The Theme Of Human And Animal Transformation English Literature Essay

The Theme Of Human And Animal Transformation English Literature Essay Throughout history, animals have held and important place in literature, they act as symbols and representations of society, economics and human relationships. Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 to a upper-middle class Jewish, German family. Although his mother was loving she was somewhat secondary to his upbringing and his highly domineering father was both emotionally and physically abusive. Throughout his life, Kafka always felt somewhat of an outsider as well as being plagued with guilt about his hatred for his father who he perceived as a giant of a man, my father, the ultimate judge, coming to get me in the middle of the night  [1]   As an adult, Kafka lived a double life, working as a clerk by day and writing by night, something that was highly disapproved of by his father. He never married or had children and spent most of his adult living with his parents and sister something that one can see reflected in the Metamorphosis. Metamorphosis, is fundamentally a fantasy novel however, it represents a very real scenario. By looking at the novel from a Marxist perspective one can see a worker being abandoned by his employer and family after becoming unable to work and support them financially which is representative of the proletariat, bourgeoisie conflict described by Marx. Kafkas Metamorphosis is an illustration of a capitalist society dominated by economics and the abandonment of those unable to provide for themselves. If one studies the novel from this perspective we can see that the protagonist Gergor represents the proletariat and his manager the bourgeoisie. Gregor, the protagonist of the novel represents the proletariat, he is forced to work in a job that he hates as a travelling sales man as he is trying to support his family and pay off his fathers debts. Gregors social status would be defined by Marx and Engels as a member of the class of modern wage labourers who having no means of production of their own are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live  [2]  . At the beginning of the novel we learn that Gregor has transformed into an insect. The identity of this creature however, is never disclosed; this is because the characteristics of the insect are relatively unimportant in understanding the conflict and class struggles that are occurring within the novel. Instead the transformation signifies Gergors new inability to work and provides a focus on Gregors value as a labourer rather than a person and how this diminishes when he is no longer able to go out and earn money or support his family. If Gregor is representative of the proletariat his manger symbolises the bourgeoisie he is an example of the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labourers.  [3]   The manager is not given a name which signifies his lack of humanity and acts superior as a result of his advanced economic position. Kafkas portrayal of the manager makes him highly unlikeable, if anything the reader is lead to empathise more with Gregor as an insect than his human manger. The first to abandon Gregor is his manager who leaves as soon as he realises that Gregor is unable to work and therefore has no value to him. As the worker Gregor is work nothing more than his labour to his manager he is also expendable as the manager knows that he will be able to find a replacement worker. However, one Gregor becomes unable to support his family financially they to abandon him. Marx claims that the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation  [4]  . Kafkas metamorphosis is a clear example of this, Gregor worked in a job he hated for years trying to support his family who abandon his the minute he is unable to continue. His father is the most emotionally unattached and deals with Gregor in the harshest manner. Gregors presence seems to anger his father as he clenches his fists and throws fruit at the insect  [5]  . Although his mother and sister Grete are initially upset and sym pathetic towards Gregor his sister brings him food and cleans his room- this affection dwindles over time as they cease to receive any financial support from Gregor. Grete even begins to refer to her brother as it and states that if the bug was really Gregor he would have realised long ago that it isnt possibly for human beings to live with such a creature and he would have gone away of his own free will  [6]  . Her indifference towards her brother shows that as a result of his transformation he has ceased to exist to her. The relationship of the family was based on shared wages and once Gregor could no longer contribute to that he no longer existed within the family relation. This is further supported by the fact that as a result of Gregors inability to work his father and sister have to start earning a living. His father takes over as head of the household and his sister flourishes in her new occupation, becomes more beautiful and earns the respect of her parents. Even his mo ther becomes stronger and starts to work more around the house. It seems that Gregors transformation forces the family into working for themselves and not being reliant on their son. The eventual conclusion to the Gregors story is his inevitable death, once he transformed and was no longer able to feed himself his life depended on the charity of his parents who considered him useless and a financial burden and locked him away. However, rather than being upset at their sons death, his family appear relieved their economic needs superseded any emotional attachment that the family had to Gregor and therefore they could not love him once he became a strain on the family. Following his death Gregors family travel to the country, they discuss the economic benefits of not having to support Gregor and then move on to talking about Grete. They discuss her marriage and the financial benefits of this, it appears that while Grete is financially useful to the her parents she is welcomed as part of the family but the novel ends with a subtle warning that if she started to become a burden she could have the same outcome as Gregor. Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq was published in France in1996 more than 50 years after the publication of The Metamorphosis. However, like Kafka Darrieussecq the transformation of an animal to provide a critical analogy of society. In this case our protagonist, an unnamed narrator living in Paris slowly turns into a pig, which the reader is encouraged to believe is a result of her amoral lifestyle. Her gradual transformation into an animal is reflective of the changes occurring in the society she lives which is becoming more right wing as a result of consumer capitalism. The novel follows the life of this nameless girl and begins with her being interviewed at a perfume store where the director tells her that The important thing [is] to look lovely and well groomed at all times  [7]  . Pig Tales was highly successful and very popular amongst adult readers, Sallie Muirden argues in her essay on the novel that this success could be because of the way that Darrieussecq channels cont emporary female resentment about the patriarchy in a post-feminist era, in particular theà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ continued control over what women do with their bodies.  [8]   Through her book, Darrieussecq is articulating experiences and feelings that the modern day female reader will be able to relate to. She dealing with issues concerning the womens body and womens rights but in a post-feminist manner, as she is arguing that one may not have an issue with selling their body and may in fact enjoy working as a prostitute. Although this may be criticised by early feminist as being degrading to women I think what Darrieussecq is really fighting for is that we dont see her protagonist as a victim but rather as women making her own choices and decisions with regard to her body. Equally, Darrieussecq is not condemning the women in this novel, rather, she is criticising the social circumstances the narrator finds herself in which is most like a result of her lack of education which makes it hard for her to concentrate  [9]  . Her inarticulateness and naivety make it easier for those around her who are corrupt (mainly the men in the novel) to take advantage of her which is shown at the beginning of the novel when she is sexually assaulted by the director during her interview The director of Perfumes Plus was holding my right breast in one hand and the job contract in the other  [10]  . As a result it takes her a long time to realise that it is her participation in this corrupt act that are causing her apparent transformation and that she must resist form amoral behaviour in order to remain human. However, there is still something about the narrator that makes the reader empathise with her, she is very sincere and has much emotion for others which can be seen in her relationships with Yvan the werewolf and her lost pig babies, I licked the poor mites as carefully as I could. When they grew cold, I felt as though I couldnt go on. I curled up in a ball and didnt th ink about anything any more  [11]  . Here her response is protective and tender which supports my belief that she is inherently good but living in society that is corrupt.

Madame Bovary And The Death Of Ivan Ilych Essay

What is the nature of man? Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary and Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych portray not only a glimpse of what man’s nature is, but also in so doing provide a criticism of it. Both works look into the life of people who want more out of life, and yet ironically what they desire only adds shallowness and not meaning to their existence. Whereas Flaubert’s Madam Bovary shows the depressing end of a woman consumed by passions, Tolstoy gives hope with a dying man’s last days where he gets an epiphany of what the nature of man should be. Emma is Madame Bovary, a young woman who lived in her world of romantic fantasy. She came from the country and read romantic novels when she was in the convent, and believed in earnest that love and marriage will make her happy. But after marrying a simple-minded and incompetent doctor Charles, she grows disillusioned as she sinks in the routine activities of daily life. She wanted romance, passion, excitement, and although her husband loves her and adores her, she wanted more. She wanted the latest trends in fashion and she felt that she was born unjustly to a lower class than was supposed to be for her, the aristocrat. But Emma does nothing to earn the admiration or the respect of the people she admired: she can copy their outward mannerism and clothes, but she does not have the refinement or the manners to be truly aristocratic. She merely believes in her fantasy world where the aristocrats live in luxury and a life of excitement. She was ambitious, but did not have any means to acquire her material cravings but for using her beauty and body. She gets into extramarital affairs because she finds her married life dull, even when she gives birth to a daughter. She does not take care of her daughter because she wanted a boy, and instead