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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,.“Sir Gawain’s Unfulfilled/Unfulfilling Quest,”by Michael G. Cornelius,Wilson CollegeThe fourteenth-century alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight is a classic example of heroic questing literature and one of thefinest medieval epic romances ever composed in the English language.Yet the anonymous author of Gawain disrupts the fulfillment generallyfound in questing tales. In defiance of custom, the heroic conditionof both Gawain’s society and the knight himself are not improvedby Gawain’s journey. However, this lack of fulfillment is preciselythe purpose behind Gawain’s quest in the first place. The Gawainauthor has designed his romance to demonstrate the inherent impossibilityof the chivalric code that Gawain lives by, ensuring Gawain’sfailure. While this does not trouble Gawain’s foes, the poet, or eventhe audience, it does weigh heavily on Gawain himself, and it is hislack of fulfillment, combined with the noncomprehending reactionof his own society to his disappointment, that results in the failure ofGawain’s own heroic journey.Gawain’s expedition was never meant to be a triumph. As Shedddescribes it, Gawain’s quest, “constitutes a glaring violation of thetraditional success-story pattern” specific to the genre (4). The questwas designed by Morgan le Fay to demonstrate the inherent shortcomingsof the chivalric code: in short, the unfeasibility of living by195