In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain is challenged by a knight to play a game in which he will take a blow from his own ax and return the blow to Sir Gawain a year later at his home in Green Chapel. Gawain takes up the ax and beheads the king, who recovers his head and rides off with a reminder to Gawain they will meet in one year. Sir Gawain arrives at Green Chapel and receives gifts but fails to return the green girdle given to him as he had promised. Sir Gawain has failed to live up to honoring his word as a knight, a decision he will regret and that causes him shame. The moral message at the heart of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is that anything short of the code of chivalric honor exemplified by the virtues of Sir Gawain fails to fulfill the individualÆs spiritual purpose for living.
We see that despite his failure to return the green girdle, Sir GawainÆs life is spared by the king. Sir Gawain knows he was duped by the treachery and deceit of a woman, but he blames himself for not having the chivalric qualities necessary to live up to the ideals of knighthood. We see this when Gawain returns to ArthurÆs court and confesses his shame, ôÆSee! My lord,Æ said the knight, touching the girdle, æthis is the blazon of this guilty scar I bear in my neck, this is the badge of the injury and the harm which I have received because of the cowardice and covetousness to which I there fell preyÆö (Barron 21).
We see that though he has made an error, the true, chivalrous knight admits his mistakes and takes responsibility for them. Sir Gawain is not held up as an immortal or a human being who is far superior to other human beings. Though he is virtuous and noble, there are many indications that despite his chivalrous code and behavior, he is often made vulnerable by his human condition. As Silverstein (p. 13) explains, Sir Gawain is humanized in this manner:
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