romps off with Rodolphe Boulanger, and does not care what other people say. She is oftentimes indiscreet and cares not of her reputation or her husband’s. Emma is self-centered and she had a sense of entitlement and superiority which had no basis but drove her to act without a thought to the consequences of her actions. She is, in a way, always likening herself to playing a role that sparks her imagination at the moment: a young woman being married to a foreign doctor, a middle class with a noble’s spirit, a bored wife having an affair, a lover, a woman of rich tastes. She could not accept that her reality was the norm and that her fantasies were exaggerated, dramatic ideals. When she was young she wanted the same romance she read in her romantic novels. When she became exposed to the high society at the ball she wanted to become like them. When she saw the melodramatic opera â€Å"Lucia de Lammemoor† she adopts the character and like her commits suicide. She drove herself to debt by buying expensive items which she sometimes gave as gifts to her lovers even when she had no means of paying for these in the first place. She signed promissory notes even when she did not understand them because the merchant Lheureux played with her fantasy that she was meant for the finest things in life. When her first lover leaves her, she is distraught and falls gravely ill. With her second affair she acts as the man, covering the costs for the affair and taking charge of where, when, and how they will meet. Her debts pile up as she purchases more and more to fill the gaping hole in her being. She believed she needed passion and excitement, but it seems that what she really needed was purpose and direction, for her life held no meaning. Her innocent tendency towards romance is transformed into full blown moral corruption as she was unable to hold herself together and keep her urges and desires under control. Emma is not productive, she has no desire to improve herself or her skills, and she does not nurture her relationships with her husband, her daughter, not even with her lovers. She just saw them as means of escape from her dull life, and when they fall short of her expectations she just drops them. When the consequences of her actions finally catch up on her and her world becomes smaller and smaller, she decides to play a role – that of a tragic heroine and kills herself with swallowing arsenic. She could not face up to the trouble that she has caused and decides to escape rather than take responsibility as she could not imagine a life of poverty and shame – although her whole life she was never wealthy and she lived a scandalous life with her known affairs. Up until then she saw her life differently – believed she had wealth, pride and breeding because that was what she wanted, but sadly these did not bring her the happiness she sought. Emma had a good life but was not able to appreciate it with her preoccupation with the things she did not have. By focusing her energies on her fantasies of wealth and romance she failed to live her life to the fullest, and for the most part it could be said that she was living in a dream and when she woke to find herself in the gravity of her real life situation, she killed herself to escape, but there was no going back to her fantasy world, and no redemption as even after her death her husband discovers her infidelity which kills him and her daughter sent off to work on a cotton mill. In her, we see the nature of man as ruled by emotions, desires and appetites, without caution or control, without compassion to others. Emma was not able to see and recognize the humanity in her, all the time she was acting out, even her motherly functions, her martyr facade. She never truly enjoyed life because she never saw anything and anyone beyond their appearances, and never learned to appreciate the little things that make life worthwhile. The theme of life and death is also examined in Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych, where he uses the characters to critique the artificial life that people live in society characterized by materialism and shallowness. Tolstoy puts forward a picture of society with striking honesty and insight: individuals do not behave as individuals but rather aspire to be like everybody else, trying to live a correct life as appropriated by norms, striving to have a comfortable life accentuated with material wealth even if their spiritual life and human relationships are dry and empty. With his narrative, Tolstoy then poses the question of what is important in life, how life should be led, and ultimately, how important life is and how people take it for granted by deluding themselves into believing they are exempt from death. Most of the characters in the story are portrayed as materialistic social climbers, who equated material wealth and position in society as determinants of success and happiness. Ivan, his wife and daughter, his supposed friends, all troubled themselves with appearances – they were preoccupied with proper decorum and attires, of looking well off, of having power over others. But these are all temporal, for these things do not really matter in the face of death. Ivan finds out that what is important is living one’s life according to one’s own vindication, not blindly following trends in society which results in a shallow, routine, meaningless life. He belatedly understood that empathy and recognizing the individual as an individual with thoughts and emotions rather than as subjects with mere faces is what mattered in life, that to live humanly is what gives life its meaning. Only Gerasim and his son are the