Chivalry in Gawain and Morality in the Bible

            One of the most important themes, arguably the most important, throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the issue of the nature and strictness of the knight’s code, better known as Chivalry. Constantly Gawain is pressed with deciding whether following his knight code is the right decision for his situation, and which section of the code he should value the most as shown by the case of the hostess’s seduction of Gawain. The theme of morality in Christianity is something that is very similar in its themes to Chivalry, not only due to the fact that much of the Chivalric code revolves around faith in God and being a good Christian, but also in the way that the stories of the New Testament define dealing with morality just as Gawain has to deal with his Chivalry. 

            The first major comparison between these two comes through Gawain’s five-pointed star, the “”pentangle” as it is called in the story, on his shield. Each point represents a virtue of his Chivalric code: Fidelity/Faith, Honesty, Courtesy, Prowess, and Generosity as given by Friar Angelo in his youtube video[i]. As with most New Testament stories, at “first, [Gawain] was faultless in his five senses” (Sir Gawain P. 127), but as the story progresses, Gawain is challenged with decisions in which he must choose what points he values most. His faith in God is tested at the beginning of his search for the Green Chapel, when “the food that he fancied was far from his plate” (Sir Gawain P. 129), and he spends all his time battling with monsters and various enemies in the wilderness, but in the end he still “prays with all his might”, just as Job was tested in the famous Bible story. Next of course is the testing of Sir Gawain's loyalty to the lord or his respect for the lady's wishes during her attempts at seducing him. Even throwing out the fact that she is trying to seduce him, which would be considered something of easy-pickings for a comparison with Christian teachings, just taking into account that he is torn between two points of his pentagon is a test not too much different from those in the Bible, such as whether one should put their faith in God first when it comes to survival in the wild.

            Ultimately, what connects these two bodies of literature is the similarity between the Chivalry defined in Sir Gawain and the way of interpreting God’s word in the New Testament. Before his experiences with the Green Knight, Gawain has a very strict way of following his code, but as the story progresses, he learns that he must use it as a guideline more than a strict law. This culminates in the Green Knight’s letting Sir Gawain go because he had essentially “confessed” to him his sins and faults, instead of cutting his head off as had been stated by the covenant between the two. Similarly, the New Testament changes the way that God’s rules and sayings are interpreted in the Old Testament by depicting a much more sympathetic and forgiving God instead of a vengeful and strict one. While this does not dissolve the Chivalric code or the Moral code of Christianity, this viewpoint is a one with a much less strict atmosphere, one that would feature even the worst sinner being given a second chance as the right thing to do above all else. The stories of being given a second chance and forgiveness are what one would call Classically Christian, and what is Sir Gawain if not a reflection of those who would have been “Classically Christian”?

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[i] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEd--eVokkw