Through the Characters Eyes

“Through the eyes of numerous characters in the poem, we see Gawain as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous.” (Neininger, Kim) In this quote Gawain is expressed to have very great qualities, but Gawain himself does not feel this way. Gawain is a nephew of Arthur and one of the most famous knights in Camelot. As Gawain travels throughout the story, the reader begins to identify the reasoning behind him stepping forth for Arthur when they were offered the challenge by the Green Knight. Gawain wants to prove himself to not only the other knights sitting with him, but he wants to make himself know that he is worthy and noble. To Gawain, reputation in the community is just as important as his own opinion of himself. Sir Gawain wears the green girdle on his arm at the end of the story as a sign of shame. He feels the need to show to the community who he really is. He did a human act and wanted to protect his life by wearing the girdle. He values his life over honesty and believes his wrong doings should be visible to all.

The Green Knight, also known as Bertilak or the host, has unique supernatural abilities. He is able to survive a decapitation like nobody I have ever seen before. I mean after Gawain cuts his head off he just walks over and sticks it back on. There is something very weird about his character. The color of his complexion is green, hence the name, the Green Knight. He rides off after going to see Arthur at his court and returns to the castle where he changes characters into the host, until finally meeting Gawain at the Green Chapel as his original character of the Green Knight. He then reveals his many names to Gawain. In both of Bertilak’s characters, the personalities changed slightly, but both like the power of verbal contracts. The Green Knight and the host both made an agreement with Gawain, and they ended up overlapping in the end. And this is just two of the many unique characters in the story of Gawain and the Green Knight.