Age of chivalry critical thinking examples

Question1

The Knight’s Tale is one of the books in Geoffrey Chaucer’s story collection, The Canterbury Tales. The story is about two knights who are attracted to the same woman. The woman is a princess named Emily. Because the two knights had sworn to always support one another in all their endeavors, their attraction towards the same woman does not definitely go well. Chivalry was actually a system of duties, behaviors and rituals that every knight ought to follow if he desired to behave honorably. Religious devotion was one of the most adhered to virtue of chivalry by the knights. The knights display uttermost belief and faith in their Greek gods. The people in this tale put so much belief on these gods but they blame them for their bad and good fortunes. For example, the misfortune of falling in love with the same woman is attributed to past wrong doings by the two knights (Chaucer 45).

Question 2

In The Wife of Bath Tales, the knight’s attitude towards women is modified significantly in the course of the tale. The knight learns how to appreciate the woman for her inside and not for her outside appearances. Since the main plot of this tale revolves around a loathly and undesirable woman who transforms herself into a fine looking lady, the aspect of appearance is very important here. However, when the lady in the final part of the tale gives her husband the choice of determining how she will look, the husband gives control back to her to dress any way she wants. This shows that the knight attitude towards women, particularly about their physical appearance has changed considerably (Wetherbee 56).

Question 3

Another important virtue of chivalry is humility as is shown in the tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Every knight is supposed to show courage and the same time humility. For example, in the tale he completely commits himself to the Green knight. He put his own life in harms’ way in his quest to protect his king. He has essentially placed all his loyalty to the aspect of nobility and in sorely protecting others. In so doing, he exhibits great humility (Woods 45).

Question 4

The Green Knight is essentially a very good example of the chivalry that every knight is supposed to have. Although he looks scary and can almost be mistaken for a villain, he displays the characteristics of a true and honorable knight (Gautier 34). He is polite to the King, Arthur, and when he gives his word, he always keeps it. He is very devoted indeed to verbal contracts . He trusts Gawain to also do the same. Gawain is trapped between this chivalrous monster or being and the seemingly childish king.

Works Cited

Chaucer, G. (1990). The Canterbury tales. Raleigh, N. C: Alex Catalogue.
Woods, W. F. (2008). Chaucerian spaces: Spatial poetics in Chaucer’s opening tales. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Wetherbee, W. (2003). Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gautier, L. (2000). Chivalry. New York: Crescent Books.