Sir Gawain, can be said to be a good Christian by the virtue of him having been knighted by King Arthur. He is valiant, pure and chivalrous. The poet describes him as pure as gold. Gawain begins with a symbolic shield, as opposed to having acquired it in his adventures. Gawain took up his shield seeking out for the Green Knight and faced the tradition culture with one of its five symbols and given new meaning, and was backed by the new acquired culture’s faith.
Now Green Knight stands almost in a fatherly position to Gawain. Green Knight, is seen referring Arthur’s knights as beardless children, and says he will be playing a game with them rather than battling with them. This appears as a cruel taunt, implying that Arthur’s knights have childlike innocence, perhaps being their young cultures innocence. When knight was in shock at the Green Knight’s stiff challenge, Arthur was to leap to accept it, but Gawain strongly denied him because was not supposed to accept it. To them he was a parent like figure, and it was they, who were young, be tested, not he, proved his worth.
Arthur, in that instance, was almost a mother figure to those knights of his caliber. The sooner he realized that knights were not going to defend the honor of the court, he leapt to do it by himself, as mother bears to defend her cubs. This seems to be a ruse on his part so as to shame the knights. Gawain realized that the test had turned into a rite of passage, but not actual challenge, and stepped up so as to take it upon him. Arthur argued with Gawain, so as to be sure that he knew what he was getting to himself, and after Gawain appealed that it was him supposed to accept the challenge, Arthur moved to him, handing to him an axe, which was the tool to help him meet challenge.
The appearance and challenge of the Green Knight were not only rite of passage in which new Christian culture was to get wisdom and knowledge of Gallo Celtic culture that preceded it, but also as a reminiscent of older Celtic story about the passing tradition of the Holly King and the Oak King. In the story, the Holly King, here identified as the Green Knight, challenges the Oak King into a mocking battle during the New Year eve so that, in being beheaded, he shall pass on kingdom. In the course of the year, Oak King grew older and wiser, and was beheaded by Holly King at the end of summer, and the cycle restarts.
In the Third Fit, Gawain gets involved in a game with Lord Bertilak who was the castles lord in which stayed awaiting the confrontation between him and the Green knight. They traded for three days he stayed inside the castle, what they gained during the day. He did not realize, though, that that the game was a part of Green Knight’s tests against him. The first two days, the game proceeded well, with Bertilak being the meat deliverer, and Gawain delivering the kisses Lady Bertilak bestowed upon him faithfully.
In the third day, Gawain was trading the Lady’s kisses for Bertilak’s fox meat, but not girdle she had earlier given him, because he had vowed to her that he would not. This happened to be Gawain’s only mistake, as we see in the Fourth Fitt. Which concludes his trials when he faced off against the green knight for what he was thinking was the second time, but later discovered it was the third. In Gawain’s meetings with Green Knight, it is noted that two of the three trials were also the three part trials unto them (Besserman).
These were the three nights which were in the castle, and the three blows with an axe at the end. The sets of the three were considered to be magical in nearly every culture of the world, because they usually were the representatives of a basic family unit. However it was strange that there were to be only two sets of the three sub-trials instead of three, which required that I might have missed something in the first fitt, but I could not have found even a hint that trial of beheading the Green Knight, had three divisional parts.
In the last trial, Green Knight swung for three times at Gawain’s neck and finally nicking him during the third swipe. By having given the three blows, Green Knight revealed that he was Bertilak, and explained to Gawain that each blow was representing every night spent in the castle. Gawain’s only mistake was not that of mentioning the girdle to Bertilak, for which he had been nicked with the axe. Gawain would not accept that he had passed the three tests, and that, in Bertilak’s eyes, was even a further proof that he had passed. Gawain’s perfect honesty and humility rendered him worthy to receiving wisdom that Bertilak had to offer (Greenblatt).
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