Heterotopias in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: The journey between four walls (Belén Poleto)

    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (SGGK), an anonymously published Arthurian tale, encompasses the definition of the hero who embarks on an adventure in search of the Green Chapel. In this journey, he encounters many heterotopias: “real places … [which] are simultaneously represented, contested and inverted” (Foucault, 1984). This essay aims to reflect and analyse how the King’s castle; the amount of days that Gawain stays there and the encounters with the King’s wife favour the belief that the castle is a heterotopia.

    Firstly, the king’s castle appears in the middle of the forest after Gawain crosses himself “no sooner had he signed himself three times/than he became aware, in those woods, of high walls” (Armitage, 2007). Foucault posits, in the fifth principle, that “the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory… or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications” (Foucault, 1984). While Gawain is in search of the Green Chapel, he is not able to find someone who knows where it is. Within that search, he goes to the forest where he encounters monsters and slays them “hard on his heels through the highlands come giants”. We see that he has a strong Christian backbone “only diligence and faith in the face of death will keep him from becoming a corpse or carrion”. Before signing himself and coming across the castle, Gawain goes through hardships “passing long, dark nights unloved, and alone, /foraging to feed, finding little to call food/with no friend but his horse” (Armitage, 2007). The characteristics of a heterotopia are found: “the individual has to submit to rites and purification” (Foucault, 1984); and the castle “is not freely accessible” (íbid), as Gawain had to sign himself in order to be able to see it. Although fighting giants and praying is not a rite of purification per se, these can be seen as a rite of weakening, to make Gawain resort to faith and prayers to be able to get into the heterotopia. In addition, the castle is isolated in the middle of the forest “the most commanding castle a knight kept, positioned in a site of sweeping parkland /… /in the midst of tall trees for two miles of more.” Recalling Foucault, “heterotopias presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable.” Gawain is able to enter the castle; therefore, the castle is a penetrable heterotopia, which is isolated. The third time Gawain signs himself is the opening of the heterotopia, he has already gone through the rite of purification (weakening) and gave in to the submission praying encompasses, making himself vulnerable, thus, and being able to gain access to the heterotopic castle.

    Secondly, the amount of days spent in the king’s castle is a limited, yet insightful, amount of time. According to Foucault, “Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time.” Gawain agrees on staying 3 days “in three short days my destiny is due” after the king offers him a room as the Green Chapel is close to the castle “i’ll direct you to your rendezvous when the time is right/.../you can bask in your bed, bide your time”. Although he tries to leave before those 3 days “Gawain pleaded politely to depart [on the second] morning”, he decides to stay after the king tells him “but think tomorrow third time throw best”. Those three days are meticulously counted; Gawain would not let more than 3 days pass as he was supposed to get his neck cut, as promised the previous year. Gawain’s feelings are juxtaposed with Christmas. The castle is joyful and full of laughter: there is feasting “they drank and danced all day and the next,” there is laughter “so they laughed and dined as the dusk darkened.” Citing Foucault, there are heterotopias that are “linked to time in its most flowing, transitory, precarious aspect, to time in mode of a festival”. Christmas is a time of celebration, of feasting, and the king’s castle is not the exception. However, there is Gawain, basking in his promise, counting the days until he is decapitated. Feelings of anxiety and fear are common to Gawain. Time passes, feasting is done, and Gawain is there to celebrate, to feast and count three whole days until “long before dawn in New Year’s Day” he can finally encounter his destiny. The finiteness of time, and the repetition of the three days, is what characterizes Gawain’s stay; there is no break in time: time flows. This chronique (Foucault) opens to Gawain as a temporary place to await his beheading.

    Finally, the three encounters with the King’s wife in the room where Gawain was sleeping confront Gawain with his own flaws. Before setting off to find the green chapel, the reader is told that Gawain is “A notable. A knight,” and that he is “deemed flawless in his five senses”. This shows the reader that Gawain was a truly honourable knight for Arthur’s court. However, he did not think of himself as such. When he is confronted with the weakness of the flesh, one thing that knights should never do, he knows that he is not what he says to be. There are certain heterotopias “that are privileged, sacred or forbidden places, reserved for individuals who are … in a state of crisis.” In this case, the place is not forbidden, but a person. The king’s wife is described as “the fairest among them” and “more glorious than Guinevere.” Gawain had made a pact with the king: he would give the king whatever he won that day, and the king would give him whatever he had hunted that day. The first two times he is faithful to his promise: he gives the king a kiss on the first day, and two kisses the following, according to the number of kisses he had received from the king’s wife. However, the third time, the first peak of the crisis comes. Gawain receives three kisses and a garter. He gives the three kisses to the king, but keeps the garter, breaking his promise. That garter was intended for his protection “as long as it is buckled robustly around him, (he) will be safe against those who seek to strike him.” He accepts the garter and keeps it, “though the woman begged him not to whisper a word/of this gift to her husband, and Gawain agreed.” The king’s room is the place in which the fight between what Gawain is and is not. He is in crisis with himself for accepting the garter and not giving it to the king, depending on a green garter for protection. The second peak of crisis, and the highest one, happens when Gawain reaches the Green Man’s Lair, a separated place, isolated, reserved for Gawain, which is only seen after the directions he is given and after spending 3 days at the King’s castle. Gawain is in crisis long before coming into the castle. Since he cut the Green Man’s head, he had been thinking what would happen. After leaving the castle, what he had to do was confront his fate and face his own mistakes.
Heterotopic place or heterotopic person?

    In conclusion, the king’s castle can be regarded as a heterotopia. The way in which it appeared after Gawain crossed himself shows that it was not a public place in which anyone could knock on the door and enter; Gawain’s temporary stay at the castle shows that time was finite and that he could not lengthen his stay to evade the Green Man; and finally, the king’s room and encounters with the king’s wife shows us the predicament Gawain had with himself. Was he a true knight or an imposter? The heterotopia of the king’s castle is one that helped Gawain confront his flaws and be ready to confront the Green Man with tricks that work the way they ought.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Foucault, M. (1967). Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (J. Miskowiec, Trans.). In Architecture Mouvement Continuité (p. 9)

Sir Gawain and The Green Knight (S. Armitage, Trans.). (2007).