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Beowulf character essay
Beowulf character essay
Text analysis of Beowulf
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Throughout the story, Beowulf fights three battles against frightening monsters. Beowulf, the prince of the Geats, was a well known warrior with extreme strength who makes a promise to protect his people under any circumstance. In the poem, his strength is tested, but he uses it to save many people in battles against: Grendel, Grendel 's mother, and a dragon. Before, during, and after each of these battles Beowulf shows many similarities and differences in his actions. Hrothgar and the Danes hold a celebration after they finished of their new mead hall, named Heorot. During the celebration Grendel, a monster in the swamps, hears the loud cheers of the Danes singing and chanting as the festivities take place. Grendel becomes furious from …show more content…
At the feast Beowulf states he will fight Grendel not only alone but also unarmed. This shows his courage and honor because he does not want any of his men to get hurt and Grendel does not use weapons. When Grendel arrives to the mead hall that night, he is met by the strongest warrior in the land. Beowulf and Grendel wrestle inside the mead hall where the strength of Beowulf prevails when he rips the monster 's arm off its body. The injured monster retreats back to his mother 's house in the swamp where he ends up dying. As a symbol of the victory against Grendel, Beowulf hangs the arm on the wall for all the Danes. To celebrate the heroic actions of Beowulf the Danes hold a celebration where they give thanks by giving many gifts to the Geats. The battle with Grendel is just the first challenge the brave and courageous warrior …show more content…
King Hrothgar once again looks toward Beowulf to take care of another monster. To get ready for this battle Beowulf wears armor and uses the Horting sword which has never lost in battle. Once again Beowulf shows his courage by deciding to go to the bottom of the monster filled swamp and fight alone. Fighting off monsters on his way down, Beowulf reached the bottom where he was met by Grendel 's mother. He tried to cut her head off with Horting, but she is too strong. Beowulf takes a sword made for giants off the wall, and uses his super strength to cut the mother 's head off. As a trophy of this battle Beowulf finds the body of Grendel in a corner and decides to take his head back to the mead hall. Hrothgar celebrates another victory by once again throwing a large celebration where they gave more gifts to Beowulf and the Geats. After two battles, Beowulf decides it is time for him and his men to head back to their homeland. Continuing to show courage, honor, and strength Beowulf states that if the Danes ever have anymore problems with monsters he will help protect
Nobody dared to stop the bravest man in all the land known as Beowulf. Beowulf is the strongest warrior from Geatland. When Beowulf hears about the Danes and Hrothgar’s struggle to keep his men safe, he offers to help. The Danish king, Hrothgar, accepts Beowulf’s request to kill Grendel and his mother. Beowulf proves his strength and becomes famous when he defeats Grendel in a battle using nothing but his bare hands in Herot. He keeps Grendel’s arm as a symbol of his victory. Grendel’s mother looks for revenge, but she is also killed by the brave warrior. Beowulf becomes the King of Geatland after the king’s son, Heardred, is killed. Beowulf rules for 50 years and he is very successful in keeping peace across the land and Geatland becomes very prosperous. Beowulf later dies after a final fight against a dragon. The Geats build a tower strong and tall just as Beowulf requested so that sailors could find it from far and wide. Beowulf perfectly embodies the Germanic heroic ideal.
