The night before Bertilak goes on the first hunt, the test is first set up. Over the next three days, Bertilak will hunt and give his prey as a gift to Gawain, who is supposed, according to his honor as a Knight, to return it with a gift of his own. The poet is setting up for the fall and feminization of Gawain, which is ultimately seen as the fall of chivalry.
The First Hunt
On the first day of hunting, Bertilak and his band chase down does. At this point, Gawain has kept his oaths: he has been courteous, not abused his host’s hospitality, and kept his troth. He is still the noblest of knights. Just as the deer are being “driven to the valleys,” Gawain is similarly being trapped in his room by Lady Bertilak, who calls him her “captive knight.”
The Second Hunt
On the second day of the hunt, Bertilak and his men hunt a large boar. The boar is continually chased down by the band of men, only to attack violently when cornered by the group. At the same time, when Lady Bertilak enters Gawain’s chamber, he decides to “greet her at once” an action conducive to a more aggressive (boar-like) mannerism, rather than feigning sleep as he did on the first morning. This displays the decline in Gawain’s character. By the second day, he has already pledged himself Knight to a married lady, and is now indulging in wordplay on love with her. He now has a secret, which would tarnish his honor if exposed.
The Third Hunt
The fox is the last animal to be hunted. He hides from the hunters, circles around, and uses cunning to try and escape from their grasp. But, like Gawain, he is eventually captured, and his hide removed (Gawain’s dishonor is exposed in the Green Chapel at the end of the piece, where he is captured in his crime). At this time, the Lady offers Gawain a gold ring and a girdle, which he refuses.
But then she appeals to his instinct of self-preservation, and convinces him to take the girdle, for the man who wears it “could not be killed by any craft on earth.” When Gawain is rewarded with the fox’s hide that night, he passes on only the three kisses of Lady Bertilak, and breaks his oath by keeping the girdle. Now the transformation from noble and masculine Knight to feminine and secretive man has been completed.
The Fall
In the context of this story, the fallibility of femininity is seen as a negative force that works against the noble man. This is seen in the portrayal of the seducer, Lady Bertilak, who like Eve before her, is responsible the downfall of man. Throughout these three days of meeting with Lady Bertilak, Gawain begins to “digress” towards femininity, falling away from the noble Knighthood.
There is a direct correlation between the treatment of the animals and Gawain: the does are gutted and the knights “divide the crotch in two.” This correlates with the feminizing forces working on Gawain, who is in a sense also losing his manhood, associated with his loins. Acting in a feminine manner goes hand in hand with corruption in this story, for Gawain begins to sleep in late while the men of the castle go hunting, he even ends up wearing feminine articles of clothing: Lady Bertilak’s girdle.
In later stories of Gawain, we find that this transformation is total and irreversible. Once his honor was lost, he could never again regain the god-like status that it was once his honor to hold.
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