Group B 10/28

In this blog post, I want to touch on something that stuck out to me in this weeks readings.  While reading Fitt 3 in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the lord's wife, who had spent plenty of time with Gawain during the week, flirting and talking while the men were out hunting, gifted Gawain with a belt when it was time for him to leave.  As she handed it to him, the lady described the belt as such:

"For the body which is bound within this green belt, as long as it is buckled robustly about him, will be safe against those who seek to strike him, and all of the slyness on Earth wouldn't see him slain," (lines 1851-1855, page 143).

Since Gawain has the impending fight with the Green Knight, he is quick to accept this gift, as it has the power to keep him safe.  What I want to address, however, is this consistent theme of the color green and immortality.  We saw first with the Green Knight how he was able to survive his head being chopped off and now, this green belt, which was described as being "trimmed with gold, exquisitely edged and hemmed by hand," (lines 1832-1833, page 143) very similar to the description of the knight.  That is why I believe that there is a strong correlation between this color scheme and pattern with immortality.  Wearing green gives you the power of safety in combat, which is important to the narrative of this story.

Comments

  1. Jordan SilversmithOctober 28, 2018 at 6:27 PM

    While I agree that the color green is a motif in the story, I do not believe that it represents immortality. Instead, I think the color green represents character, specifically when paired with gold. Most instances of the color green related to clothing includes gold. The green represents the basis of good character, and the way the gold is implemented represents the authenticity of that character. When the gold is sewn in with care, the character is true. When it is simply added on, the wearer's character lacks true depth.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dylan WietfeldtOctober 29, 2018 at 9:26 PM

    You bring out a very interesting point because the theme of the color green has been an important part of the whole story. While it seems that the Green Girdle represents the safety and immortality that Gawain will gain in the fight against the Green Knight, we see by the end of the poem that the green actually represents the failure of Gawain to not complete the game. Additionally, Arthur wants everyone to wear green to celebrate Gawain coming home. Overall, what do you think this means for the future of Gawain's court?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Group B Blog Post

I felt like analyzing Midnight in Paris was one of my most enjoyable classes of the year personally. It was good to get away from literature and briefly touch on film for a change, so I enjoyed it. From the article we only really talked about topic, the left to right duality with left being "good" and right being "bad". Just in that one paragraph alone, so many film elements were mentioned and what they mean to the film. There are too many to talk about in just one blog post, but his class must have been intense analyzing all of the aspects he brought up. One of the film perspectives was the idea of dominance when someone is higher on the screen and this was reflected a lot in the movie. Gil's fiancee was often shown towering over Gil because she always got what she wanted in the movie and was a negative influence on him. Something else I found interesting was the color contrast in the movie. When he was in his regular life, everything was light and almost bland...
Read more

Norman Mailer on Boxing

All -- I've attached a message from a colleague of mine below; a more tragic end to this piece than to the Ali pieces. SS Here's another piece of boxing belles-lettres I've never forgotten: Norman Mailer -- who also wrote about the Rumble in the Jungle and features in that documentary, When We Were Kings  -- on the death of Benny Paret: Paret was a Cuban, a proud club fighter who had become welterweight champion because of his unusual ability to take a punch. His style of fighting was to take three punches to the head in order to give back two. At the end of ten rounds, he would still be bouncing, his opponent would have a headache. But in the last two years, over the fifteen-round fights, he had started to take some bad maulings. This fight had its turns. Griffith won most of the early rounds, but Paret knocked Griffith down in the sixth. Griffith had trouble getting up, but made it, came alive and was dominating Paret again before the round ...
Read more

Iliad Blog Post Group B

The presence of divine intervention and the role of fate are themes that really struck me as we read the selected passages of the Iliad. Examples of divine intervention appear in the very beginning of book one when Chryse prays to Apollo to plague the Achaeans. Apollo answers his prayer and the Achaeans start to die of the disease. The presence of the Gods in the Iliad plays a major role in the plot progression. Athena also appears by Achilles size in book one and prevents him from killing Agamemnon. If the mortals were left to their own devices and the Gods didn't intervene with the plot then this piece of literature may have turned out much differently. The dream that Zeus sends to Agamemnon in book 2 is interpreted as a sign of fate, yet it is just a trick to harm the Achaeans. The interests of the Gods in the lives of the mortals are what drive the narrative forward. If Hera had not sent Athena to stop the Achaeans from sailing away, then there would most likely not be a story ...
Read more