In "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," the characters Gawain and the Green Knight play the roles of good and evil. Gawain plays the role of the brave and noble good knight from the court of Camelot, where all the best knights dwell. The Green Knight is seen to be the evil or dark one that challenges a knight of the round table to a contest. This contest ends with the Green Knight riding away with his head in his hands. This compares greatly to a life after death and is almost demonic. When seeing this image of a big man in green riding away with his head in his hands, still talking to Gawain, the only image that comes to mind is an evil one.
             The duality of light and dark, good and evil, is seen throughout the entire story. The conflict between Gawain and the green knight stems from Arthur, King of Britain. Before Arthur, his father had slept with a very noble lady, who at the time was married. The result was Arthur being born illegitimately. Arthur had a step-sister named Morgan Le Faye who hated Arthur because of what his father had done to her mother. We can see now that Arthur takes the light or good side, while Morgan takes the dark or evil side, thus stemming the Green knight. Since Arthur represents the good and light, there needs to be a dark side to the equation. It was interesting that these all run in threes. The article states that:
             Thus we perceive life rhythm as cyclical: light goes to dark and light again...summer into winter and back to summer...day into night and back today...life into death and back to life. Everything returns threefold. When we direct positive actions out into the Cosmos, they come back threefold to further the life process. Gawain is seen to do this also throughout the conflict of the story. Gawain is noble in the house of Sir Bercilak, then dips into darkness by not keeping his part of the deal and keeping the girdle. He returns to nobleness after he realizes his fault. The same is true with th...