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.
Andy Zhou
11/1/2014 03:04:21 pm
I think the attitude toward women in this text is that women are tools. Lady Bertilak is only used as a tool from Lord Bertilak. Lord Bertilak tells his wife to go to Gawain to seduce him and offer gifts. She is being used just so Lord Bertilak and the others can challenge Gawain. At the end, when they have a conclusion that Gawain is one of the most honorable people, Lord Bertilak tells Gawain that he can treat his wife as a friend. That shows Lord Bertilak's forgiveness as well as his attitude toward his wife as a tool.
I agree with Andy saying that women are used as tools in the story. Lady Bertilak is no more than a pawn the lord uses in his "game" to test out whether Sir Gawain is a worthy knight. She merely plays the role of a temptation under the lord's manipulation while taking no part in the plotting of the scheme.
Sunny
11/1/2014 08:30:00 pm
I also agree with you that women are used as tools in the story. The Green Knight uses his wife to test how strictly Sir Gawain will follow the code of chivalry. Based on Sir Gawain's reaction to Lady Bertilak, the Green Knight learns that Sir Gawain is afraid of dying and is not easily seduced by women.
Jiny Kim
11/1/2014 10:38:34 pm
I agree with Andy. The author's characterization of Lady Bertilak shows that she is used as a mere tool to test Sir Gawain. Not only that, I think the author also intended to characterize women in general in a derogative way, implying that women are not trustworthy.
Alison
11/1/2014 09:19:04 pm
I think the attitude toward women is that women are not important and have not been equally treated. The Green Knight asks his wife to seduce Gawain. And I don't think he cares about his wife's feeling. Women must obey their husbands no matter how they are unwilling. Also, I agree with Andy that women are just tools because Lady Bertilack is just a tool to test Gawain's honesty. This further demonstrates that women are not important and are not equally treated in that time.
Stephen
11/2/2014 01:26:12 am
I agree with Alison. The Green Knight uses his wife as a tool to disturb Gawain to accomplish his challenge. This may be a consequence of the tradition back then when women had almost no right and were treated badly.
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Discussion Board
Assignment: Students are expected to participate in the class’ online discussion forum hosted at shrubber.weebly.com. Questions related to assigned readings will be posted by the teacher each week. Students are expected to post a minimum of one original response per week. When more than one question is posted by the instructor in a given week, students may choose to which of the questions they respond. Students are also expected to comment on at least one other student’s response to the question. Although these are the minimum requirements for the homework grade, students are encouraged to engage in further discussion with their classmates using the forum. These additional responses are OPTIONAL. However, commenting will benefit your participation grade if you did not participate during our whole-class discussion on the day when you post your comment. You DO NOT have an opportunity to make up credit lost for lateness, lack or preparation or violation of classroom/school rules.
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