Examples Of Pride In Beowulf

Every time Beowulf happens to fight with someone it’s with one of the three antagonists of the story; Grendel, Grendel’s mother, or the Dragon. When facing Grendel in the mead hall, he shows his strength when they start to wrestle around the hall, Beowulf has a hold of Grendel and makes him want to get away from Beowulf. Beowulf then ripped Grendel’s arm off and hung it high in the hall, while Grendel ran off slowly dying, so everyone would see it in the morning. We also see some more of Beowulf’s strength when he goes to battle Grendel’s mother in her lair. This battle involves losing his sword which he thought would kill the mother, and tossing her to the floor with little to no energy when “anger doubled his strength,” stated in lines 510 and 511 on page 54. When Beowulf finally notices the sword on the wall he, is able to grab it and cut her throat clean through.

Years and years ago, many qualities could be found in warriors that are still prevalent today both in the present and past world. In “Mulan”, Fa Mulan from China is a very courageous woman. Defending her people and ,ultimately, saving her people despite the fact that she is a woman and could be killed if her secret were ever found out. Chris Mintz, a former 30 year old Army infantryman, threw himself into harms way, taking seven bullets, and surviving the encounter. Beowulf, from Scandinavia, held a great deal of pride without too much arrogance. He withheld his strength, unless necessary, and with time, grew the loyalty, courage, and faith warriors have today.

In Beowulf’s first battle he battles a half man half beast, he was a little naïve with the strength of Grendel, because he uses his bare hands but in the end he ends up defeating the beast with his bare hands by ripping off his arm

As the intriguing storyline of Beowulf heightens and progresses, the theme of pride is consistently portrayed. Primarily, the characteristic is shown through Beowulf, the book’s epic hero. Through various predicaments and events that occur within the book, obvious signs of Beowulf’s pride are revealed, both good and bad forms of it.

Beowulf, the epic tale of a Danish society plagued by evil beasts, reveals many thought-provoking and admirable character traits of the main character and hero, Beowulf. Firstly, he shows chivalry through his interactions and actions towards the king of Heorot, showing him the respect and honor he deserved. Secondly, he demonstrates bravery in all battles above and beyond the standard of the times and the standard of his fellow fighters. He owes his bravery in part to his seemingly immeasurable strength, having more power in each fist than that of thirty men. Lastly, he demonstrates a trait that applies to people for his time and ours, pride. Pride plagued his times, due to warriors’ great deeds, but it haunts modern times as well. The liberator of Heorot and the champion of the tale, Beowulf, demonstrates three admirable and relevant character traits, chivalry, bravery and pride.

Grendel by John Gardner offers a parallel perspective to the old english poem Beowulf. The novel tells the story from the perspective of the antagonist and elaborates on the struggle this monster must endure. Grendel is at constant war with his inner demons, he appreciates beautiful things and is hopeful that one day he could posses them and live in harmony with them. Quotes such as “Some evil inside myself pushed out into the trees. I knew what I knew, the mindless, mechanical bruteness of things, and when the harper 's lure drew my mind away to hopeful dreams...” (54), perfectly captures Grendel 's struggle. At this point he still struggles with his destiny and role in life as the villain. Beowulf is insane because everything he does seems mechanical. He kills with eagerness and lives for the pain of his kills. In page 171, the novel says, “Grendel, Grendel! You make the world by whispers, second by second. Are you blind to that? Whether you make it a grave or a garden of roses is not the point. Feel the wall: is it not hard? He smashes me against it, breaks open my forehead. Hard, yes!” (171). The supposed to be perfect hero turns out to be a sadistic murderer, who even Grendel towards the end confuses him with another fellow monster rather than seeing him as the slayer of beast, kinsman

Beowulf, a skilled warrior and was believed to be the strongest of all the lands, heard about the distress in Heorot and decided to make the voyage to assist King Hrothgar. When Beowulf and his men arrived in Heorot, the natives were intimidated by the appearance of his ship and his men, which showed the first act of pride in Beowulf. Beowulf and his men had successfully proved to the people of Heorot that Beowulf believed that he could kill the monster and save the land of Heorot. Hrothgar assigned the duty of killing Grendel to Beowulf and his men, and told them to party, which attracts and angers Grendel, and wait for Beowulf. Grendel entered the mead hall while Beowulf laid patient and observant, waiting for the perfect time to attack, with his bare hands. Beowulf attacked and tore off the arm of Grendel, mortally wounding him.Beowulf, not only upheld the warrior code of conduct, to trust in himself, but took the fight against Grendel to the extreme. He decided to fight without the use of a