King Hrothgar had no solution to the conflict it was described that “All were endangered; young and old were hunted down by that dark death-shadow who lurked and swooped in the long nights on the misty moors” (Heaney 219). Grendel took over and established a kingdom. Grendel established a terrorizing fear in all the danes, until Beowulf comes along. Beowulf is immediately praised “There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful”, the Danes after seven years have found how to defeat this monster. (Heaney 222) Beowulf travels to another country and is one of kind, no one compares to his might and power. This proves how brave he is to travel to another country to defeat a monster that has had repeatedly attacked Danes. Beowulf emphasizes his bravery even more by declaring ““I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand is how it will be, a life-and-death fight with the fiend”. This boastful attitude gives Beowulf the bravery to step up and fight using his barehands. The average warrior would use a shield and sword but, Beowulf is not average he shows that he is a hero and will fight Grendel as if he was invincible. Beowulf defeats Grendel by ripping of his arm and it signifies that he is not a fraud, but a man of his word. Beowulf pride gives himself an
Then he battles not one but two demons being two of the tests that he faces. Beowulf 's main purpose in Denmark is to kill the coldhearted powerful demon. “Gendel was the name of the grim demon Haunting the marches, marauding round the heath And the desolate fens;...” (lines 102-104). After his first battle “Beowulf, son of Ecgtheow, spoke: “ We have gone through with a glorious endeavour and been much favored in this fight we dared against the unknown, Nevertheless, if you could have seen the monster himself where he lay beaten, i would have been better pleased, My plan was to pounce, pin him down In a tight grip and grapple him to death- Have him painting for life, powerless and clasped In my bare hands, his body in thrall. But i couldn 't stop him from slipping my hold, The lord allowed it, my lock on him Wasn’t strong enough, he struggled fiercely and broke and ran. Yet he bought his freedom At a high price, for he left his hand and arm and shoulder to show he had been here, A cold comfort for having come among us. And now he won 't be long for this world. He has done his worst but the wound will end him.”( lines 956-974). Then they decide to celebrate, little do they know that along with Grendel lives his mother. Seeking vengeance for her son 's death, she attacks Heorot and kills just one man being Hrothgar 's closest friend and advisor. In his grief, he
Then the Danes decide to go back to Herot and while they are sleeping, Grendel’s mother comes to attack them in order to even the score for the killing of her son. Then she leaves, taking the body parts of her son and Esher (which is one of Hrothgar's close friends) with her. Beowulf attempts to save him by entering the monster-filled lake, although the sword that he uses is useless against the skin of Grendel’s mother. As he continues to fight, he grows tired, but then notices that there is a huge sword on the wall of the battle hall where he was dragged to. The sword just so happened to be a magical one that was blessed by the giants that made it.
Beowulf returns to the great Heorot Hall after slaying Grendel’s mother in an underwater battle. The death of Grendel and Grendel’s mother is a sign of the victory of good over evil. Grendel and his mother are vicious evil monsters. All the happy Geats listen as Beowulf recounts his underwater battle with Grendel’s mother. Beowulf credits God for his victory, saying, "The fight would have ended straightway if God had not guarded me" (Norton, 48). Beowulf offers the hilt to Hrothgar who carefully examines the melted sword, a work of giants, and "on which was written the origin of ancient strife, when the flood, rushing water, slew the race of giants"(48).
There are numerous similitudes and contrasts between Beowulf the motion picture which was made in the year 2007, and the poem by an obscure Angelo Saxon poet. A large portion of the likenesses and contrasts are clear. The poem was changed into a motion picture and was more advanced and simpler to see then the epic poem itself. The movie happens to be more modern and gives the audience a better understanding of Beowulf and what happened during his life. It also helps the audience visualize it rather than having to picture the occurences while reading the poem.
When he accepts his first challenge in the poem, Grendel, a big and powerful creature with claws, had been tormenting Herot for “twelve winters” (Beowulf 62). Later, Hrothgar approaches Beowulf to inform him that the “only help, again, lies with [him]” and to “save [them] once more” from Grendel’s revenge-filled Mother (443-44; 446-47). In these moments, Beowulf embraces the role of being the ultimate hope to not just the Danes, but his fellow Geat brethren as well. After fifty years of ruling the Geats, he is once again put in a position of being their only hope when a big, powerful fire breathing “dragon begins terrorizing [them]” (62). Beowulf succeeded in stopping the dragon’s attacks at the cost of his own life. However, his mission was fulfilled. The Geats had been saved and proceeded to finish the final wishes of their fallen king.
Out of the 30,000 lines of literature left from the Anglo-Saxon period, almost 4,000 lines are preserved in the text of Beowulf, the epic poem of the hero with the strength of 30 men in each arm. It is a story of the supernatural as well as a record of Anglo-Saxon history. Because there was little literacy and few books in Medieval England, scops were the key to recording history. They upheld the history of England since the very beginning, along with the ancestry of her first settlers.
