aliceinHerLand

The description of the seasons of the year and changes in nature

Space and time, especially time, were cleverly used to express a picture of mood-changing with meaningful messages. There are many signs of time in the story, accompanied by special details of nature, yet the two sets of time, day and night, were described with details, implicating Gawain and other characters’ feelings in general. The day was filled with brightness and light. Morning “was crisp and bright and the sun shone in a cloudless sky” (pg. 3). In contrast, the night was portrayed with worries, lack of sleep, and with gloomy faces. The two shades of colors that day and night represented, bright and dark, also described the good and bad in all the Gawain’s moods. It was always at night that the three promises were set, but always in the morning that the problems were solved. Therefore, the change of time would also be that of the characters’ feelings. In the first part of the story, the change between winter (Christmas) and spring (New Year) marked the solving of a riddle. Later in the story, midnight, a changing mark between night and day, marked the breaking of a spell. It was at midnight that Garwin’s promise could no longer be “postponed” and he had to fulfill it (pg. 3). This detail reminds readers of the Cinderella tale, when a promise/ a spell also broke at midnight. Gawain’s act of “shaking himself awake” (pg. 3) parallels the moment Cinderella remembered the fairy god godmother’s words. In Cinderella, the last stroke at night ended the wonderful night at the ball and started a normal day of poor Cinderella, while in this fairy tale, midnight ended the “dismal” (pg. 3) wedding and started a happy marriage. In fairy tales, the best dreams come at night. That wedding night, a dream also came. As was foreshadowed, when midnight passed, another day came, and the bright and light future one more time came. A promise was not broken, but a spell was. After all, the fairy tale ended with the start of a new year, a new beginning, a new marriage, and new moral lessons.

Hastings, Selina. Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady 1987. Walker Books Ltd, 1987