He has true honor and respectfully distributes treasure and gifts to those whom he believes rightfully deserves them. Beowulf’s loyalty to the Danes helps shed light on his true character. He expresses that he believes he may die in battle between Grendel, but that does not dissuade him from fighting the beast. Another example is when Hygelac dies, Beowulf is asked to take the throne. In doing so, that would mean the the son of Hygelac would be stripped of his own inheritance, which is dishonorable in Beowulf’s eyes, and thus he declines the offer. The continued honor shown in Beowulf’s character shines through when Beowulf never mentions that Unferth’s trusted sword was no match for Grendel’s mother. Beowulf could have simply boasted how the sword was useless and ineffective against the female beast, yet he was silent out of respect for Unferth. Finally, during Beowulf’s time as ruler (fifty winters), another beast arrives: a dragon. This time, Beowulf is much older and is in a much weaker state than when he first defeated Grendel and his mother. However, that does not deter Beowulf from going out and defending his kingdom. This scene is relevant due to its differing plot from the other two slayings. During the killing of Grendel, Beowulf tears off his arm and ultimately destroys the wretched monster alone and without frivolous weapons. When the duel between Grendel’s mother arises, Beowulf

In the book, “Grendel,” by John Gardner, Grendel is some sort of supernatural creature that kills the humans and eats them after he is done. So Hrothgar’s men fight to defend themselves against this supernatural creature. However, we see in the book that Grendel has feelings and emotions towards humans. Grendel states in the novel that he thinks Hrothgar’s men are animals and that they waste lives. However, the humans think otherwise, they think that Grendel is a supernatural monster that is here to kill them. So, due to circumstances I think the humans were the monsters and Grendel was not.

Beowulf reveals an act of arrogance throughout the epic poem Beowulf; therefore, it makes him an irrelevant hero. Beowulf claimed “that he needs no weapons and fears none” when fighting the monster. Stating that he can defeat a monster with his bare hands makes Beowulf very boastful. This quality of boastfulness expresses Beowulf’s thoughts on heroism. He only did heroic deeds for his desire. Beowulf declares that he “drove five great giants into chains, [and] chased all of that race from the Earth.” He is immensely overbearing at that point because he is too proud of his achievements. Being excessively prideful does not exactly label Beowulf as a hero. Beowulf assumes all of the courageous acts he fulfills will make him

    People often have very different reasons to do something than others. Sometimes, people wonder why others do the things they do. Generally, motivations come in the form of advantages allowed after the completion of the task. This is such an important concept to humans because they are inherently greedy. Power, wealth, status, there are many motivations; however, when it comes to Beowulf, he takes a different approach for his fighting. Beowulf has motivations that follow the Anglo-Saxon code in which he fights for glory, duty, and honor.

In the poem, Beowulf displays courage. “Now, I mean to be a match for Grendel, settle the outcome in single combat” (Heaney 425-426). This quote shows courage because he’s telling them that he can fight Grendel and wants to weather he wins or loses. “No weapons, therefore, for either this night: unarmed he shall face me of face me he dares” (683-685). This quote shows that he will face Grendel without weapons and just his hands. This makes him very courageous because he's sacrificing his life going against Grendel let alone without weapons things like this in what make people envy him. “If we want to figure out what a symbol might mean you have to use a variety of tools on it: questions, experience, preexisting knowledge” (Foster 107). When reading Beowulf you

Near the end of his life as a king, Beowulf found that his citizens were being terrorized by a dragon. Although he was old and grizzled, the king took it on in battle. He showed tremendous courage even when knowing the odds were not in his favor. Previously, during his time in Denmark, Beowulf killed Grendel’s mother with the sword made for a giant. This showed his superhuman strength because as an ordinary human being Beowulf was able to handle and control the giant’s sword. In an earlier battle, Beowulf was able to once again exhibit his enormous strength by single handedly tearing off the arm of an enemy giant, Grendel. Lastly, before all of the battles, Beowulf displays his extreme intelligence. After being unjustly embarrassed by Unferth, Beowulf decided to reply in a civil manner. In his reply, he accurately refuted all of Unferth’s claims and turns the embarrassment on him. By responding cordially, he was able to dissolve any potential tension between the Geats and Danes.

In the poem Beowulf, we see the Anglo-Saxon hero. It is an epic of a hero who embodies the honor of the Anglo-Saxon culture and tradition. The poem in itself is an elegant script of Anglo-Saxon times. Composed in 8th or 9th century the epic was passed down from generation to generation orally and has no known author. In the Anglo-Saxon culture a hero was a warrior. Beowulf depicts the adventures of a remarkably brave, larger-than-life hero who demonstrates almost superhuman abilities in battling monstrous opponents. Through Beowulf’s strength, bravery, and, loyalty he exemplifies the archetype of a perfect hero.

Strength, honor, and resilience are all words that captures the essence of Beowulf. During the Anglo-Saxon era, Beowulf is a hero who strikes fear in his enemies and relief in his allies. Beowulf is widely-regarded as the most honorable and ruthless hero in all of the world; he defends villages of people from blood-hungry predators, defeats sea monsters, and defeats Grendel and Grendel’s mother in the epic poem Beowulf. However, Beowulf can be an egomaniac at times. For instance, before Beowulf’s epic fight and defeat of the monster Grendel, Beowulf strips nude and fights the monster nude to boast and show off. This can cause Beowulf to be a static character throughout the epic poem; he shows little change as his main goal throughout the whole