Representation Of Women In Beowulf Essay

Women are portrayed in a wide spectrum of ways in early Anglo-Saxon writings, ranging from only contributing as helpless waifs in need of saving to brave protesters telling their story firsthand. Using the sources of The Deor, Beowulf, and Wulf and Eadwacer as primary references, the depiction of women can usually be broken down into a few archetypes: that of the homemaker, the damsel in distress, and the challenger of these two roles. In Deor, women are characterized exclusively as victims. Although all characters in the poem with exception to the narrator are allusions from previous well-known stories, the female characters are different from their male counterparts in that while the men’s tales of woe are made out to be temporary dilemmas, while the women’s

This archetype of women unable to move on or defend themselves in the wake of tragedy is also fairly common in Beowulf. However, the paradigm of the housewife and the foil of these two are also present within the story. The character of Hildeburh, the princess who’s married to Finn, is the best representation of a waif in this story. Described as “the woman in shock, waylaid by grief,” (Heaney, 31.) her short stint in the epic is almost exclusively one of a victim of fate, unable to move on or come to terms with the loss of her husband and brother. Without any other part in the story, her only role served is to contrast against the strength and resilience of the male “heroes” in the story. Her lack of dimensionality is fairly common for her character typology, but the way her name can be so easily overlooked entirely is something unique to Beowulf. The second character type, though often linked and connected to that of these pathetic women, defenseless in their situations, is unique in that her femininity is not only characterized as subservient and weak, but also loving, benevolent,