Mr. Gonzales
English IV
29 October 2014
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
The idea of duality (things in two) plays an important role in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. When the Green Knight first challenged King Arthur he came to Camelot with an axe and a holly branch. The holly was to represent peace and the holidays due to the story being set in the late month of December. And the axe was to symbolize war and the challenge of the Green Knight. Even the colours of the Green Knight contrast with the colours of Sir Gawain, the Knight is green and Gawain is red, colours that constant greatly. Duality has some sense of balance, Sir Gawain's axe swings allowed the Green Knight's axe swings to balance the two out, the two kingdoms of King Arthur and Sir Bertilak, and the shield and pentangle that Sir Gawain wields.
The two scenes, the hunt and the seduction show a great sense of duality, and it also plays a key role in the plot of the story. Bertilak knew that Sir Gawain would withhold the sash that the wife of Bertilak, and if Sir Gawain had told him about the sash he surly would have had to relinquish the sash to honour their agreement of Gawain had to give anything that he had found in the castle and Bertilak would give him what he obtained on a day's hunt. And Gawain would have died if he had kept to the knights' code of chivalry. Without dualism the story wouldn't be as well interpreted, and hence so the story would have been bland and uninteresting.
The number three appears through the beginning and to the end of the story. Three hunts, three seductions, and three axe swings toward...