When most people think of chivalry in this day and age, they think of the saying, "Chivalry is dead. That saying is usually used when bitter women are referring to their past relationships. In the middle ages, however, chivalry was something bigger than just how one treated their suitors. Back then, chivalry was used in referral to the chivalric code. The chivalric code was a lifestyle for medieval knights. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain portrays many of the things that make a chivalrous knight, but not all of them.

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             "Some expectations of chivalry are: you always fight for your king; you at all times are to protect your king, and serve him through good and bad " (Chivalry In The Middle Ages). In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the first thing the reader sees Gawain do is stand up for his King. When the Green Knight comes in to the court's Christmas dinner, he begins to poke fun at the knights, and then asks if any of them want to play a game with him. The game is not a normal game, however. The Green Knight says that he will endure an axe-blow from one knight, as long as that knight agrees to meet him in a year and a day to receive an axe-blow in return. None of the knights stand up to play the game, so the Green Knight calls out King Arthur himself. Gawain does not think that it is right for the king to have to play the game, so he volunteers. Gawain shows devotion to his king and stands up to a challenge instead of backing down, which shows how great of a knight he really is. With this being said, Gawain takes his swing at the Green Knight. .

             Although his head falls off, he picks it back up and says that Gawain must meet him in a year and a day as he promised. Being the noble knight that Gawain is, he sets out to find the Green Chapel the next holiday season. The fact that he goes looking for the Green Knight at the time he was supposed to really shows that he keeps to his word and is not afraid of what may happen, because he is a knight and that is what knights do.