The Challenges Quest In Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Sir Gawain’s Quest

Research Questions

1) What is Sir Gawain’s quest in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"?

2) Is Gawain a good or a bad knight or hero in his quest?

SIR GAWAIN: HIS QUEST AND CHIVALRY

The alliterative and epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, likely written in the mid to late fourteenth century, and is anonymous. In the poem, it is told about a chivalric quest. In brief, during a New Year’s Eve feast, at King Arthur’s court, the Green Knight visits there. He challenges any brave representative to a game. The Green Knight says that he will allow whomever accepts the challenge to strike him with his own axe, on the condition that the challenger find him in exactly one year later to receive a hit in return. After that Sir Gawain who is nephew of King Arthur and the hero of the poem asks to take the challenge himself. He takes hold of the axe and, cuts off the knight’s head. Before going away, the Green Knight reminds Sir Gawain to seek him a year later at the Green Chapel. One year later, on Christmas Day, Sir Gawain begins to seek the Green Chapel and the Green Knight. The chivalric quest begins. In this context, the aim of this paper is to analyze the view of Sir Gawain’s quest in terms of its reality or not, and whether he is a perfect knight or not.

First of all, the researcher states that Sir Gawain wants to prove his virtue and to improve his inner self throughout the poem, therefore he attacks such a difficult duty. However it is not a quest which