Beowulf And Harry Potter Comparison

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“The archetypal hero appears in all religions, mythologies, and epics of the world.” While the idea of labeling a hero as archetypical started in the twentieth century, there are archetypical heroes that were created over a thousand years ago. One of the first epic archetypical heroes was Beowulf from medieval England, and another well-known archetypical hero is Harry Potter from modern day England. Both Beowulf and Harry Potter are archetypical heroes, even though they are from different cultures and different storylines they are still very similar. What makes Harry Potter and Beowulf archetypical heroes even though they are different?
For a hero to be an archetype hero there is a list of character traits and situations that have to exist in the story. “The universal hero myth always refers to a powerful man or god-man who vanquishes evil in the form of dragons, serpents, monsters, demons, and so on…” …show more content…

Beowulf and Harry Potter do not have all of the same characteristics that make them archetypical heroes. The best example of this is One of the best examples is Beowulf goes above and beyond what is expected of him when he fights Grendel. He says, “I have heard moreover that the monster scorns in his reckless way to use weapons... I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand is how it will be…”.Harry on the other hand only did as much as he had to to defeat his enemy and did not do it on his own. Another difference between the two heroes is only one of them had a teacher that was important to their quest. Harry Potter was taught by Albus Dumbledore who was the headmaster of the school. On the other hand Beowulf did not have a mentor by whom he was educated. There are also some characteristics for archetypical heroes that neither character fits such as neither of them are naïve at any point in either of their

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