A medieval literature essay english literature essay

Megan MowrerWL1Medieval Literature EssayThe story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has a lot of instances where it portrays there society in medieval times. One of those is it shows where they are celebrating Christmas. This shows that their society studies Christianity as a religion, because if they didn’t study christiananity they wouldn’t be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Also it talks about them feasting while celebrating Christmas. Also they exchanged gifts like we still do today. This shows how the royals celebrate in their type of society. Another example that shows how the life of the royals was it talks about the luxuries. They wore very delicate and costly embroidered and also jewel crafted fabrics, and had expensive silk curtains. They also had very detailed and expensive armor for the rich. Also most medieval literature shows spring and summer seasons because they are happy and pretty settings. Sir Gawain is set in the middle of the winter and its freezing rain and snowing and the wind is very bitter. I think the author was trying to portray that the people in their society was very strong and independent. Also this shows that the author was all about reality not pleasure. Also in the literature it talks a lot about hunting and this shows that hunting was a very important thing in their society. This means they went out and killed what they ate and used the other parts of the animal in their society also, so this means they lived off of what nature had. Also they played games a lot throughout the story. Some were probably fun but the ones described in this story aren’t so much fun. It shows how their society played games. One of the games was the beheading game. The Green Knight challenges King Arthur’s knights to play the beheading game. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge. The game is for Sir Gawain to take a swing at the Green Knights head to cut it off, and then the Green knight gets to do it to him after that. Sir Gawain cuts his head off but it doesn’t kill him, so he promises to return his part of it a year later. This shows the society was very weird in there ways of thinking. When Sir Gawain gets to the other castle he is greeted very welcoming. Everyone is super nice to him and also makes him feel right at home. This shows that the society is very friendly and likes people coming into their homes. They also talk about playing games but these are fairly nice games, a lot better than the beheading game. The next game that was explained in the story was the temptation game. It starts off the host is going hunting every day and when he returns home he will give everything he killed to Gawain and Gawain is to also give the host everything he got that day. The two keep their promise and give each other what they received. Which in the hosts gifts it was animals, and in Gawain’s gifts were kisses that he got from the host wife. This to me shows how their society was about truth and honor. Keeping your word with someone was very important to them in this society. That’s why the host respected Gawain because he kept his word and gave him the kisses. Also the host wife tempts Gawain over and over again to try and get him to give into her. But all he ever does is kiss her. So he thinks a lot of staying true to himself and not sleeping with another man’s wife after being taunted by her, and he even refuses a couple more gifts from her. This shows that he is a very good man and he can be trusted with things like this. She offers him a green girdle with magical powers that will protect the person wearing it from death. He being so scared of the green knight cutting his head off, he takes the girdle. But he doesn’t tell the host about it because if he did he would have to give it to the host. He needed it to stay alive, and this shows that all mankind is the same. We will do anything to keep from being killed no matter how good of a person we are. When Gawain gets to the Green Knight he finds out the green knight was the host, and he doesn’t kill him he just cuts his neck a little. This is a punishment for not giving the green girdle to him on the third day. This shows that the society was caring because he could have killed him for not keeping his promise, but he only punished him for the little sin he committed. Also when Gawain rides back to Camelot he tells the people that he will wear the green girdle on his shoulder to show he is a failure. This society is about people when they do wrong they feel really bad about it and they want to let people know how bad they did and that they were a failure. But the other people such as King Author show him it’s not a big deal and they even wear green silk under their amour in a sign of respect that he did in the first place. This shows that they were very forgiving and understood that people make mistakes. Just because people make mistakes doesn’t mean they are a bad person. But this story is a good moral story over all. Gawain keeps his word on fulfilling his duties in the beheading game. Also his duties of giving gifts that he received to the host at the end of every day. Also not giving in to the host wife trying to seduce him was another thing he was successful at. Even though people do bad things sometimes doesn’t mean that they are bad people. Even after he took the green girdle he was still highly respected, even by King Author.