Horan 1

Kendall Horan
Carrie Matthews
English 297
20 October 2014
No One Truly Desires a Cultured Pearl
Nature and culture have long coexisted, culture consisting of constructs, social or
otherwise, and nature of everything but. And with any great cohabitation comes great tension.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight takes the values of a cultural code, such as the timely Knights
Honor Code, and sets them at odds with the instinctual mandates of nature. Sir Gawains failure
to uphold the knightly code reflects this tension between culture and nature and reveals failure to
epitomize the former does not degrade his worth in the latter.
The passage that spans lines 1208-89 presents an uneven dynamic between Sir Gawain
and Lady Bertilak and thus suggests unevenness in the cultural code itself. Here Sir Gawain
enjoys his first morning of leisure in Lord Bertilaks castle. Before he rises from bed, Lady
Bertilak enters his chamber and begins to flirt with him very candidly: Now you are taken in
trice a truce we must make / Or I shall bind you in your bed, of that be assured (1210-1).
Truce is not often a word heard in the bedroom, but on the battlefield, thus drawing attention to
the binary of love and war and hinting that Lady Bertilaks advances are not pure in intention.
This passage marks the entrance of the temptress, the one bent on testing Gawains loyalty to the
Knights Honor Code. On the other hand, viewing the ladys words from the perspective of
Gawain, who has yet to fully grasp the presence of his ultimate temptress, the word trice,
meaning in a moment or very quickly, gives shape to Gawains probable feeling of having been
ambushed. Anyone else may have expressed his discomfort, but, no, Gawain is a gentle

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knight, and must maintain his reputation as he whom all the world worships, whereso [he]
ride[s]; / [his] honor, [his] courtesy are highest acclaimed (1217; 1227-8). The knights are an
order known by all the world to uphold an acclaimed social code of honor and courtesy,
so Gawain, with the utmost politeness, rebuffs the ladys advances: Good morning, gay lady,
said Gawain the blithe / Be it with me as you will; / I am well content! / For I surrender myself
and sue for your grace, / And that is best, I believe, and behooves me now (1213-6).
Describing Gawain as blithe directly describes him as showing a casual or cheerful
indifference but also hints at undertones of callousness. Gawain is in an awkward position, one
where he is, in order to uphold his values, forced to break a value and be discourteous; however,
he employs fitting and fair speech as he sue[s] for [the ladys] grace, or begs her pardon, so
as to abandon courtesy in the most courteous way (1261). This is a bit of a compromise already
on Gawains part. He has broken his code, but in a way that upholds other parts of the code,
proving the existence of inequality or an accepted amount of give and take among the singular
values of the acclaimed Knights Honor Code.
Gawain continues to reject Lady Bertilaks advances by determinedly vying for cultural
ideals over natural ideals. The awkwardness of his predicament is exacerbated further when
Lady Bertilak rejects his offer of servitude and presents herself as a servant to command in the
bob-and-wheel from line 1236 to 1240, thus inverting the notion of courtly love, which dictates
the captive knight should be the ladys servant. Courtly love, a cultural construct, may be
viewed as an extension of Gawains knightly values, aligning strongly with courtesy, fidelity, and
generosity. Lady Bertilaks motion to absolve Gawain of his obligation to uphold courtly love,
and thus absolve him of any requirement to follow cultures construct, gives him his first real
out, so to speak; his first real turning onto Temptations path. But Gawain, the warrior [with] /

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the less will to woo, upholds his value of chastity and politely rebuffs the lady once more
(1283-4). He presents himself as soberly [her] servant, [his] sovereign [he] hold[s her] / And
acknowledge[s himself her] knight, in the name of Christ (1278-9). The word sober here
appeals to two definitions of the word, the first being largely literal in the description of
Gawains serious, sensible, and solemn speech, and the second alluding to the poems motif of
color. Solemn can also mean muted in color, therefore acting as a declaration of Gawains far
removal from the greenness, the naturalness, of the Green Knight. With this declaration, Gawain
not only refuses to abandon chastity at the ladys request but also refuses to abandon culture and
become like the Green Knight. By the scenes end, Gawain, granting the ladys leave full and
free, both reverts the notion of courtly love to its cultural archetype and emerges from this first
bout of natural temptation with the honor commanded by his personal code still intact (1289).
The second passage of focus, lines 1817-92, not only reiterates the concept of an
unevenness among the values, but presents the idea that all of these cultural constructs while
being in conflict with nature are also in conflict with themselves. This passage sees the
progression and peak of Lady Bertilaks temptation as she offers Gawain first a ring, which he,
as with her initial advances, refuses, and then a girdle of a gay green silk, with gold
overwrought (1832). From the on-sight description alone, the girdle with its ornate green and
gold adornments conjures immediate thoughts of the Green Knight; though, Gawain seems
oblivious to these thoughts, instead putting his energy into his battle to uphold courtesy and
chastity in yet another attempt to maintain the proper orientation of courtly love: I am grateful
for favor shown / Past all deserts of mine, / And ever shall be your own / True servant, rain or
shine (1842-5). His words serve to honor and flatter the lady, commending rather than
chastising her for continuing to show her favor even as he deserts his. This admission on

