Danielle Howarth – PhD Medieval Studies
Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight has long been
recognised as a text that plays with the boundaries between genders, as
Gawain’s gender identity is unstable. He moves from masculine, to feminine, to
masculine again, as he moves from Camelot to Hautdesert and back. But how are
these gender identities enacted, and why? I will argue that the answer lies in
Gawain’s infamous anti-feminist diatribe.
As he prepares to leave Arthur’s court
Gawain’s masculinity is emphasised by a conventional arming scene, rich in
euphemism: his armour “coyntlych closed / His thik ϸrawen ϸyᴣez” (Sir Gawain, ll. 578-579). Also
conventional are the tests Gawain faces while travelling: “sumwhyle wyth wormez
he werrez, and with wolues als, / Sumwhyle wyth wodwos ... wyth bullez and
berez, and borez ... And etaynez” (720-723).
However, the process of Gawain’s feminisation
begins immediately upon his arrival at Hautdesert, when Bertilak’s servants
divest him of the markers of his masculine identity. First, “his bronde and his
blasoun boϸe ϸay token” (828) and soon after he is “dispoyled ... / Ϸe burn of
his bruny and of his bryᴣt wedez” (860-861). Hautdesert literally undresses and
redresses Gawain, as the servants bring him new clothes “for to charge, and to
chaunge” (864), marking the shift in Gawain’s gender identity.
Subsequently, Gawain is feminised more obviously.
In a reversal of gender roles, the Lady actively pursues Gawain sexually,
always initiating erotic activity: “Ho comes nerre with ϸat, and cachez hym in
armez, / Loutez luflych adoun and ϸe leude kyssez” (1305-1306, also see 1306,
1505, 1555, 1758, 1796, 1869). She also threatens to incapacitate him
physically: “I schal bynde yow in your bedde” (1211). Here, the Lady also tells
Gawain “Now ar ᴣe tan” (1210). The Lady “takes” Gawain by convincing him to
accept the green girdle and conceal it from Bertilak (1829-1863), violating the
terms of the exchange agreement they made together. During the final temptation
scene, the Lady and Gawain negotiate over the girdle (1798-1863), linking this
chivalric, homosocial failure to his feminisation: “rather than trafficking in
women, he has traffic with them” (Fisher 1989, p. 85).
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Image One: Bertilak’s Lady and Gawain, from
the only extant manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (British Library
MS Cotton Nero A.x., f. 125r, http://contentdm.ucalgary.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/gawain/id/357/rec/177).
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Gawain is simultaneously “taken” by
Bertilak, who reveals that he “sende [the Lady] to asay [Gawain]” (2362) and
wounds Gawain as punishment for his failure to honour their agreement. Boyd
argues that this wound is the ultimate symbol of Gawain’s feminisation, as it
is a “gash-like wound from which blood flows,” and Gawain has become the
passive recipient of a “blow” from Bertilak’s “axe” (1998, p.90; also see Heng 1991,
pp. 505-506). The third temptation scene foreshadows these homosexual
implications, as Gawain worries that “he schulde make synne” (1774) by engaging
in intercourse with Bertilak’s Lady. Ostensibly referring to the sin of
adultery, this line could also reference sodomy, as in gaining a “receptacle
for sexual activity,” Gawain would also have to provide Bertilak with one (Boyd
1998, p. 79; also see Dinshaw 1994, p. 206), Thus, Gawain is feminised by both
Bertilak and his Lady.
The final level of Gawain’s feminisation
involves Morgan, who is denied her power even as it is revealed. The revelation
that Morgan sent Bertilak “to assay [Gawain’s] surquidré” (2456) again renders
Gawain passive in opposition to female agency, here with the added dimension
that Morgan has used a man to enact this agency. However, Gawain is able to
dismiss Bertilak’s insistence that he “com to ϸyn aunt” (2467): “he nikked hym
naye, he nolde bi no wayes” (2471). Here, alliteration emphasises that Gawain
is no longer at Morgan’s mercy; her mysterious power is no longer operational,
and she does not appear in the text again.
