Kelly - Blog #2

Jordan Kelly

Brit Lit

Period 6

10/3/13

Anglo Saxon literature can be identified by its use of Epic Heroes and their impact on the many tales of the genre.  According to Joseph Campbell, an Epic Hero must have an established struggle or purpose to being the journey, some type of opposition, and must fulfill their task at the end.  These guidelines and cultural changes hold true with “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” in a number of ways.

In “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, Sir Gawain establishes his struggle and opposition from the Green Knight.  After agreeing to a death game in honor of the king, Gawain spends a little less than a year preparing for his demise.  Unknowingly, he stumbles upon the home of the Green Knight where he gains a second opposition, the Green Knight’s wife.  Gawain is able to fulfill his task through his loyalty-despite the girdle-and honor of his king.  The most apparent of these changes is seen in Sir Gawain’s courage to face the Green Knight, where his journey’s purpose is established, because the intense emotion that pushed him away from his peers in that gut-wrenching moment,