Is Gawain honorable or not? Explain.
What attitudes toward women are implicit in the text? Provide at least one explicit example from the text as the basis of your argument. Be sure to provide sufficient commentary to make your point convincing.
Reread lines 131-134. Do you see Gawain's self-description as a sincere self-evaluation? Or as false modesty? Explain why.
Would you expect a contemporary heroes to describe themeselves in this way? Why or why not? Reread lines 37-45. How does the Green Knight appeal to Arthur's sense of honor?
Reflect on the wife's ideas and attitudes concerning women. Analyze how one of the wife's ideas or attitudes is similar to or different from contemporary feminist ideas and attitudes.
Review the old woman's arguments concerning gentility and gentleness, wealth and poverty. Select one point in her argument and explain why it is or is not relevant to our present social situation.
Review the various answers that the knight rejected (lines 101-124). Why do you think he rejected these but accepted the old woman's answer? Did the knight have some reason for believing that the old woman's answer would please the queen and other ladies?
Review Chaucer's description of the pardoner, pp. 162-163. How would you categorize the pardoner using the four humors?
Select one detail from the setting that the wife provides for her tale. Explain how that detail relates to the underlying conflict between men and women in this passage.
Discuss the techniques that Chaucer uses to indirectly characterize the wife in the General Prologue, pp. 56-57.
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