Conflicts of Morality: Connections Between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Crimes and Misdemeanors

Sometime in the late 14^th century, the Middle English tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written down; centuries later in 1989, Woody Allen wrote and directed the film Crimes and Misdemeanors as a philosophical response to Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Even though they are separated by time and theme, the Medieval, mystical story of Sir Gawain and the darker, modern experiences of Judah share important characteristics. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, our hero finds himself in a position of moral conflict: he must choose whether to adhere to the knightly code of honor and honesty by giving the lady's girdle over to the lord, or to look to his own interests and keep the girdle in order to save his life. His decision to keep the girdle is something that haunts him eternally as a reminder of his imperfection. This story is reminiscent of the Woody Allen film Crimes and Misdemeanors; Judah, one of the central characters played by Martin Landau, is also presented with a moral conflict and chooses to act selfishly instead of following the accepted social moral code. In Judah's case, the stakes are higher: when Dolores, his mistress, threatens to expose their affair to Miriam, his wife, Judah hires someone to kill Dolores before the truth gets out. Ultimately, both Gawain and Judah act in their own interests in order to “save” their lives. An important similarity between the two men is that they are seemingly forced into their predicaments by women, and consequently that they are pressured by society to adhere to a conventional morality. But these similarities give way to differences in the end: Gawain is punished and carries his guilt with him both spiritually and literally, while Judah avoids an admission of guilt and gets away with murder.

    Both Sir Gawain and Judah engage in extra-marital interactions with women, and these entanglements are the driving forces of their moral conflict. In both cases, there is a certain “Adam-and-Eve” motif, whereby the wrongs committed by the men can be traced back to the actions of the women. This is significant because Sir Gawain and Judah are then partial victims of the circumstances they are forced into; Gawain is manipulated by the lord’s wife into taking her girdle for the sake of chivalry, while Judah is made to act because he feels threatened and inconvenienced when Dolores refuses to keep the affair a secret any longer and tries to expose Judah’s wrongdoings. The men differ, however, in the extent to which they blame the women. When contemplating what to do about Dolores, Judah ironically laments, “She’s killing me!” And when Rabbi Ben tells him that the world depends on adherence to the law, Judah responds, “What good is the law if it prevents me from receiving justice? Is what [Dolores] is doing to me just? Is this what I deserve?” He does not take responsibility for the affair or for his actions because he believes he has been wronged. However, Gawain fully accepts the ownership and consequences of his actions, even going so far as to hate himself for having acted dishonorably. But even Gawain cannot help but momentarily blame the lord’s wife; he lists the various men of history who have been “wooed into sorrow” by women—Adam, Solomon, Samson, and David—and states, “And one and all fell prey / To women that they had used; / If I be led astray, / Methinks I may be excused.” This significant connection between Gawain and Judah reveals a male tendency to blame misdeeds on the influence of women, and suggests an important recurring theme of literature.

    Within the context of their respective societies, Gawain and Judah must take action to resolve their predicaments while knowing that they will compromise some aspect of their lives. Both men ultimately decide to take a path that will allow them to “survive,” although that means that they will compromise their morality. Gawain is obligated by his honor as a knight to give the girdle to the lord, but he knows that doing so would not only conflict with his duty to guard the lady’s honor, but also his need to avoid death at the hands of the Green Knight. In the Arthurian world of knights and ladies, the concept of right and wrong is black and white, and even conflicts of morality must be dealt with; here, the Green Knight is the final judge and arbitrator of punishment. But in the modern world of Crimes and Misdemeanors, the accepted code is a social and religious one, whereby the ultimate judges are the law and God. The people in Judah’s world are conflicted; some, like Rabbi Ben, urge Judah to pursue a path of honesty and goodness—an understanding that is implicitly based in a belief in God. But others in the modern story, like Professor Levy, acknowledge the complex and conflicting nature of morality: “[God…] demands that you behave morally. But here comes the paradox. God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, his beloved son, to Him.” Similarly, the character of Halley is not convinced of any religious framework of ethics, stating, “No matter how elaborate a philosophical system you work out, in the end it’s got to be incomplete.” These kinds of secular and questioning ideas leave just enough room for personal morality to override societal morality in a modern world, and for this reason Judah finds room not only to commit murder, but also to forgive himself for it. Gawain’s world does not contain such loopholes, and instead imposes an overarching code that dictates behavior. Interestingly enough, both men choose to act selfishly, but only Judah is able to live free from guilt and shame.