ones in the story that have empathy and humanity in them – in Gerasim it is made obvious by his understanding that everybody, regardless of position or appearance, are all equal, with the same fate waiting for them in the end, especially when he said, â€Å"We shall all of us die, so why should I grudge a little trouble? †. The son, on the other hand, is the only one in Ivan household who showed any feelings for his dying father – he took his father’s hand and kissed it while crying. This can be taken as the boy was young; he was still innocent and not yet tainted with the demands of society. Ivan himself was dissatisfied with the boy because he behaved differently from him, his wife and daughter, but in his last days it was his son who showed him that there is a human soul in the world who regarded his life important. Also, this depiction of the innocence in childhood is mirrored in Ivan’s experiences: the only times he felt truly alive was when he was a boy, before he went to Law School. Being assimilated into society, he found that he trapped himself into a prison of standards, and lived a largely artificial life. Tolstoy showed that an artificial life is characterized by materialism and social climbing. At the beginning of the story, we find Ivan dead but his friends were chiefly concerned with the position that he will be vacating, the promotions and changes in the workplace and what they have to gain from it, all the while denying to themselves that they too will end up like Ivan sooner or later, that they will die eventually. They act as though they could live forever and concern themselves with the trivial everyday things. Even in his wake, his friends put a show of grievance because it was what was required of â€Å"friends†, but were more interested in playing bridge. They did not see the inevitability of death and suffering, of the hollowness of their lives. Peter Ivanovich, Ivan’s perceived closest friend, somehow felt disturbed and concerned, but rushed to quell these feelings because he reasoned he was alive and Ivan dead and there should be no reason to â€Å"hinder their spending the evening agreeably†. When he was still alive, Ivan himself saw how he had lived superficially in the way his doctors treated him, as though he was some subject whose sentence they hold in their hands, his life holding no real importance or meaning to the doctors. What mattered to the doctors was their perception of themselves that they feel important and significant by virtue of their occupation; that is what gave them satisfaction and purpose. Ivan himself acted the same way many times in his life – with the accused brought before him he reduced them to facts on paper and did not see them as individuals, he got married for it was expected of a man of his station and chose a bride not out of love or devotion but out of the social status it will benefit him. In the end, the story teaches that material wealth and position in society are not what matters. In the face of death, one looks back at the quality of life that he has led, and the most precious times would be the ones he felt most alive, when he was free and himself. The Death of Ivan Ilych and Madame Bovary teach us the nature of man as susceptible to fantasies of the happiness that wealth and material possessions can bring, but in reality these are more likely to corrupt us than give us real happiness. The nature of man is that of desire – desire to achieve in all aspects of life, and in this man should always apply himself to make himself a better person. However, desire for achievement is different from greed. Achievement should not only be limited to the professional and material aspects of life, but more importantly to the relationships with others. The meaning and purpose of life is not about the material achievement but how well one lived his life. Man’s nature reflects that of his society, and society that of man, as the individual is part of the whole and the whole consists of its parts. Both protagonists were deeply influenced by their time and what was regarded as important then. They have let others dictate, influence and take advantage of them, and by not taking responsibility d control over their lives they eventually found themselves in situations they did not dream of. This could have only come up to those who did not examine their actions and the kind of life they lead. Emma and Ivan believed that wealth and material things can bring happiness, but they both ended up dead – although here the stories’ protagonists differ. Whereas Emma chooses suicide to escape her suffering, Ivan comes to terms with his death and accepts it. Although Emma’s final act was of her own decision, we cannot say that she was finally taking things in her hands as before that she was always feeling hindered and trapped by her circumstances. She did not have a realization of what brought down her downfall, even in her final days she did not know what held meaning and not. Her suicide, like all her actions before, was an attempt at escaping reality, and this time she succeeded. Emma was not able to redeem herself, nor was she able to see what would make her life happy, but Ivan was changed and in his last days was able to make sense of his suffering. Tolstoy showed that no matter how sullen or materialistic a man behaved and lived, there is still hope for him to change as long as he lives. That man’s innate nature is towards living an authentic life, towards goodness, and that even if society is corrupt and superficial, pure love and humanity also exists, and it is always within us, and also in our capacity, to choose what kind of life to lead.

