Beowulf - The Immortal Hero

The epic poem of Beowulf is a story filled with majesty and mourning. Heroes and villains, struggles and victory. Men die, all the time. Along with all of this there is an underlying theme ever present throughout the script. It is the basis for actions, the reason for such passion behind a man's own bloody sword, the lust in his hungry eyes for revenge and conquers. In this time where the afterlife is uncertain, and familiarity is only known to a name, true heroism is the only assurance of identity and remembrance.

This theme can be seen in several areas of the book. It begins with the infamous Geats entering the area of the Danes, where such stress is placed by the guard of the coast on the names of the men's fathers and their lineage . This therefore begins with the suggestion that name means everything; a son is only his father‘s name. As the coastguard pronounces, "Whose soldier's are you…You! Tell me your name, and your father's…I say, for us all. Speak, say exactly who you are, and from where, and why" (236-257). This first gives off the impression that there is a great weight held in the names of those that come forth, what they have done and what their fathers have done before them. Even more important, there is a stress that these men are nothing but their father's name, and they must overcome this to make a name for themselves. The coast guard does not care what the incoming warriors do and who they are, but more what they are and what names they have for themselves. It is again in the town where a warrior demands the names of the warriors before they are allowed passage. The reader is warned in the prologue that the key to immortality is fame. As the storyteller recalls,

His father's warriors were wound round h...

... middle of paper ...

... lair, but instead her head. He brings that back to Hrothgar, with pride and glory. It shows again when the treasure is burned alongside his body in his death. No other was to wear the precious jewelry found, no other deserved it. It was not the gold that was needed, riches only provided temporary power. It was the name, the identity, the one sure way to live on forever. A guard does not care but one thing, names. Warriors and kings care of one thing. Names carry the information of great deeds in the past, of one's courage and power. The name of Beowulf was finally given power. His name lived on through others, evil will always be in the world, and the greatest fighter of the wicked was this warrior, Beowulf, the defeater of Grendel, his mother and the horrific dragon. His dead cold hand stays warm on the lips of the sailors as they speak his name and pass his tower.