LIT 251
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Parts 3-4

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. In Part 3, how do the alternating scenes in the bedroom and the forest relate to one another?  Why do they relate to one another?  What does the relation between them reveal about what is going on in the bedroom scenes?  What is going on in the bedroom scenes?  Why doesn't Gawain simply sleep with Lady Bertilak or throw her out?  He wishes to remain chaste (why?), but he feels that he cannot simply deny her (again, why?).  What is so important to him that it keeps him from just sleeping with her or just throwing her out?  What would happen if he did either of those things?
2. After the Green Knight takes his chop at Gawain's head at the Green Chapel, we find out the whole story of who the Green Knight is and why he came to challenge the knights of the Round Table?  What does the Green Knight's revelation of his background story tell us about the original challenge that he brought to Arthur's court?  What was the real motivation behind his challenge?  Does this motivation make sense?  Who was really behind the challenge?  Does the role of Morgan le Faye make sense?  Do we understand better how to judge the Green Knight after learning the whole story behind his visit to Arthur's court?  Are we better able to judge Arthur's court and its reaction to his visit?
3. What do we finally learn about the Gawain-poet's sense of the social ills of his day from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?

Click here to go to the syllabus.