Papers > English > Sir Gawain The Pentangle Knight
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Sir Gawain The Pentangle Knight
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Being a knight was a very romantic, and extremely prestigious occupation. ... Three literary works from this group are Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. Sir Gawain, who is a central character in each of these three works is a knight in King Arthur’s court. Therefore, Gawain possesses the knightly virtues discussed above. Gawain’s embodiment of the cleanness virtue, or purity of mind and body, is more or less portrayed in a similar manner throughout these three stories. These portrayals differ in terms of how they depict Gawain’s degree of failure in relation to the virtue of cleanness. These differences will be compared and contrasted to show that Gawain’s whole character becomes flawed, thus collapsing the pentangle and resulting in Gawain’s failure as a knight.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain’s shield literally displays his virtues for all to see. ... Each point of this star represents one of Gawain’s virtues. ... his shield, striped with bright red; A pentangle star, painted pure gold, Shone at its center. ... And Gawain wears it by right, on his bright Armor, faithful five ways and each way Five times, a noble knight, as pure As gold, as good as any knight in any gleaming Castle And worthy of that star, The noblest of men in asking And telling, the hardest For words to baffle. His five senses were free of sin; His five fingers never failed him; And all his earthly hope was in Christ’s Five wounds on the cross, as our creed tells us; And whenever he stood in battle his mind was fixed, above all things, on the five Joys which Mary had of Jesus, From which all his courage came- and was why This fair knight had her face painted Inside his shield, to stare at Heaven’s Queen and keep his courage high. ... And so the pentangle glowed on his shield, Bright red gold across bright red stripes (618-663).
Thus the reader learns that Gawain’s virtues are: generosity, fellowship, cleanness, courtesy and pity. The shear length of this passage is a clear indication that the poet wanted the reader to pay close attention and note the importance of Gawain’s shield and its pentangle. ... The pentangle is an image of perfection and as such, all the points must be equal. If any one point is not identical to the others, then the whole pentangle collapses. ... One of Gawain’s virtues, cleanness, is not equal to the rest of his virtues, and as a result , Gawain is imperfect. Like an imperfect pentangle, Gawain is destined to collapse or fail.
In the first literary work, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Gawain’s progress towards failure begins when all of Arthur’s knights are present for Christmas activities.
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Paper Information
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Title: Sir Gawain The Pentangle Knight
Words: 2290
Rating: None
Pages: 9.2
submitted by: JOHNYQ
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