Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Teach

Us About Dealing With Challenges Essay, Research Paper

The author of the book Sir Gawain and the Green Knight teaches the reader many different things about facing challenges such as how they come unexpecteantly and how they must be faced. Throughout the ballad there are numerous refernces to the challenges that Sir Gawain and the different ways that he must deal with them.

The author shows that people have to face a challenge straight on. You cannot run away and hope that the problem will go away. One reason for this is that challenges, unless dealt with, will follow you forever. An expample of this is the challenge that the Green Knight bestows upon Sir Gawain. He must find the Green Knight in a year and a day to have the Green Knight hit him with a weapon of his choosing. The author shows through the description of chivarly that if Sir Gawain were not hold up his end of the deal, the knights and the people of Camalot would be forever shamed by his presence. The author shows that challenges cannot be lefy alone, they must be faced straight on and dealt with.

In the Ballad the author also shows that challenges can come from unexpected sources and that these also cannot be ignored. That is shown in the ballad through the example of the challenge that arose from the Green Knight. The challenge is aimed at King Authorm but is spontaneously taken on by Sir Gawain. Sir Gawain has no time to prepare for the challenge and only took it to protect his king. With a little forethought and knowledge, he might have concluded that the challenge was not woth the risks. There are other examples of unexpected challenges, such as the problems he had during his travel for the court of King Arthur to the Green Chapel. These challenges came up as he was traveling and he had no choice about taking them on, it was that or for him to die. The other main challenge was from the lady of the house. This challenge was totally unexpected; Sir Gawain did not even know that it was a challenge until his talk with the Green Knight right at the end. Sir Gawain did not know that the Green Knight was testing the young knight to see how strong his sense of chivalry really is. This shows us that he has passed all the tests and challenges because the Green Knight allows him to live.

In this ballad there are many challenges and problems that Sir Gawain faces and in each one he must overcome this challenge only to pass onto another one. I believe that the author is showing the reader that life is just a string of challenges that must be overcomeby being honest, brave, etc. He shows many ways of defeating the problems and, as in life, there are many ways of handling problems that come out of nowhere.