Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

happy and jovial disposition throughout the disclosure proceedingstaking place between him and Sir Gawain. It should be noted thatresearch shows that “positive affect should promote assimilation andthus more daring and direct disclosure styles” (Forgas 3), meaningthat the very fact that the Green Knight is disclosing informationin the first place, and then that he is doing so in a friendly manner,increases the likelihood of Sir Gawain accepting the tale and feelinga sort of oneness with the Green Knight.More appropriately this oneness could be termed “empathy”,which is described as the “attempt to understand, to experience andto feel things as another human person might feel them”(Fairbairn192), a powerful reciprocal effect of the Green Knight’s informationdisclosure. Now that Gawain understands the point-of-view of theGreen Knight, his more readily able to consider it. This considerationof the other perspective, the opinions of alterity, would have neverhappened if Gawain had not been at first tricked into being put intoa situation where he would have listen to the thoughts and feelingsof a “monster” whom he would have just as soon beheaded ratherthan hearken to.Whether talking of passionate love or companionate love, two“valid conceptualization’s] of love”( Kim & Hatfield 173), there is nodoubt that in either sense, given that the “two emotions are relatedwith each other…universal[ly]” (Kim & Hatfield 180), a strong senseof empathy and communication must be maintained in order todiffuse feelings of otherness and alterity. It is this sort of love, thekind which operates in pursuit of learning about the “other”, that“which is strange, as it gradually casts off its veil and presents itselfas a new and indescribable beauty” (Casey 371), that will effect theworld in a lasting and impressive way. It is this sort of legitimatecaring for the other, as the Green Knight shows Sir Gawain, that willeliminate prejudices which are preconceived and socially motivatedby the mainstream culture. The Green Knight is a man who is50 afternoons of alterity