Throughout Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight, later revealed to be a
man named Bertilak, tests Gawain on his bravery, honor, and virtue as a man and a knight.
Unlike the Green Knight’s other tests, the first test comes in the form of a challenge that he
issues to Gawain in the form of a game: Gawain may strike the Green Knight, under the
terms that in one year and one day the Green Knight may do the same to Gawain. While
Gawain does not know that the Green Knight has mystical powers that allow him to
survive the blow, he still agrees and fulfills the terms of this agreement after the fact. The
second test comes in the form of an agreement, formed between Gawain and the Green
Knight disguised as a Host of a castle: every day the host will go out and hunt and every
day Gawain will stay at the castle; at the end of the day, each man will exchange the
“goods” he earns that day. Within this test is a “subtest”, in which each day the host’s wife
attempts to seduce Gawain (which would not only dismantle his chastity but also reflect
poorly on his honor because he would be, in a sense, stealing from his host). While
Gawain finds initial success in fending against the wife’s advances, the wife calls into
question Gawain’s courtesy as a knight by rejecting her outright. For this, Gawain allows
the wife to kiss him each day, to which he then gives these kisses back to the host as the
“goods” he earned. On Gawain’s third day, he is given a belt that will allow him to stay
safe from death (a useful asset when you are soon to be struck by an axe). This gift he does
not give to the host. Throughout these trials, Sir Gawain must choose between the
ideological systems of Christianity and Chivalry to determine the most morale action. To
some extent, these systems lead to the same result. However, in other cases, they conflict
with each other entirely. In the end, Sir Gawain’s desire to uphold his reputation as a brave,
honorable knight wins the battle (aka, chivalry wins in the end).
The code of chivalry tests Sir Gawain’s honor and nobility several times throughout this
story. In fact, the poem begins with the Green Knight testing the bravery of all knights by
