Morgan le Fay and the Green Knight

Analysis of Creative Response to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The narrative of Gawain has a dark tone that is only briefly referenced. The story is centred upon the trials of Gawain but the entire plot is drawn out from this tone: Morgana’s hatred of Camelot. She takes on the role of puppet master, though her presence in Bertilack’s castle as the old crone is only revealed along with the explanation of the games and the unravelling of the plot. I felt that her role presented an opportunity to develop not on ly an understanding of her motivations, but more importantly to mirror the Gawain text’s allusions to the fall of man by presenting Morgana as a medieval terrorist and bitter temptress:

Morgana believed that because of their games, their bravado and quests, Arthur’s court would decline and Camelot would fall. She feared that if they were ever aware of the emptiness of their codes, then they would save themselves and procreate, saving Camelot. Her game would give the knights something new in which to place their pride and valour; ever ignorant of their own faith, prudence and the future. She knew that Gawain would take the girdle as a sign of his weakness, his lack of faith, and his forsaking of the chivalric code. But she al so knew that because the household at Camelot were so full of themselves, they would take the sash and make a new game of it as a sign of honour (over the sign of perfidy it represents for Gawain). This, she believed, would keep the knights from foreseeing their final doom.

The romance of Gawain’s quest lies not in his encounters with the Green Knight but in the triangle of conflict between chivalry (the knights’ code), faith (religion’s code) and mortal-fear (man’s will for survival). Morgana wants to deconstruct the knights’ conceit that the three can exist in harmony and prove that man cannot escape his construct and fear of death. She uses their games to subvert their codes of chivalry and faith in favour of lies and enchantments.

Morgana, as later texts came to portray her, is a heathen witch, given to empathy with nature and pagan practices. Her belief systems are at odds with the Christian faith and moreover she would be acting to weaken the male dominated church. Morgana and her unnatural influences place her at the centre of pagan practices, as an earth mother, to be respected and worshipped, not, as Christianity suggests, that she (as with all womankind) is responsible for the fall of man.

Choosing to focus upon the relationship between Morgana and Bertilack allowed me to expand an area of the Gawain narrative that was originally lacking in depth. In doing so, I was able to use as my framework the religion debate that would have raged as much when the Gawain text was first written as it does today.

Gawain’s story climaxes at the Green Chapel. It made sense to draw symmetry between that and Morgana and Bertilack’s confrontation. Constructing this unnatural place – Morgana’s realm – developed out of a want to keep my response grounded. While the dialogue mimics a semi-mythological nature (“Come, for there is a tale to tell and I am an ear to hear it... King Arthur was to strike at me, and I, so saying at your request, stated that he was to... In all of Christendom your game is the strangest of all I’ve played... Be cautious, my lord, lest I take back what I have granted you and send you instead amongst the wodwos...”) and the opening paragraph is established upon fantasy clichés (Flaxen hair, eddies of the stream, thundering torrent, rugged slope, tinkling bells), I wanted the story to exist in a realist setting rather than the fantastical and to mirror the tenor of the Gawain text. Much of the description of the place and the Green Knight is lifted from the Gawain text.

I wanted the realism to continue into the supernatural elements. Morgana is the author of the plot and the enchantments, but I didn’t want her to rely upon bolts of fire and lightning. Her magic isn’t about spell casting, the conjuring associated with magicians, or the causing of violence. If anything, at the time of Arthurian Legend, she would have been an apothecary and / or alchemist. She wouldn’t conjure and cast spells but enchant and bewitch. Morgana needed to remain earthy, referring to her own work as enchantments, as if magic and spells were something mechanical and man made. The enchantments and incantations utilised in my response manifest in appearances (Bertilack’s transformation, Morgana as a child, the tree shedding its leaves, the snakes, and the apple. Even the flashing lights are used to distract as Morgana re-appears in adult form: “The child imploded in a shower of lights the colour of greens and golds, as if for an instant she had consisted of shooting stars.”). All are charged with misdirection, to strike fear and challenge faith, not to cause harm or manifest something physical – she has to knock Bertilack to the ground herself.

Morgana uses nature to her advantage. The apple in my response, like the girdle, is a cipher. It doesn’t serve any real power. The girdle doesn’t save Gawain, and the apple won’t really save Bertilack’s wife; though it’s an easy assumption to make that Morgana will cure the lady by natural means at a later date. Perhaps the girdle is laced with medicating balm!

I referenced the three animals (deer, boar, and fox) as a means of representing the reversals in my plot: the child is fearless (unnatural); the Green Knight transforms back into Bertilack; revealing Morgana’s true nature. Like the game set between Bertilack and Gawain to share the day’s spoils, my response is a game, but one built upon Morgana’s lies and deceit (ironically proving the Gawain text’s allusions that women are the cause for the fall of man).

Finally I felt it important to provide an explanation as to the origin of the girdle and at the same time to give a reason as to why, in one year’s time, Bertilack’s wife may be toying with Gawain. Morgana’s instruction that Bertilack shares only two kisses with his wife sets up a deeper thread in the bedroom / courtship scenes of Gawain – the wife is no longer playing, but desperate for companionship, lustful even; an allusion again to the temptress-nature of women that is brought full circle by Morgana forcing Bertilack to eat the apple from the tree.

The romance of Gawain exists as a quest, but through my response I am subverting the genre. Bertilack is a Lord and therefore superior to other men, but as Morgana proves, he isn’t superior to his environment. Therefore my response falls in the mode of high mimetic. Northrop Frye states that “romance divides into two main forms: a secular form dealing with chivalry and knight-errantry, and a religious form devoted to legends of saints” ( Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism p33-4 ISBN 0-691-01298-9 ). I see the Gawain romance as treading both paths. Its focus is on knight-errantry but at its heart is a call of faith. While my response covers similar ground, much of the conflict regards the faith argument and I use it not only to highlight Morgana’s standpoint and the theme of the piece, but to create symmetry between the original text and my response, and between Gawain and Bertilack ( “...he recited his Paternoster and Ave Maria and Creed with a promise to thenceforth serve none other than God.”).