Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Man and the Natural World Quotes Page 4

Recall that at the same time as Bertilak hunts the boar, Gawain faces his lady’s attempt to seduce him. This passage alludes to the sexual tension of that situation by portraying Bertilak’s slaying of the boar in language suggestive of sexual intercourse.  Bertilak drives his sword (in medieval romance a phallic object) up to the hilt into the animal’s throat (in Middle English, the ‘slot’) just as a penis might penetrate a woman’s vagina.

The fox gives the huntsmen more of a run for their money than even the boar with his very human-like "wiles." Instead of running a straight race, he sometimes doubles back to confuse the hounds and runs for cover, perhaps planning to wait it out and escape when the time is right. The hunters’ ability to capture him, then, will represent the ultimate triumph of man over nature. The fox may also represent Gawain who, in his meeting with the lady on this day, must deploy rhetorical twists and turns to thwart her seduction attempt, which is more aggressive than ever before.

As Gawain and his guide get closer to the Green Chapel, the landscape appears progressively more wild, with sheer rock-faces, a moor (or high plain) covered in fog, and streams whose foaming and splashing appears aggressive and menacing. This wildness may represent the Green Knight’s wildness, his separation from the civilized world.