knight dared to and he also refused to let the King give up his life. Chivalry is also tested, and it comes from the Christian concept of morality. Marriage is it comes out the book is an obligation of every grown up man. The King himself was married and it is his youngest beautiful wife that tempted Sir Gawain when she kissed him. Polygamous is normal in this set as the king leads by example. He is married to more than one wife (Cooper, 2008).

True love and faithfulness are not evident in the development of the story. Immorality comes out clearly when the Lords youngest wife kissed him and she could have even slept with him had he not controlled himself. Sir Gawain latter regained his morality and confessed to the King though he did not confess everything to him. This is a sign of unfaithfulness and untrustworthy from both the Kings wife and Sir Gawain himself. The writer implies that there is no relationship between love, sex and marriage. There is a lot of immorality such that some people are having extramarital sexual affairs. It also comes out clearly that people can have sex even if they do not love each other. During the New Year’s party, attendants are spotted misbehaving after getting drunk. The influence of alcohol makes the people to engage in sex with strangers. Some married men and women even engage in sex having left their real loved ones at home. Gawain misses the knight’s axe and also accepts the green girdle. This shows that though Knight courageous, he was still human and was capable of making errors. One should thus be conscious of his or her own morality and weaknesses even if under influence of alcohol. Change in environment should not be taken as an advantage. People should not behave well when with their spouses and badly when their spouses are not around. Affection and sexual desire is also seen when a lady offers Gawain a gift (Cooper, 2008).

He accepted the gift just because he was cautious not to offend her. Gawain knew he was doing the wrong thing because he had no intentions of sharing it with the Lord. Honesty is also demonstrated when he makes a three day agreement with the Lord. He was honest for the first two days and shared what he got. When the Lord was hunting on the third day, his wife gave him a magic girdle which would save him from the green knight. All this was a setup to test his honesty. He later reveals this to the Lord and other revelations when she offered herself to him (Cooper, 2008).

Generally, sex, marriage and love are the ultimate power of women. Men in many cases are the ones who go after women. It thus depends with the women to decide the kind of men they want to have as partners. The poem illustrates women as most powerful. Bertilaks wife and Morgan le Fay who are both women are the most powerful characters in the poem .Gawain’s scar and the girdle are symbols of feminine power as each of them diminishes Gawain’s masculinity. Bertilaks wife is strong as a character, especially in the bedroom scene. This is because, she makes the first move to Gawain, which he turns down but later confesses to his husband.