Sir Gawain and Beowulf

729 Words2 Pages

What makes a person a hero? The definition of a hero is “a man distinguished by exceptional courage and nobility and strength.” Every society has a hero. There are the stereo typical heroes such as Superman and Hercules with supernatural powers and there are other heroes that help our societies, such as firemen, soldiers, or doctors. Two main heroes in ancient Greece are Beowulf and Sir Gawain. Beowulf and Sir Gawain have very similar characteristics; however there styles of heroism and moral codes are very different from each other. Another assessment of these two heroes is their compassion and courtesy towards others. Beowulf is fairly courteous to others. However, once someone is rude to him, he immediately gets very infuriated and extremely defensive. On the contrary, Sir Gawain strives for excellence when it comes to courtesy and compassion. In the occasion with the lady of the host, (?) Sir Gawain was faced with the ultimate trial, which tested how courteous he really was. This test proved to others that Sir Gawain sticks to his moral no matter what. These small charac...

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