Gawain and the Green Knight

Gawain's pilgrimage to find the Green Knight has led him through coarse and hostile country, to a beautiful castle where he is warmly received by its congenial and generous inhabitants, only too glad to receive this most courteous of knights. Departing this castle, Gawain continues his quest for the Green Knight, whom he has learned inhabits the "Chapel Green"; this journey brings him back to the wild, foreboding country which he encountered in the initial stage of his journey. This is an area inhabited by nature alone, growing wild and uninhibited, as yet untamed by man, to which we are vividly introduced through the author's use of imagery, involving particularly skillful word usage which illustrates for us this wilderness to which the Green Knight is the sole inhabitant.
This land of the Green Knight is described broadly, as we are introduced to it much as Gawain would have been, taking in the vast space as a whole before focusing in on specifics. Our first image is one of captivity, as this is not an open field, but a space contained by "high banks on either hand", which "hemmed it about"; this image of containment is important in establishing a feeling of uneasiness, which Gawain no doubt feels at the thought of being contained with a knight capable of speaking through his own severed head. Having established this feeling of captivity, the author proceeds with two images which establish the "roughness" of this country, which is characterized by "many a ragged rock and rough-hewn crag".
Underscoring this rough image is the description of the sky as appearing to have been "scored", or cut, by these "scowling peaks", another foreboding image. These images of "scoring" and "scowling" fit well with what Gawain expects of the Green Knight, to whom he still owes a strike, and whose scowling severed face was no doubt burned into Gawain's mind. The economy and efficiency used in this description is quite skillful, as, in three short lines, we are given a vivid image of a contained area characterized by jagged rocks projecting into the sky in such a way as to appear to cut into it, and which "scowl" down at anyone below.
Expecting to find a traditional European "chapel", Gawain at first does not locate the Chapel Green, which in appearance is far removed from traditional notions of a Catholic religious space. This chapel is described in terms of strength and sturdiness, "high and broad, hard by the water", which reinforce the Green Knight's inherent power and immovability, as well as his connection to nature and life. A stream "fell in foam" in a steep waterfall, and "bubbled as it boiled", an image of both violence and natural vitality. These images presented thus far, besides conjuring images of nature, violence, and a general foreboding nature, are also reminiscent of typical descriptions of hell, which often feature jagged topographical features as well as boiling sulphrous pools of lava or some such substance; it is of no coincidence that a direct reference to hell appears in the "wheel" of this stave. This may well be an apt description for this place as it is seen by the Catholic Gawain, Virgin Mary on his shield, who no doubt expects to meet his doom here; also reflected herein is the pagan aspect of the Green Knight, as pagan beliefs are characterized by nature worship, which is, in turn, absolutely shunned by Catholics. Furthering this pagan slant, the Green Knight's "chapel" is not a typical church, but a rough, overgrown mound of earth, signifying that the nature of his faith is strictly nature-based. The Chapel Green "was covered with coarse grass in clumps all without, And hollow all within", a wildly disheveled, completely unadorned, perfectly natural temple for this knight in whom nature itself is embodied. Gawain is not even able to discern that this is, indeed, a chapel, thinking it may be "some old cave, Or a crevice of an old crag- he could not discern aright"; this chapel is so foreign to Gawain that he cannot even acknowledge it as such, thinking it merely a collection of rocks and earth at best, more closely related to hell than Earth.
Through skillful use of imagery, this unknown author has related a large quantity of vivid images and information in the space of a mere nineteen lines. The use of words such as "hemmed", "ragged", "scored", and "scowling" paint for us an ominous picture of this world of the Green Knight as seen through the eyes of Sir Gawain. This selection is rife with vivid imagery and descriptive language, as well as a distinct preponderance of alliteration, which is present to some degree in nearly every line, no doubt in tribute to the art of oral storytelling. This author has framed for us a picture of the Catholic knight Gawain entering this foreboding, pagan world of the Green Knight, hellish to himself while sacred to he whom embodies nature itself; the contrast between the two is made perfectly evident by the author, but Gawain soon learns that this knight is no more devil than he himself.