Games in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Patrick Mooney
English 204
November 16, 1998
Many games are involved in the plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Green Knight, Bercilak de Hautdesert, plays a "Christmas game" with Arthur's court at Camelot (line 283); Gawain's host's wife plays games with Gawain throughout the third section of the poem; Gawain's sees his arrangement of mutual trade with his host as a game (line 1380); and all of the events of the story are revealed as a game of Arthur's sister, Morgan Le Fay (lines 2456-2466). Throughout the telling of the story, the author plays a mental game with the reader or listener, as well.
The "Christmas game" that the Green Knight comes to play with Arthur's court at the instigation of Morgan Le Fay provides the structure with which the plot of the entire story is held together. At first, the court believes that the knight has come for "contest bare" (line 277); when he reveals his intent to exchange one blow for another, it seems that it would be an easy contest for an opponent to win, since no one expects the knight to survive having his head removed with his own axe. However, the knight picks up his severed head and leaves, revealing the seriousness of Gawain's promise to accept a return blow, Arthur downplays the importance of this promise, saying, "Now, sir, hang up your axe," and returning to the feast. (line 477) Arthur also downplays the importance of the contest before Gawain deals his blow to the knight, prophesying Gawain's eventual success:
Keep, cousin, said the king, what you cut with this day
And if you rule it aright, then readily, I know,
You shall stand the stroke it will strike after. (lines 371-374)
Although neither the reader nor Gawain is aware of this during the plot of the poem, this same game continues when Gawain arrives at the castle in the north Christmas Eve. Bercilak, Gawain's host, hides from Gawain the fact that he is the Green Knight from Arthur's castle, and Gawain sees this arrangement -- the of mutual exchange of things won over the course of the day -- as a game, although the host also describes this arrangement as a "covenant." (line 1384) The host's wife also plays games with Gawain throughout the course of this three-day game that Gawain plays with his host.
The nature of the hunt that the host undertakes each day of the three parallels his wife's attempts to seduce Gawain, as well, although on both of the first two days there is an inversion. (Hunting is also a recreational activity comparable to a game.) On the first day, the host hunts and slays a doe, an act which, to medieval readers, would have been symbolic of a man's sexual conquest of a woman. The inversion here comes from the fact that Bercilak's wife fails to seduce Gawain -- Bercilak kills his doe, but his wife is unsuccessful in her attempted seduction -- and from the fact that the woman is here portrayed as the hunter. On the second day, Bercilak hunts a boar -- symbol of the carnal nature -- which, in Christian terms, is symbolic of the overcoming of the passions. The inversion here comes again from the fact that the female is portrayed as the hunter and, as before, from the fact that Gawain is forced to play a role seen as female: He must fend off the advances of his host. Several times throughout his attempted seductions, Gawain is described as putting up a "defense" against the advances of his host's wife (in line 1551, for instance). On each of the first two days, Gawain faithfully keeps up his end of the covenant with his unnamed host by passing on everything that he has won during the day -- one kiss on the first day, two kisses on the second -- to his host in exchange for the carcasses of animals killed in the course of the hunt. Gawain refers to the contractual nature of his covenant when his host asks where Gawain has won his kisses:
That was no part of the pact; press me no further,
For you have had what behooves; all other claims
forbear. (lines 1395-1397)
On the third day, Gawain's host hunts a fox, symbol of the mind. Gawain's host's wife also manages to overcome Gawain, not by seducing him, but through appealing to his desire for self-preservation. Gawain's failure came not in accepting her girdle, but in failing to turn over the girdle, as something won over the course of the day, to his host in exchange for the pelt of the fox. The host, before Gawain goes to bed on the third night of the game, reminds Gawain that "Every promise on my part shall be fully performed." (line 1970) Gawain, because he believes that the girdle has the power to help him withstand the blow of the Green Knight, fails to fulfill his obligation to turn it over to his host.
This is made apparent when the Green Knight has revealed himself as Gawain's host after Gawain's trial.
True men pay what they owe;
No danger then in sight.
You failed at the third throw,
So take my tap, sir knight. (lines 2354-2357)
Throughout the story, the game played by the Green Knight at the instigation of Morgan Le Fay teaches an important lesson to Gawain and, though him, to Arthur's court: the lesson of humility. Even at the beginning, the Knight criticizes Arthur's court for failing to live up to its reputation:
"What, is this Arthur's house," said that horseman then,
"Whose fame is so fair in far realms and wide?
Where is now your arrogance and your awesome deeds,
Your valor and your victories and your vaunting words?" (lines 308-311)
The Green Knight, symbolic of nature and of the natural order of things, reminds Arthur and his knights of their place within that order -- he reminds the court that, although they may be "the most noble knights known under Christ," they are still human and subject to failure. (line 51) Even Gawain, who is described throughout the poem as the finest of these knights, is a fallible human who succumbs to his desire for self-preservation. Although Gawain's shield bears the pentangle, Solomon's sign devised to be a "token of truth," he abandons this truth at the end of the third section of the poem out of his desire to save his life.
Finally, the author plays at least two games with the reader throughout Gawain and the Green Knight. The first of these, and the most obvious, is the way that the author conceals information from the reader or the listener until the end, then reveals this information -- the host's identity, the reason for the "Christmas game," and the fact that the game was originated by Gawain's aunt -- through dialogue between Gawain and the Green Knight at the end. A subtler game played by the author, however, is the way that the author sneaks moral instruction into a poem which, up until about the last three hundred lines, is almost purely entertainment. The author informs us that Gawain, the noblest of knights, is human and subject to failings. By extension, the author's audience, whether in the fourteenth century or today, is human and subject to failings, as well. Gawain learned his lesson from the Green Knight and communicated it to Arthur's court. I believe that the author hopes that his audience will take the message to heart, as well.
References
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Sixth Edition, Volume One. General Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1993.
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