Camelot’s Failure to See Beyond in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Abstract

What seems overlooked by some critics is the fact that Camelot, represented by Gawain, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is strongly connected with doomed fate due to its limited vision. Camelot is a closed community by humanness, which provides the crucial clue for the understanding of the failure of both Gawain and Camelot members. The exclusiveness confined in human reason frequently comes to be vulnerable when challenged by inhuman or unnatural forces like the Green Knight. Besides the limited vision, Camelot is some sort of society which is an already fixed one with stable identity, hence, little possibility of development and adaptation. This results in Camelot’s possible vulnerability to the external forces as well. As a member of Camelot, Gawain’s limited vision, so much accustomed to closed Camelot society and its inflexible value judgment system, prevents him from acknowledging the values outside Camelot. Gawain is inadequate to deal with the complexity of his experience, because the absoluteness of Camelot community has built the extremely demanding and inflexible logic.