In conclusion, Beowulf is fighting his last battle between life and death. The young warrior Beowulf, a nobleman from the land of the Geats, travels to the kingdom of the Danes, where he saves the people of King Hrothgar by slaying the monster Grendel and his mother. In his later years, after becoming king in his homeland, Beowulf
Beowulf meets his foe in the mead hall of the land of the Danes. With this foul beast facing the great warrior, beowulf grabs onto the beast's arm and uses all his might to rip it off of grendel's body. The beast being injured, he crawled back into his blood soaked cave awaiting him is his mother. Grendel's eventually dies from his fatal wound caused by Beowulf. Beowulf followed the blood soaked trail of the beast Grendel and finds the cave of grendel's mother. After the death of gendal the mourning mother seeks revenge for the death of her son. The second she realizes the warrior is watching she falls into battle, eventually being killed by the all mighty Beowulf. After Beowulf kills the creatures he returns back and is immediately greeted riches and wealth by the people due to his heroic acts in the land of the Danes. He is offered the throne, yet denies it at first and as time goes on he later takes it and becomes kind. As many years pass and Beowulf is King of the land a thief sneaks into the lair of the dragon. As he steals a goblet the dragon becomes furious and attacks the land of the Danes. Beowulf conjures all his pride and figures he can kill the beast alone he later gets bit by the dragon and eventually die only after the dragon suffers the same fate.
Beowulf came to Geatland to kill the monster Grendel. Beowulf said he will kill the monster not for gold but for glory. He fights Grendel evenly with no armor, weapons, or clothing. He ripped Grendels arm off and Grendel fled in fear of Beowulf, and ended up dieing later in his cave. Beowulf finds out that there is another monster and its Grendels mother. He goes to the cave to find and kill Grendels mother. Beowulf lies to the kingdom and tells them that he killed Grendels mother he layed with her and gave her a son in exchange as long as the golden horn that Beowulf has stays in her cave Beowulf will be king. Beowulf becomes king of
There are many similarities and differences between each battle Beowulf is part of. In every battle, the reader expects Beowulf to be victorious since it has been stated since the beginning of the epic poem that he is a hero. In addition to this Beowulf’s intention is the same in every battle. Although he would argue that he wants to destroy Grendel in order to help Heorot, it is clear Beowulf only wants to build a strong reputation for himself. I personally thought Beowulf had a very arrogant personality especially when it came to fighting battles for his own benefit rather than the people. Some key differences found in each battle is how Beowulf goes about defeating the monsters and the dragon. In the battle with Grendel Beowulf fights without
Beowulf looked over on the wall next to them and saw a magnificent sword hanging on the wall adorned with beautiful carvings, it was blessed with magic. No normal man could ever have lifted that sword, but Beowulf was no normal being. He waited for the right moment to go and retrieve the sword, and when he found the perfect opportunity and he ran straight towards the wall. He pulled the sword down with great force and began running towards Grendel’s mother. Beowulf took in a deep breath as he leaned back and heaved the sword forward. Beowulf had sliced straight through Grendel’s mother’s scaly neck, blood began to pour everywhere and he heard her bones cracking as the sword passed through her.
Because he is an abomination that has been exiled from man by God, Grendel lives in the darkness. He constantly hears the sounds of celebration coming from the mead hall full of warriors causing him to cringe. The demon waits till darkness has fallen, then he strikes on the slumbering soldiers. He slaughters thirteen men and takes them to his lair, leaving a trail of blood from behind. In the morning Hrothgar, the warriors’ lord, mourns over his lost men. Grendel continues to attack until the only men left were those who had fled. A man from Geatland, said to be mightier than anyone else in the world, hears of Hrothgar’s struggle; his name is Beowulf. Beowulf gathers his strongest men and takes a boat to go execute Grendel. From the very first description, Beowulf is described as an epic hero. He is mightier than all others before him, is a leader and takes charge, and is brave enough to go face against
Beowulf’s first accomplishment as an epic hero was his battle with Grendel. Grendel was a huge beast, a descendent of Cain, who ruthlessly murdered innocent Danes because he felt pity for himself. Upon hearing of the Dane’s problem, Beowulf set off to help the Danish without having been called upon. Even though Beowulf had men backing him, He drew battle with Grendel alone and without armor or weapons. Yet, Beowulf emerged victorious with the arm of Grendel as his trophy. Beowulf then went on to kill Grendel’s vengeful mother and a huge fire-breathing dragon who thought it had been done wrong by the Geats. Alas, the killing of the dragon would be Beowulf’s last great battle for the dragon took Beowulf’s life in the struggle for his own.