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Examples Of Monomyth In Beowulf

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Joseph Campbell is an American writer and mythologist. According to his teachings, all mythologies adopt the same pattern, recognized as the heroic Monomyth. The monomyth can also be defined as a hero's journey. Tons of heroic characters reflect the monomyth, regardless of the era, culture and literature it was made in. The epic poem Beowlf executes the theory of a hero's journey thoroghly. In the poem, Beowulf follows the adventures of the hero described in Campbell's monomyth. In order to be acknowledged as an epic, a story must have many stages, according to the monomyth format. The hero’s journey consists of three main stages. These stages are separation, initiation, and return. And ofcourse, Beowulf encounters each one of these stages …show more content…

The first stage a hero must experience in their journey is Seperation. This stage consists of the hero starting off in a normal situation,living everyday life until he or she is informed that their help is needed in another world. The message could be a threat, a dilema or request. This is also known as the hero's call to adventure. In Beowulf, a monster named Grendel has been terrorizing and slaying the people and the kings army for approximately ten years. Beowulf heard, "there was panic after dark, people indured raids in the night, riven by terror". (192-93) This is when he receives his call to adventure. After receiving it, he couldn't allow himself to refuse the call when he knew that his help was desperately needed to defeat Grendel. He gathered his men and sailed from his home to the land of the danes. "There was no one else like him alive. In his day, he was the mightiest man on earth, high-born and powerful. He ordered a bout that would ply the waves and annouced his plan: to sail swan's roads and search out that king, the famous prince who needed defenders. His ambition to go,

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