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Gawains part that he has deserted his value of courtesy in favor of chastity and fidelity gives
hold to the idea of a justified ebb and flow of intrinsic value between the individual knightly
values. By deserting one value, Gawain is able to uphold the others and justify to himself that he
is ever firm in the position of true servant rather than captive knight, the adjective true
attributed to Gawains insistence that he is, indeed, upholding fidelity in the absence of outright
courtesy and fulfillment of the ladys every wish. However, Lady Bertilaks presentation of the
girdle is tinged with tiny jabs at Gawains blitheness and blatant justification, no matter how hard
Gawain tries to portray a courteous refusal. She accuses him of thinking her gift simple and
unworthy of higher esteem (1847; 1850). This, of course, plays against Gawains feigned
courtesy he should not look down on a ladys token, no matter the fairness of his speech
and weakens Gawains resolve by way of pointing out his deserted value instead of accepting his
justification. A weakening that arrives just in time for the final blow: Lady Bertilaks revelation
of the girdles true nature.
With this revelation, each of Gawains values strain against their culture-hewn bonds and
the distraction renders Gawain unaware of the Ladys veritable foreshadowing of natures
prevalence over culture. The news that if he bore [the girdle] on his body, belted about, / There
is no hand under heaven that could hew him down, is an answer to Sir Gawains prayer (185253). He is en route to the Green Knights Green Chapel where he, as agreed, will have his head
cut off in retribution for his act against the Green Knight. A girdle that can keep any hand under
heaven from hew[ing] him down is an exact solution to Gawains dilemma. So exact, in fact,
that it piques suspicion. Looking past the obvious parallel to Gawains agreement with the Green
Knight, the caveats in Lady Bertilaks description of the girdles abilities become clear. The
girdle promises immunity to any hand under heaven, but what of the hands that do not adhere

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to heaven in the cultural sense? In culture, where Gawains code of values resides, heaven
refers to Gods great dominion. But, in nature the term heaven loses all religious connotations,
religion being one of those constructs that make up culture. This distinction suggests the girdle,
an item crafted in culture, is only affective against attacks waged by enemies under Gods
dominion, a dominion to which the Green Knight is not privy. Lady Bertilak uses this suggestion
to hint at the possibility that the Green Knight, born from nature, is beyond the girdles power, a
possibility that is neither proven nor disproven when, in the end, the Green Knight never directly
strikes Gawain. And because Sir Gawain is so wrapped up in the world of culture he is left none
the wiser to the gifts potential loophole, aiding to heighten the tension between nature and
culture and set the stage for Gawains rapidly steepening decline from culturally acclaimed
knighthood.
Here Good Gawains behavior finally shifts from that of cultured knight to natural man.
Oblivious to the setting of the stage, he accepts the gift and tuck[s] away the token the temptress
had left (1874). The alliteration here gives the line a rapid feel and emphasizes the speed with
which Gawains resistance crumbles. That Gawain tuck[s] away the girdle suggests that he is
very much aware that by accepting it he is deserting, not one, but all of his values, yet he does it
anyway. Furthermore, in this line Gawain, for the first time, refers to Lady Bertilak as a
temptress, thus admitting that he has succumbed to her and failed to truly uphold the Knights
Honor Code, however hard he fought to uphold it until this point. After all, Gawain reasons, the
girdle is a pearl for his plight and a means to endure the peril to come / When he gains the
Green Chapel to get his reward (1856-7). The pearl is a symbol used throughout the poem
and draws yet another contrast between nature and culture: pearls exist in both realms, but
possess vastly different makeups and values in each. A natural pearl is, as suggested, naturally

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formed and possesses pure, natural value. On the other hand, jewelers deliberately form
cultured pearls with casts fit into farmed shellfish to create something of starkly superficial
value on his own terms. Calling the girdle a pearl for his plight suggests Gawain admits to
knowingly failing culture in exchange for a reward from nature; he would not rejoice nearly as
much were the pearl cultured rather than natural. Moreover, Gawains failing comes not with
the temptation to abandon chastity, but the temptation to save his own life. This is not a knightly
instinct, but a natural one, this distinction made clear as Lady Bertilak [leaves Gawain] there, /
For more mirth with that man she might not have (1871-2). Mirth at the hands of a lady is
something a knight lost in culture may endure, but to be left alone is a fate born from nature.
By succumbing to the temptation of life, Sir Gawain loses his acclaim as a champion of
culture, a Knight of the Round Table. He fails to uphold the cultural values set forth by the
Knights Honor Code, but in their place upholds instead a natural value: that of self-preservation.
The allure of this value proves so strong that it overwhelms the often times warring cultural
values and wins Gawains favor. In the end, Sir Gawains choice of natural life over cultural
honor grants him mercy at the hand of the Green Knight, the hand of nature, and provides him
with lessons to bring back to the world of culture from the world of nature. Had Gawain
remained stalwart in his stand for culture, all would have been for naught.