Essay Example on a Paradox: Logic Gone Haywire & Its Role in Everyday Life

A paradox is referred to as a statement that appears contradicting nevertheless can be true. This enables them to stand out as well as play an essential role in everyday life and literature. Apart from this, paradoxes can be entertaining the teasers of the brain. It may be difficult or impossible to understand it since it comprehends opposite characteristics or facts. They are coincidences in logic that validate the thinking goes haywire sometimes, even when sound logical reasoning is used to get the meaning.

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In the poem of Chivalric Romance Sir Gawain as well as Green Knight, the utilization of paradox is a significant device used by Gawain poet. The paradox use challenges the reconvinced somatic expectations of readers by making both of them contradicting qualities amalgamated tightfitting an underlying truth. For example, in this verse "lot means the faithful soul; Sodom, earthly life; Segor, conjugal life; the mountain, spiritual life; the wife of Lot, the fleshly ones who are in the church" (Burrow) all that can be said concerning it is that, in purity issues, the readers would be wasteful since they disregard all the effort of the versifier to produce a conspicuous realistic portrayal of proceedings essential to poet's world for something comparable to intellectual spiritual truths.

The usage of paradox trials the bibliophiles to make sagacity of the paradox while waiting for the readers to reach the deeper, thoughtful of the work meaning. A noteworthy mystery is identified in the Green Knight appearance. The initial skirmish in the poem takes place when the unidentified rider before the court of King Arthur. The presence of the unknown rider is described as precisely. According to the poet, the unidentified rider is a huge Burly man: "From broad neck to buttocks so bulky and thick, / And his loins and legs so long and so great, / Half a giant on earth I hold him to be" (Burrow). The body of this man is strange because it is unapproachable though it was attractive because even if in the back as well as in breast, his figure was ugly, his midriff was small in its thickness, and it was molded with every chin in fair concurrence.

Furthermore, the paradox was used to provoke new meaning. Since the rider had a holly curtsy in his hand, readers have different thoughts about it. Nevertheless, it was to signify peace and goodwill even though he had an ax on his other hand, which was threatening. His appearance, as well as physique, is bewildering to the high court and the bibliophile in its rugged, daunting quality as well as in its redefined, delightful features; nevertheless, possibly even more mysterious is that the rider was green. "At his hue most strange to see, / For man and gear and all / Were green as green could be" (Burrow). The Green Knight, the clothing of the rider, gear, as well as horse are green. The appearance of the man was unnatural yet natural (Burrow). The horseman, along with the horse ought to have such a kind, glowing as green as grass. Green is the primary of vegetation and nature, and men, as well as horses, come from nature. As a result, it is unnatural to appear green. The green varnish on gold is peculiar and contradicts what is represented by the green color.

The poets, in this case, used paradoxes to make the readers think logically. Some inconsistencies in the above may have a loser meaning but be a situation that brings contradictions. To some point, the rider was simple to understand, but his appearance was shocking, and not many readers who could understand what the poet was trying to show. Paradox makes the poem interesting hence enabling the readers to think critically to get the meaning in it.

Work Cited

Burrow, John Anthony. A reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Vol. 5. Routledge, 2019. https://academic.oup.com/res/article-abstract/XVIII/69/58/1555835?redirectedFrom=PDF