During the medieval time periods, women rarely held high positions of power and influence. When they did, it was often gained through birthright and seductive manipulation. The story, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” touches on the power of women, set in twelfth-century England. Eleanor of Aquitaine was one of these women of power during the “Arthurian” time period, not to be taken too literally, as Arthur is likely mostly myth. She ruled with intelligence and made many of the big decisions of court, although the men in her life were often the ones to receive the credit for such things. I think womanly power is an important topic to visit, especially right now with all that's going on politically and socially.
Morgan le Faye of Sir Gawain could easily be paralleled to Eleanor in this sense; the puppet master of the court, but cleverly disguised. Lady Bertilak on the other hand, is the seductress of the story, using her body and beauty to try and seduce Sir Gawain essentially into losing the game against the Green Knight; who unbeknownst to Sir Gawain for much of the tale, was Lady Bertilak’s husband. Sir Gawain, unfortunately, reflects many sexist undertones throughout the story, but in reflection, I think it unintentionally captures the incredible power women hold over their men. The sexism shows through with the highly brief description of Morgan le Faye being, “unsightly to see” (Line 958). There are almost no other details of her, and yet, we discover that she was the mastermind behind all of the trouble between the Green Knight and Sir Gawain. This reflects the sexism of the time, as well as current times in many ways, how men especially are likely to overlook a lady that in their mind is not attractive. Therefore, Morgan le Faye was easily ignored and many issues could have been avoided had the men of the story realized this sooner.
Lady Bertilak also possesses power, but in a more man-appealing way, by flaunting her physical assets and using that attraction to try and achieve what she desires. Lady Bertilak attempts to seduce Sir Gawain multiple times during his stay at the castle. She entices him with kisses as rewards throughout his stay, and also tries to pull him in with her gifts, namely a lovely gold ring and a girdle. Out of guilt and the determination to not sin, Sir Gawain declines Lady Bertilak’s ring, but he accepts the girdle without too much hesitation after she convinces him that it will shield him from the wrath of the Green Knight. Lady Bertilak dictated that, “If he bore it on his body, belted about/ There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down/ For he could not be killed by any craft on earth” (Lines 1852-1854).
The girdle is a strong show of her power, in that although she doesn’t successfully seduce Sir Gawain in bed, she pushes him to surrender to what he considers a sin. She causes him to feel a guilt so intense, that he cannot help but try to surrender the girdle to the Green Knight in hopes of easing his guilty conscious. One could argue that Sir Gawain truly sees the girdle as a mark of shame and failure, even more so because he discovers the Green Knight is Lord Bertilak, meaning that he offered the Green Knight a “gift” from his own wife essentially. He was too blinded by her beauty, and his fear of being demolished by the Green Knight to piece together the clues that may have led him to understanding the entire plot of the Green Knight. He might have been able to figure out that Morgan le Faye was behind everything, and that Lady Bertilak was only trying to seduce Sir Gawain into a weakness that would have caused him to lose to the Green Knight.
Despite being powerful, however, one could still argue that the portrayal of Lady Bertilak is also sexist because she is essentially portrayed as exactly how the men of that time would hope she’d be. She’s beautiful, even more beautiful than Guinevere, and cunning, but also obedient. After all, it is under Lord Bertilak’s orders that she consistently uses her seductive prowess to test Sir Gawain. The constant focus on Lady Bertilak and her sexuality takes away from digging into how smart she truly is to be carrying out this plan in the first place. It also undermines how genuinely powerful Morgan le Faye is in the execution of all of these plans and events.
