Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Lines 491-1125 Summary & Analysis

The poem's descriptions of the changes in nature across the seasons is long and elaborate. By providing such detail of the natural cycles of the year the poet is able to make that time seem long, beautiful, and inexorable—time will keep on passing, and Gawain will have to face his doom. In this way, Gawain can be seen to symbolize all mortal men or women, living their long lives across the seasons, but with death always stepping closer. The Green Knight's game gets connected in this way to nature's "game" of mortality.

It seems that feasts and partying are the only way the court knows how to deal with anything. The Christmas game has turned into a strict covenant, forcing Gawain to face his own mortality, but human emotions like fear are not allowed to be shown at court. Reputation, and preserving it, comes first.

The elaborately described pentangle represents the exhausting level of pattern and symbol and superstition in the court of King Arthur. The knights spend hours decorating Gawain in these pictures but don’t prepare him in a practical or emotional way, or even ask how he's feeling. The court’s intense, rigid belief in symbols is itself a sign of the way the court has prioritized symbols above life. The poet comments that Mary, who is herself miraculous, should be the joy and motivation of Gawain's quest, but it's not clear that she really is: he seems to be pushed by reputation.

It's ironic that the knights talk of Gawain’s lost potential just as he is heading off on the first real test of his virtues. It is unlikely, if Gawain had gone on living a carefree life at court, that he would have acquired this reputation. Only by leaving this world that is so focused on reputation, by taking action in the real world, can one actually gain reputation. But once that reputation is gained, the knight's seem unwilling to risk it again.

Gawain’s journey into the wilderness is a journey out of the confines of the court’s moral code. There are no rules here, no order, and the games of the court have turned into very serious survival tests. It's interesting, then, that the orderless country is described as Godless, as if God is order.

Again the story is marked by Christian holidays, this one ensuring that the story will come full circle and Gawain’s visit to the castle will echo the Christmas feast of King Arthur’s court. The season's cycle, and each cycle brings man closer to his doom. Though Gawain doesn’t seem to notice the danger, the poet portrays the sudden vision of the castle as a kind of unsteady mirage, making us think that maybe it shouldn’t be so easily trusted. Though it is of course also significant that Gawain only finds the castle when he ceases to trust in himself and his own strength and puts himself in Mary's hands, suggesting that true Christian virtues may not be the boastful courage and reputation prized in Arthur's court but something more humble.

The welcoming warmth of the castle seems like the perfect sanctuary for Gawain, but it is a little too perfect to be believed. It is so similar to the poem's opening scenes of feasting rituals and material goods at Arthur’s court, which is uncanny and unnerving. At the same time, as the "beaver-hued" beards suggest, the men of this court have something more authentic and animal about them. They seem less distant from nature.

Secondly, we are learning to be weary of reputations, which seem to lock their bearers into actions that preserve that reputation above all else, and the fact that this new court has heard of Gawain and base their whole reception of him on that reputation should give some cause for suspicion.

The two women Gawain is introduced to are symbols of youth and age. Just as Guinevere was appreciated in court for her beauty, these women are objects of nature, and show how the passage of time affects even beauty. Note how the lord brings Gawain into a more private, domestic area of the castle, away from the public court life of the feast, and from this point on, Gawain’s trial becomes more domestic, more moral.

The similarity of this court to Arthur’s which was bound in the code of chivalry alerts us to the fact that there is something to learn here, some contrast to discover, plus the fact that the lord of the castle is familiar with the Green Chapel and has perhaps been there before creates a connection between this too-good-to-be-true court and the supernatural quest and the coming showdown with the Green Knight looming over Gawain.

Gawain has put himself into another set of rules in this game. There are connections being made in this section between the new host and King Arthur, as he is described as bold and energetic and obviously loves court life, but he’s also reminiscent of the antagonist, the Green Knight, because he is rougher and beardier (to coin a term), and seemingly closer to nature than Arthur. Further the game puts the Arthurian knight (Gawain) squarely in the court, while the lord himself will go to wrestle with nature through the hunt.