Art 100 Museum Paper - 814 Words

Intro to Art/Art 100 Pre-Raphaelites I visited National Gallery of Art, Washington DC on Friday, March 29, 2013 to see the exhibition â€Å"Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Art and Design, 1848-1900†. It is the first major survey of the art of the Pre-Raphaelites to be shown in the United States features some 130 paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and decorative art objects. The young members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed in 1848, shook the art world of mid-19th-century Britain by rejecting traditional approaches to painting. Combining scientific precision, an innovative approach to subject matter, and brilliant, clear colors, Pre-Raphaelitism was Britains first avant-garde art movement. Queen Victoria had been on the throne†¦show more content†¦(In a futile attempt to keep her warm, he put candles beneath it, but she reportedly became ill afterward and her father refused to allow her to work for him again.) Rarely, however, had her demise been imagined as explicitly as in Millais’s painting, which shows her floating down the stream before the moment when, in the words of the Bard â€Å"her garments, heavy with their drink, / Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay / to muddy death.† Several years after Ophelia caused a sensation, another painting with a similarly bleak subject caught the attention of the public. 2. William Holman Hunt The Awakening Conscience, 1853 –1854, Oil on canvas, presented by Sir Colin and Lad Anderson through the Friends of the Tate Gallery, 1976 Hunt’s The Awakening Conscience depicts a moment of salvation, a spiritual message embedded in a composition dense with symbolism. A kept woman, on hearing the song her lover has been singing, realizes her mistaken ways and rises from his lap. The sentimental lyrics reminded her of lost innocence; she looks out from the dark, gaudily furnished apartment that has been set up for their trysts, toward the light of the garden, reflected in the large gilded mirror behind her. The fallen woman was a shocking subject, but it fascinated many painters. Including Rossetti, who addressed the controversial theme in a poem and a number of drawings. 3. Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beata Beatrix, c. 1864 – 1870Show MoreRelatedArt 1011313 Words   |  6 PagesAna College ART 100 ---- Winter Intersession 2016 --- Intersession INTRODUCTION TO ART CONCEPTS Instructor: Michael Fremont Redfield Email: redfield_michael@sac.edu Office Phone: 714-564-5600 Mobile Phone: 949-293-9737 Office Location: by appointment ART 100 --- Introduction to Art An introductory course for both the general interest and art major student: a survey of the nature and role of the visual arts in society. 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Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Analysis - 1327 Words

â€Å"Now, you see, the world is full of temptations. They’re wrong things that seem great at the time.† (Carlo Collodi). In Pinocchio, there is a scene where Pinocchios conscious is talking to him about how he wants to a real boy, and what temptations he must avoid to be a good one at that. Though Pinoke makes many mistakes along his journey in becoming a real boy; those mistakes taught him a valuable lesson and built him to be a better person. Life lessons learned in, â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight†, portray the importance of promises being kept and the right in being honest; due to Gawain’s inadequacies, he lied and decided to do something unchivalrous which proves the lesson that he is not in fact a perfect knight after all, whereas,†¦show more content†¦Experiencing a close-to-death-call, Gawain then realizes the fault in what he has done. Yet you lacked, sir, a little loyalty there, But the cause was not cunning, nor, courtship either. But that you loved your own life; the less, then, to blame. (Armitage, â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† 456-458) In this quote, Bertilak, the Green Knight, acknowledges Gawains faults and points out how no matter of them; the cowardness in Gawains eyes prove that he wants to live. Despite him being in the wrong, Bertilak spares his life which taught Gawain a valuable lesson. The morality in doing right instead of wrong, being honest, true, and keeping your promises are the important life lessons that Gawain did not necessarily portray; but later acknowledged after realization and coming close to death. Being the species we are, everything is trial and error; taking that into consideration, we are only human†¦ but this does not dismiss the inexcusable acts of a Knight who is now being tried for his actions. Being of noble and high status, you are held to a certain level of expectations; in this case the Knight is expected to be chivalrous, humble and level-headed. The Knight raped a woman and was given an ultimatum to death by the queen if he could figure out, â€Å"What is the thing that women most desire?† (Chaucer, â€Å"The Wife of Baths Tale† 51), and if he could not, then death would come to him in twelve months when he returns to give an answer. On the journey to findShow MoreRelatedAn Analysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight Essay2387 Words   |  10 Pagesthe fourteenth century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The poem opens with allusions to Greek and Roman history and eventually sets the story on Christmas in Camelot with King Arthur and his k nights of the round table. Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew and a knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, faces trials and temptations that one would typically expect from a knight of the round table. Through careful and juxtaposed analysis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and articles by reputable authorsRead MoreEssay Analysis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight1050 Words   |  5 PagesAnalysis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, after Gawain ventures â€Å"into a forest fastness, fearsome and wild† (Norton, 311), he prays that he will be able to find â€Å"harborage† on Christmas Eve (Norton, 312). It is the middle of winter, and Gawain has been traveling in search of the Green Knight whose head he has cut off. After he prays and signs himself three times, Gawain finds a magical castle in the midst of a winter forest. He rides to the castle and is grantedRead More A Character Analysis of Sir Gawain as Presented In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight1426 Words   |  6 PagesA Character Analysis of Sir Gawain as Presented In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight In Sir Gawain and The Green Knight, the character of Sir Gawain is skillfully brought to life by the unknown author. Through the eyes of numerous characters in the poem, we see Gawain as a noble knight who is the epitome of chivalry; he is loyal, honest and above all, courteous. As the story progresses, Gawain is subjected to a number of tests of character, some known and some unknown. These tests tell us a greatRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight955 Words   |  4 Pagesthe classic medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that is used to form a more captivating story and construct a deeper meaning to the plot. The color green certainly is a prominent color in the poem, especially with the Green Knight, who is literally green from head to toe. The Green Knight makes quite the entrance on his horse as he rides into Camelot disrupting King Arthur and his knight’s New Year’s Feast. The Green Knight has come to find out if the Knights of the Round Tab le are as loyalRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight940 Words   |  4 Pages In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the men and women appear to have different roles in the society. The men attempt to live a more noble life while emasculating the power of the women. Throughout the poem, women display hints of their potential through manipulation and trickery, traits that are uneasily recognized by men as growing power. Morgan la Fay manipulates the Lord Bercilak to assume the role of the Green Knight, and she uses him for revenge against Queen Guenevere. She engineered a planRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight1054 Words   |  5 PagesIn his book The Discarded Image C.S. Lewis states that â€Å"the Middle Ages depended predominantly on books†¦reading was one way of the total culture.† To illustrate, imagine a young heroic knight, holding his sword in one hand and his shield in another. Standing in confidence, with a determined look upon his face before confronting his next challenge. Bravery is found in many interesting stories throughout the medieval ages. It is defined by Oxford Dictionaries as â€Å"courageous behavior or character† (OxfordRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight846 Words   |  4 PagesAnd Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is not an exception to the rule. The poem uses imagery, juxtaposition of scenes, and the action of the chara cters to present the numerous themes to the reader and the presentation is done throughout the work. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the idea that in the world, there are man-made and natural rules that one must follow but in times, the two rules come in conflict with each other. By analyzing the two games played by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, theRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight1199 Words   |  5 Pagesfrequently depicted as a knight in shining armor, an image that originates from age-old literature such as the fourteenth-century Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In such literary works, the heroic knight has several virtuosic character traits: friendship, chastity, generosity, courtesy, and piety; however, he must also endure a quest in which his virtues are tested. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, three obstacles challenge the hero Gawain’s morals, including the Green Knight, the seductress, andRead MoreAnalysis of Sir Gawain and the Green K night866 Words   |  3 Pagesâ€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† is the classic tale of a knight of the round table who takes up the challenge of the mysterious Green Knight. The poem begins with the Green Knight’s sudden arrival and his declaration of his proposition: a knight may strike him, and then a year and one day from then he will return the blow. This tale is most well-known for dealing with the themes of a knight’s code of chivalry, loyalty, resisting temptation, and keeping one’s word. While the whole poem is full ofRead MoreAnalysis Of Sir Gawain And The Green Knight1374 Words   |  6 PagesThe language of symbols plays a major role in medieval poetry â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† is no exception. The use of symbolism gives a writer the ability to draw important connections between items in their story and the audience. The poet behind â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† gives the reader a detailed description of the pentagram, his most important symbol, in order to form the key understanding of this poem. The narrator compares knightly ideals such as integrity, focus, and strength