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Image Two: The Green Knight at Arthur’s
court, the first stage of Morgan’s plot (British Library MS Cotton Nero A.x.,
f. 90v, http://contentdm.ucalgary.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/gawain/id/289/rec/108)
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But why is Gawain suddenly able to dismiss
Morgan, whose machinations have previously driven the narrative? Significantly,
this dismissal occurs immediately after Gawain’s so-called antifeminist
diatribe. In this diatribe, Gawain reacts to the betrayal of Bertilak’s Lady by
casting her as stereotypically and negatively feminine: “ϸat ϸus hor knyᴣt wyth
hor kest han koyntly bigyled” (2413). He then extends this stereotypical
antifeminist response to all femininity, mentioning Adam, Solomon, Samson and
David (2416-2419) and stating “Bot hit is no ferly ϸaᴣ a fole madde, / And ϸurᴣ
wyles of wymmen be wonen to sorᴣe” (2414-2415).
This diatribe is commonly thought to be a
tactic through which Gawain distances himself from Morgan and the Lady. However,
scholars have overlooked the fact that Gawain’s own femininity, linked to the
Lady and Morgan and just as important as their femininity, is also denounced by
his diatribe. It is crucial that this diatribe is an act of speech that subjugates
the feminine to a negative stereotype, returning Gawain to a normatively
masculine position of dominance. Subsequently, he is no longer the passive recipient
of the Lady’s advances, Bertilak’s “blows,” or Morgan’s plots, but an active,
masculine subjugator of the feminine. Gawain can therefore dismiss Morgan, part
from Bertilak as his equal, and journey back to Arthur’s court, having
adventures along the way that neatly parallel his conventional, masculine
journey to Hautdesert.
Subsequently, the girdle and Gawain’s wound
are transformed into symbols of subjugated femininity. Gawain did fail, and he
cannot escape that, as is symbolised by the fact that the wound he received
from Bertilak leaves a scar. Similarly, Gawain cannot simply cast the girdle
away. However, he can utilise its feminine connotations in a new way, to blame
his femininity for his failure, and re-construct his masculinity through the
suppression of the feminine. After his diatribe, Gawain redefines the girdle as
a “syngne of [his] surfet” (2433). Heng rightly argues that he can consequently
“take up the girdle again … as a thing he sees as a-part from him” (1991, p. 507),
though she does not recognise the implications of this in terms of Gawain’s own
femininity. Arthur’s court furthers this suppression of the feminine, laughing
away Gawain’s discomfort over his scar (2513-2514), and converting the girdle
into a public symbol of masculine honour: “he honoured ϸat hit hade euermore
after” (2520).
Patriarchal discourses are triumphant: Gawain
has overcome his feminisation and his failure, through antifeminism that denounced
and subjugated all femininity. Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight therefore renders Gawain’s own gender fluid in order
to combat male anxiety over the power of the feminine, which is suppressed even
within Gawain himself.
Works Cited
Boyd, David L. “Sodomy, Misogyny, and
Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.’” Arthuriana 8.2 (1998): 77-113.
Dinshaw, Carolyn. “A Kiss is Just A Kiss:
Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Diacritics: A Review of Contemporary
Criticism 24.2 (1994): 205-226.
Fisher, Sheila. “Taken Men and Token Women
in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” Seeking
the Woman in Late Medieval and Renaissance Writings: Essays in Feminist
Contextual Criticism. Ed. Sheila Fisher and Janet E. Halley. Knoxville: The
University of Tennessee Press, 1989. 71-105.
Heng, Geraldine. “Feminine Knots and the
Other Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” PLMA
106.3 (1991): 500-514.
Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight. Ed. J.R.R. Tolkein and
E.V. Gordon. 2nd ed. Ed. Norman Davis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967.
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