Natural Imagery in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

By efaller, Student

A discussion of the natural imagery in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

An essay hosted at LiteratureClassics.com

In the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Gawain-poet uses natural imagery quite a bit for several different purposes, but mainly to help us better understand ourselves, our lives, and our faith, to represent the journey of life. Several examples of this natural imagery are found in the lengthy descriptions of the seasons, Gawain’s search in the wilderness, and the Green Chapel.
At the beginning of the poem, the Gawain-poet may be trying to suggest our vulnerability to sin. It is snowing outside, but inside, King Arthur and his valiant Knights of the Round Table have gathered around the warm fire with friends and family to share stories and have a good time in the company of their comrades; “it was springtime in Camelot, in the Christmas snow” (54). The time of year, Christmas Time, suggests their vulnerability to sin as well as the cold. The knights are celebrating Christmas, the birthday of Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save us from our sins; they are celebrating the fact that they have both moral and spiritual weaknesses but that they can be saved from it, if they will come inside to Jesus’ warm love.
Gawain’s last year in Camelot slips by quickly, just like our lives. The year passes, winter leaving to give way to spring, flowers blooming, and birds singing. Then summer comes “creeping across the slopes” (510) and the Gawain-poet describes the coming of autumn, the final days of life for both the plants and Gawain: “then autumn comes rushing, calling the plants / to watch for winter, to grow while they can” (521). We must live our lives to the fullest, to live while we are still here because death is nearer than we think at times. Life passes by quickly; “everything / slender and new ripens and rots” (527), we grow, we live, and we die. It is almost a depressing image, especially for the young like Gawain, to see death at such close range, approaching quickly, more quickly then he had probably ever imagined.
Soon however, Gawain’s time comes to leave Camelot and he sets off, alone, to face the world. His search for the Green Knight is also like our lives; we do not relish the thought of reaching our final destination. He sets himself against the elements, against Nature, against the Green Knight. Gawain was alone in his voyage to seek the Green Knight, as we are alone to seek and find the truth, the way, the light of Jesus Christ. He is not entirely alone, though, for when he encounters many beasts of great power on his voyage, boars, bears, bulls, trolls, and ogres, he fights them and wins for “his strength saved him, and his courage, and his faith/ in God”(724). His faith in God saved him on his journey though his quest was his own, as our quest for understanding God in our lives is our own though the Lord will guide us and help us remove any obstacles in our way. Gawain travels through “a deep forest, incredibly wild” (740), a place of mystery, he does not know where he will find himself next, just like us on our lives, as we do not know what will happen next.
On the fourth day after he arrives at Bercilak’s castle, Gawain leaves with one of Bercilak’s men for the Chapel of the Green Knight, a place where he believes he will see the light of day for the very last time. To reach the Green Chapel, the guide leads him through a bleak, cold, white, colorless, desolate wasteland with bare trees and rocky frozen cliffs, a place without life. The Gawain-poet may be trying to emphasize the fact that there is no life until Gawain reaches the Green Chapel, a place of color, the abode of the Green Knight, a sign of life almost as Jesus is hope in a world without hope. The wasteland is also symbolic of Gawain’s quest, as well as our own, it is a cloaked in mystery “every hill wore a hat, a cloak/ of fog” (2081). “Their path ran wild, around a wood, till the time when the winter sun rises in the sky” (2084) as our journeys are twisted and uncertain, until the great enlightenment, when the sun rises. As we get closer to the Green Chapel, we see movement, a sign of life, “Brooks foamed at their banks” (2082). Water is also a sign or baptism, of renewal. When we reach the end of our path, when we reach our enlightenment, we will be renewed, reborn again.
The Green Chapel is described by Gawain as “ugly, gruesome, all overgrown” (2190) though in reality, it is a human’s faith in God that he is describing. God carries his chapel in our hearts, for us to tend. We may neglect that chapel by neglecting our faith in God. We may think that we will be spiritually strong even if we do not work on being so, just like Gawain. He knew that he was the best of knights, the most chivalrous and pure, but when temptation came his way, he only just managed to wriggle his way out of it because he had not tended his faith for such a long time.
Throughout the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Gawain-poet uses natural imagery to help us to better understand our lives and ourselves. As “Gawain rides in the world’s wilderness” (2479), away from the Green Knight, he wears the green belt, a sign that he realizes his faults and failings just like when we are done our journey, we should know ours too.