Patel Avishkumar Prof. Jonna Semeiks Eng 7 14 April, 2009
Essay B: Six symbols used in the Confessions, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and in the Inferno.
St. Augustines Confessions is a spiritualistic story that includes philosophical knowledge. On the other hand Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an adventurous story. Dantes Inferno is a story of the world after death. Each of the quests is very interesting, which makes readers lost in an entirely different world. However, to understand these stories we have to interpret many symbols used in each story to represent other different significant features. All symbolized things are used by the writer, in such a way that it communicates certain concepts in the story. St. Augustines Confessions is a story, which needs more philosophical understanding. Once Augustine was on the way to deliver an important speech and he was miserably nervous about his performance. While on the way, Augustine saw a beggar who was very happy in his drunken nature. This incident shows that though Augustine achieved more things than a drunken, happy beggar, Augustine was worried about his materialistic happiness and the beggar, who has not achieved anything, did not care for the materialistic world and was enjoying spiritual happiness. It also shows that to gain nonmaterialistic happiness, one has to sacrifice the material worldliness. Another symbol used in this story is Augustines mother, Monica, who leads her son to convert to Catholicism. In whole story, Monica supports Augustine to move from place to place like Thagaste, Carthage, Ostia, and Milan in search of wisdom of God. All her deeds illustrated that she was the Gods messenger who draws the line for Augustine towards the eternal knowledge.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain carries a five point star with a circle on it, which represented many things. This circled pentangle was designed by the king Solomon, as a symbol of truth. This pentangle symbol represents the truthfulness of Sir Gawain. As this pentangle star has five points, it also symbolized other five qualities. Those are: never to be faultless in five senses, five fingers together are more powerful than a finger, five wounds of Christ, strength of five joys associated with Virgin Mary and lastly five knightly virtues that are brotherly love, compassion, pure mind, pure manners and beneficence (person who do always good). Another used symbol in this story is the Green girdle. It is worn by the hosts wife, which is linked to the Green Knight because it is green and has golden embroidery like the Green Knights Shield. Moreover the green girdle has the power to protect the person, who wears it from death. Later in the quest the hosts wife gives it to Sir Gawain and he is supposed to give it to the host, but he doesnt give it. This proves that any person might get dishonest for the sake of his life. In the end of the story, the girdle retains no power to protect Gawain from death, because of his dishonesty. However, the Green Knight teaches a lesson to Sir Gawain and doesnt kill him, but Gawain continues to wear the green girdle as a medal of his sinful act and as the symbol of a coward man who becomes dishonest to save himself from death. There are many symbols in Dantes Inferno through which the writer communicates many different meanings. The three angry beasts used in the beginning of the story are very interesting. Those beasts are the she-wolf, the lion and the leopard. Each beast is characterized as per the animal that does its own specific offences. The she-wolf is an animal that represents the crime of incontinence (person who cant control himself) lustfulness, and gluttony. The lion symbolizes violence against the self, for example people who commit suicides, and violence against God, this includes people lending money with interest to others. Finally, the leopard represents fraud that includes treachery against family (people who killed their family members) and treachery against country. Another symbolized creature which represents significant meaning is Geryon, who has an innocent face with the body of a scorpion. The person who looks Geryon face can never imagine that he has a poisonous tail through which he might harm that person. Geryons features represent that a fraudulent person cant be recognized from his face and he can mislead anyone at anytime, through his innocent face.
Each of these stories is written in such a way that it really depends a lot on symbolized objects for understanding. If someone reads these stories without interpreting and minding the symbols then it is impossible for him to understand the points the writer is trying to communicate to the reader because all these symbolized things, places and natural creatures gives much broader ideas then it is mentioned in the book.