courage in battle is strengthened” (349). In theory, treacherous evil forces would stand little chance of penetrating the romance hero’s shield because of the five potent pentads of virtuous protection. However, Anderson describes the pentads as being linked inside of Gawain: “The implication of this is that, like the pentangle, Gawain’s knighthood cannot be broken up into parts. If there is failure in any one area, the whole structure fails; it is not possible to have a partial integrity” (351). Despite a few rhetorical kinks in its armor, the medieval times’ value system appears poised to give rise to the great romance hero. Conversely, it can be argued that the culturally high standards of knightly perfection will result in a flawed hero. There are limitations to chivalry when a knight is placed in natural, real-life situations of sexual impulse and the face of death. Lady Bertilak, sly like a fox, pulls out all the stops in a last-ditch seduction effort; she offers Gawain her life-preserving green silk girdle—according to the lady, anyone who wears the girdle cannot be killed. He capitulates and accepts the lady’s token. Gawain’s failure is two-fold: he dishonors his chivalric duty by withholding the green silk girdle from Bertilak (lying); and as a result, he fails to honor his word in the “exchange of winnings” agreement with Bertilak. William Paris explains: Sir Gawain is thrust into the midst of the ultimate existential dilemma. He feels helpless to save his life, but is determined to do so, even at the expense of his reputation. Yet he would never have met the challenge were it not in defense of that reputation. He wants to be in control of that situation, which is why he accepts the silken sash, even though he knows it is a blatant violation of his code of ethics to conceal it from Bertilak and the Green Knight. (151) The struggle to be the perfect knight creates problems; chivalry’s strict code of conduct loses sight of knights being human and innately susceptible to flaws. Anderson acknowledges the dehumanizing effect of the chivalric code—“On the one hand, chivalry as such is polished and confident, on the other hand it is arbitrary and amoral” (348). Underneath Gawain’s armor is a man afraid to die. Fight or flight is a human being’s natural response to a threatening situation, but the chivalric code does not permit Gawain to flee.
A ramification of this problem is a limited medieval social/ethical system that
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