Everything is not always the way it seems, and a person’s true identity cannot be seen with the eye. This applies in both Chaucer’s Wife Of Bath’s Tale and Gardner’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, both in which a knight’s honor is tested and their true identity revealed. In Chaucer’s tale, a knight who has raped a maiden is put on trial, and instead of being punished he is given the task to find out what women most desire. He travels all over and asks every woman, but he could not find the right answer. One day he saw an old hag and she tells him that what women most desire is to be in charge of their husbands. The story progresses, but this will be explained later, in the end the knight is given another choice, and he choses the noble answer.
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In the beginning of the story, the knight is portrayed as overly gallant when a giant green knight suddenly appears and “challenges any knight to exchange one blow for another. Gawain the best of knights, accepts and beheads”(229) the gigantic knight. If an unbiased person read this line, they would immediately assume that Sir Gawain is a bloodthirsty knight, because he immediately accepted the challenge. However, this is not necessarily true, as the reader will soon find out, the knight is actually an honorable man who just can’t back down from a challenge. Unknowingly, the knight finds himself being tested by the green knight in disguise. For three days he is tested by seduction of a married woman and being given a magic sash. On the first knight, “[He] kept his pact with honor and abided by [his] word and held [him]self true to”(188-189) the green knight. On the second night he also held true and avoided the temptation of the married woman. But, he did keep the magic sash, and “that sash [the knight] wore by his scabbard belongs to”(199) the green knight. These quotes from the story reveal the knight’s true nature, he is for the most part honorable and trustworthy. Again, this is a far cry from the picture that was painted in the introduction to the story. Upon further inspection, the knight is actually not actually foolish and …show more content…
Usually through trials and tribulations, one’s true identity can come to the surface. The knight in the first story learned his lesson that women like to be able to choose for themselves. In the beginning he gave the maiden no choice when he attacked her, but at the end he realized the error of his ways and gave his new wife the power to choose their destiny. And the knight in the second story learned his lesson about always being honorable when at first he got in over his head by challenging the green knight, but fixed his mistakes when he was honorable and resisted the temptation of unholy love. Although the journeys of these knights were entirely different, they essentially learned the same thing, and discovered who they really are in the process. The reader can see this in both stories by contrasting the identity of the character in the beginning of the story to their identity at the end, and seeing how much change occurred. So remember that when one is too quick to make a judgement about someone they are often in the wrong, and knowing more about that person often reveals they have many good qualities beyond their initial
In the beginning of the story, the knight is portrayed as overly gallant when a giant green knight suddenly appears and “challenges any knight to exchange one blow for another. Gawain the best of knights, accepts and beheads”(229) the gigantic knight. If an unbiased person read this line, they would immediately assume that Sir Gawain is a bloodthirsty knight, because he immediately accepted the challenge. However, this is not necessarily true, as the reader will soon find out, the knight is actually an honorable man who just can’t back down from a challenge. Unknowingly, the knight finds himself being tested by the green knight in disguise. For three days he is tested by seduction of a married woman and being given a magic sash. On the first knight, “[He] kept his pact with honor and abided by [his] word and held [him]self true to”(188-189) the green knight. On the second night he also held true and avoided the temptation of the married woman. But, he did keep the magic sash, and “that sash [the knight] wore by his scabbard belongs to”(199) the green knight. These quotes from the story reveal the knight’s true nature, he is for the most part honorable and trustworthy. Again, this is a far cry from the picture that was painted in the introduction to the story. Upon further inspection, the knight is actually not actually foolish and …show more content…
Usually through trials and tribulations, one’s true identity can come to the surface. The knight in the first story learned his lesson that women like to be able to choose for themselves. In the beginning he gave the maiden no choice when he attacked her, but at the end he realized the error of his ways and gave his new wife the power to choose their destiny. And the knight in the second story learned his lesson about always being honorable when at first he got in over his head by challenging the green knight, but fixed his mistakes when he was honorable and resisted the temptation of unholy love. Although the journeys of these knights were entirely different, they essentially learned the same thing, and discovered who they really are in the process. The reader can see this in both stories by contrasting the identity of the character in the beginning of the story to their identity at the end, and seeing how much change occurred. So remember that when one is too quick to make a judgement about someone they are often in the wrong, and knowing more about that person often reveals they have many good qualities beyond their initial