Today we finished Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Students are to complete the following assignment for HW:
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight-part 4
1. Why is it said that Gawain decides to keep the girdle the lady had given him? Is such a reason truly chivalric?
2. What is Gawain’s final answer to his generous host?
3. Describe the Green Chapel, in your own words.
4. How does Gawain react to the axe’s blow?
5. What is the Green Knight’s response? Is it reasonable?
6. How does Gawain qualify his request to the Knight for a second chance? Who seems more reasonable, then?
7. What is the significance of the words Gawain uses to provoke the Knight to use his axe as promised? Do they have any relationship to the outcome?
8. Why does the Knight excuse Gawain’s enjoyment of the Knight’s wife?
9. What is Gawain’s angry response to the Knight’s story? Do you think it is warranted?
10. Examine the ideal of knighthood as presented in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In what ways is Gawain an ideal knight, and in what ways does he fail to live up to the ideal? In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, does the poet endorse the chivalric ideal or condemn it?
