Weakness In Beowulf

Beowulf, a New Telling by Robert Nye is about Beowulf protecting the Danes people and the evil. It is not always easy for Beowulf to kill the creatures, and he chooses to use no weapons. Throughout the book the author includes good and evil characters, and shows anyone could choose to be either. The author also express that you can make strengths out of your own weakness.

“Beowulf was the rare kind of person who makes strength of his own weaknesses.”(pg 20 Nye) Beowulf had poor eyesight but was determined to see better than most people. He cultivated habits of quickness and concentration. This allowed Beowulf to truly see and others to just look. This was similar to when I played softball. I was the shortest one on the team. The other girls were bigger and could easily hit the ball farther than me. However, because I was shorter I had a smaller strike zone for the pitcher and was quicker on my feet. I had turned my weakness into strengths.

Beowulf had elements of lightness and darkness. He killed the evil and saved the Danes people. However, Beowulf was somewhat considerate for evil characters like Unferth and supposedly ate wicked apples. On page 27 the text said “Only someone wicked could eat witch’s apples and come to no harm.” At the end of the book Beowulf killed the Firedrake and choose to be a hero and became a legend. Unferth on the other hand disagreed with many people, was furious when Grendel (an evil character died), and knew evil. He ended up dying and everybody thought he deserved it and nobody cared. I think the author is trying to express that if you are a good person and do good deeds people will appreciate you more and if you are a bad person and1 the opposite will