The Unnamed Wife in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Essay

The Unnamed Wife in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the green knight’s wife plays a pivotal role in the story. Yet, she is never given a name and it is unclear what motivates her actions. She could simply be following her husband’s orders to seduce this visiting knight. She could be under the tutelage of Morgan le Fay. Or she may be acting under her own guidance and using her sexuality to carry out her own desires or gain power. In light of this uncertainty, the unnamed wife’s role in the bedroom scene is also hard to decipher. As a woman she should be submissive, and yet it is Gawain who is forced to defend himself against her advances to which he eventually submits. The multiple readings of†¦show more content†¦She also refers to Gawain as, â€Å"my captive knight†. This suggests that Gawain is in the submissive position, which is not typically how a powerful, male knight is perceived. Oddly enough, this is the case in medieval society. The lord is the master and the knight pledges loyalty to the lord and his lady. In this sense the knight is actually in a lower social position than the lady, and this problemitizes the typical gender roles. For instance, Gawain must tell the wife, â€Å"I am yours to command, to kiss when you please† in order to live up to the expectations of a courteous knight. His social role as a knight causes him to submit to this cunning woman. The lady is able to exert control over Gawain while still appearing submissive, because of Gawain’s conflicting social and gender roles. However, the gender roles and power relations between the wife and Gawain are further complicated when considering the wife’s loyalty to her husband. If she is merely following his orders and offering her body to whom ever he commands, then she is undoubtedly submissive. Clearly the wife’s actions are in line with her husband’s plans. In the end he tells Gawain, â€Å"And the wooing of my wife—it was all my scheme!† Despite this fact, it is uncertain wheatear the wife is forced to joinShow MoreRelated Essay on Games in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight1328 Words   |  6 PagesGames in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight   Ã‚  Ã‚   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 Arthurs court at Camelot (line 283); Gawains hosts wife plays games with Gawain throughout the third section of the poem; Gawains 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 Arthurs sister, Morgan Le Fay (linesRead MoreWhat Does The Future Bring?913 Words   |  4 Pagespolitical battle like in Lanval in which he is wrongly accused by Guinevere, King Arthurs wife. 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If all things are to be considered this short essay would turn into a book. I would like to compare and contrast Beowulf, Lanval, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with some of the modern day creations especially in looking at the values, and belief systems in all of the three â€Å"classic† stories. I will apologize in advance to those who will read this and are not famili ar to the texts that are mentioned

Adaption Means Survival in Elie Wiesels Night and...

Charles Darwin, the famous evolutionist, once wrote: In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.† It was this message that Elie Wiesel learned during his captivity in World War II and incorporated into his novel, ‘Night’. It was also this message that William Golding tried to express through the scenario of his magnum opus, ‘Lord of the Flies’. Though, in both their novels, there was another message, an idea first realized by the great psychologist and philosopher Sigmund Freud. The idea was that when man is taken away from civilization, his instincts (the id) will overpower his conscience (super-ego) and man will return to their†¦show more content†¦The first of the 2 novels is Night, in this novel; it is often shown through-out the book that in times of need, people are willing to turn on one another. By seeing how Eliezer’s vie ws about his father changed in the novel, it is proven that Eliezer began to focus more on surviving and desires than some of the important things like family thus proving that the evil change that Eliezer went was in fact nothing more than him falling back onto his more primitive beliefs of focusing on living by instinct and desire. The first of the two quotes to prove that is here: â€Å"He slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours. I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal’s flesh. Had I changed so much?†(Wiesel 39) This quote is from Eliezer’s first moments in Auschwitz. And from this quote, we know that it also marks the beginning of Eliezer’s steadily decreasing lack of sympathy for others for he had already began his descent to using his primitive instincts. This quote though, is extremely enlightening when compared to the thesis. This would be because this quote illustrates the fact that Eliezer

Comparison of Vultures and Not my Business Essay Example For Students

Comparison of Vultures and Not my Business Essay In the poem vultures the poet talks about how strange it is that love can exist in places we never thought possible. In the poem Not My Business the narrator describes how various people in his village are mistreated he is not affected by this until they come for him. Both poems are written by Nigerian poets and are set in Africa. However in both case Africa is merely a place and this even could occur anywhere. Likewise both poems protest how humans beings treat each other, but they d this in different ways using different techniques such as structure, vocabulary and poetic devices. The poem vultures is written in free verse and consists of mostly short lines this was done so we read the poem slowly therefore appreciating its dark gloomy atmosphere. The poem not my business is split into four different stanzas each one specially written for each occurrence. At the end of each stanza there is a refrain this repetition is used to show that it is an instinctive response he doesnt want to think about it. The last there isnt the usually words its his turn. His voice has been silenced. The poets shows that turning a blind an eye will not make a problem go away and just because something doesnt affect you should do anything about it. Simile is used to emphasize the brutality his friends go through Beating him softly like clay. This shows how violent the beating is which makes us imagine Akanni as a puppet with no feelings or emotions which is quite the opposite as her is a human just like me or you. The fact the narrator chooses to tells us his friends name makes us feel close to him and when we hear that he has been brutally beaten makes us resent the narrator for just standing back and watching. During the poem the jeep is likened to a wild animal the jeep was waiting in my bewildered lawn. The personification of the lawn shows how the narrator is frightened and confused. The fourth stanza is different. In this instance, the Jeep has turned up at the house of the narrator; it is his or her turn to be dragged away. The repeated lines from the previous stanzas cannot feature now as there is, apparently, no one left to observe the injustice. The only reaction here is that of the lawn, which is personified as bewildered. In the fourth section of Vultures, the poet again uses metaphors: the evil Commandant is an ogre (line 43) with merely a spark of love a tiny glow-worm tenderness (line 44) in the icy caverns of a cruel heart (line 46). These are fairly clichi d images, perhaps because Achebe wanted to suggest that what he is describing is nothing new: there will always be love and evil in the world. Both poems protest how human being treat each other. Vultures its about good and evil living side by side inside of one person. Why does the world see one person as either good or bad? Such as the reference to the German Commandant who gassed people by day in the concentration camps and then stopped for chocolate for his child on the way home. I think this poem shows that good and bad resides inside every person, and that they can surprise you. In Not my business the poet and the narrator voices are different. He has used an argument with which he does not agree, to make his readers create their own argument against it; thus, we agree with him by disagreeing with the point of view he has shown us.