Community and Sin in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The sure mark of an unliterary man is that he considers "I've read it already" to be a conclusive argument against reading a work.

C. S. Lewis An Experiment in Criticism

I recently re-read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for what has to be the dozenth time. It's one of those (rare?) works that people who have little or no interest in medieval literature can take up and immediately enjoy (the recent Simon Armitage translation is recommended--it is both readable and poetic). For those of you that aren't familiar with what is quite possibly the finest romance ever written in the English language, I will outline the plot. Those already familiar with the work may wish to skip past this summary...

Camelot. New Year's Day. King Arthur and company are feasting when an axe-wielding Green Knight (not just green in armor, but skin, hair, beard--even horse) interrupts the party and challenges any of the knights to a "game." Gawain accepts and finds that the Green Knight has a beheading game in mind. Gawain gets one swing at the knight's head (with the Green Knight's own axe), and he will receive a return stroke in one year, at the Green Knight's chapel. Gawain obliges, and the Green Knight walks over, picks up his severed head, and tells Gawain to meet him in a year to be repaid before riding off.

Gawain, the model of chivalry, sets out on the first of November in search of the Green Chapel. He is no closer to finding the elusive chapel when he comes across a castle on Christmas Eve. He is welcomed, and soon discovers that the Green Chapel is only a couple miles away.

Gawain stays at the castle for a couple days, feasting and resting. Three days before his reunion with the Green Knight, the Host of the castle proposes another "game," this time a game of exchange. The Host will hunt each day and present his winnings to Gawain, and Gawain will stay in the castle and present to the Host anything he has "won."

The next morning, the Host sets off with his hunting party, which succeeds in taking a great number of deer. Back at the castle, Gawain is awakened by the Host's wife, who enters his bedchamber and attempts to seduce him (in no uncertain terms). A conflict between courtesy and chastity presents a problem for Gawain. The lady outranks him socially. He cannot offend her. Yet he cannot obey her demands and offend his host... Gawain delicately evades her advances, but the lady won't leave until she gets a kiss.

That evening, the Host presents the spoils of the hunt to Gawain, and Gawain gives the Host the kiss he's won.

Second day, the scenes are repeated. The Host successfully hunts a boar. Gawain successfully evades the advances of the Host's wife and is given two kisses at the end of their meeting, which he repays his Host.

Third day (New Year's Eve), the Host takes a fox. Gawain gets three kisses, but the lady wants a love gift from her captive knight. Gawain has nothing suitable to give, so she instead offers him a green girdle that has magical powers to keep its wearer safe from death. Only one condition: Gawain is to say nothing of this gift to her husband.

That night, Gawain repays the three kisses, but says nothing of the girdle.

On New Year's Day, Gawain is conveyed to the Green Chapel where meets the Green Knight. Long story short, Gawain discovers that the Host is the Green Knight and the exchange game has been set up as a test of his chivalry. Gawain is shamed by his lie, but the Host is quick to forgive what he considers a minor indiscretion. He presents Gawain with the girdle (which has no magical properties, it turns out), and Gawain decides to wear it over his shoulder as a reminder of his guilt.

Gawain then returns to Camelot and tells the story to Arthur's court.

Now up until the last time I read this, I never really noticed the ending as much other than a perfunctory denouement. But now I see that it contains an aspect of the Christian response to sin that is (in my opinion) often overlooked or forgotten. When the courtiers of Camelot hear Gawain's story, they respond ambiguously: first, with laughter (quite a different response than Gawain, who reddens in shame at the retelling); and second, by all deciding to wear the green girdle over their shoulder as a symbol of their "brotherhood" with Gawain.

I'll admit the initial laughter is somewhat problematic. At first it seems like the court is incapable of empathizing with Gawain. And it's pretty clear from the text that Gawain is a lot more upset by his failure than either the Green Knight or the court of Camelot. But maybe that's as it should be.

What I want to focus on here is the decision by the community to share in Gawain's guilt. The token that Gawain adopts for himself becomes the way in which all of Camelot's courtiers are identified. Thus, Gawain's sin is not seen as a personal failing, but as a shortcoming shared by all. It's as if Hester Prynne had walked into Boston one day with the red "A" stitched to her clothing and everyone in town, realizing they were equally responsible for her sin, responded by fashioning and wearing a red "A" of their own.

But (you may ask) how can they be--how can I be--equally responsible? This is impossible, bordering on heretical.

Remember especially that you cannot be the judge of anyone. For there can be no judge of a criminal on earth until the judge knows that he, too, is a criminal, exactly the same as the one who stands before him, and that he is perhaps most guilty of all for the crime of the one standing before him. When he understands this, then he will be able to be a judge. However mad that may seem it is true. For if I myself were righteous, perhaps there would be no criminal standing before me now.

This from the wise (if opaque) Father Zosimas in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov, (italics mine).

As a Christian, I have always had a view of sin that is, for lack of a better word, selfish. That is to say, it is much easier (and more comfortable) for me to keep my sins between me and God. (I cannot tell you how lucky I was to be born Protestant and escape the embarrassment of the Catholic confessional chamber; I much prefer to live in space carved out by the words of the old country song: "The Lord knows I'm drinkin' / And drinkin' ain't right / But me and the good Lord / Gonna have us a good talk / Later tonight.")

This is an uneasy subject. And I have no idea how I'm supposed to end something I don't even fully understand. But I do know sin is supposed to make me uneasy. I'm pretty sure I have that part right, at least.