Essay on Fate in Beowulf, Grendel, and Macbeth

There are two sides to every story. The events may be the same, but the tone in which the story is told shapes the reader’s understanding of the events. This idea is never more evident than through the disparity between Burton Raffel’s translation of Beowulf and John Gardner’s Grendel. Both novels are based on the idea of Beowulf killing Grendel. However, the two different points of view telling the story create vastly different novels. Beowulf highlights the heroic and positive world in which Beowulf lives. Whereas Grendel elucidates on the miserable life that Grendel is circumscribed to. The consistent variance in tone skews the events in two completely different directions. The tone between Beowulf and Grendel differ in

Fate vs Free Will is one of the most oft used literary techniques in writing. It is never more evident than in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. The major theme of the story Macbeth is whether or not the story is fueled by the free will of Macbeth, or by his fate. Are the events in Macbeth a result of his mentality and outlook on life, or were they going to happen no matter what? Almost every major event that takes place can be traced back to this question. It can be viewed in different ways, and most people have their own opinions. Dissecting this question is a part of what makes teaching Macbeth still have so much value to this day. But there is a clear answer to this question upon further dissection. The story of Macbeth is fueled by his free

Throughout the play, Macbeth proves that there is a destiny, it just a matter of how one chooses to attain it. Destiny is a thing to be achieved, through choices. Fate has no bearing over what choices are made. Yet, Macbeth may not have made the same choices

Fate and free will are often shown as contrasting subjects. While free will allows for a person to make their own conscious decisions, its devil’s advocate suggests that even individual choices made are the work of fate. This suggests that every path one takes down a fork road is already predetermined. In the epic poem, Beowulf, the main character, Beowulf, faces many decisions that could have unimaginable consequences in which he always refers to a greater power like fate. Because of these actions, the plot is completely reliant on the driving force known as fate and although our hero of the story battles with decisions, it is ultimately fate that makes the final call.

“Beowulf” and Grendel are two tales similar in many ways, yet different from each other. These stories are like a coin; you cannot have one side without the other. Just as the sides of a coin share the same coin, these stories share a similar plot, a setting, and tell of the same events. The sides of a coin also have differences as do “Beowulf” and Grendel. In the case of these two tales this difference is in their respective philosophical views.

An epic story is one that combines elements of supernatural powers and heroic deeds with plebeian troubles. In Beowulf , the unknown author paints a typical yet magnificent tale that is one of the great epic chronicles of the Middle Ages. Like the poems of Homer, Beowulf possesses terrible monsters, men with supernatural powers, the search for glory, and deadly defeats. However, this medieval account brings a new element into the folds: the association between established religious forces and personal choices. The concepts of predestination and fate intertwine in this work with the idea of free will.

I believe that some things are fate and some are free will. This means everything has a small mixture of both. Grendel, in my eyes, has accepted the fact that he is bad because he is a descendant of Cain. This does not have to be the fate of Grendel, but because he has believed that he is a bad for so long it is now his fate. Beowulf on the other hand has an abundance of free will. He chose to fight Grendel knowing it would be a hard battle. He could have let the fate of Grendel killing the townsmen erupt, but instead he took the problem into his own hands. Although I do believe Beowulf is dealing with free will, I believe his armour was put on him by fate. Beowulf was protected enough to save the town. His armour was fate, but his

The concept of fate has touched many lives throughout the centuries, and over time it, along with its counterpart free will, has [been?] transcended into the form of literature. Its influence is evident in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, particularly in how Pip, and his object of affection, Estella, are repeatedly subjected to preordained events. Furthermore, free will, or the ability to determine our own destiny, also holds sway over the characters in Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, specifically Romeo and Juliet themselves. Free will has a greater influence on the characters in Romeo and Juliet than fate, while in Great Expectations, it proves to be the opposite, with fate having more heavily impacted Pip, and his associates.

Fate is one person's destiny, it cannot be understood by mere mortals but a greater power beyond human comprehension. Fate is so powerful that it controls a person's outcome on life before it happens. Many people become victims of fate in which they catch a glimpse of what their future is going to look like, but do not totally grasp the outcome. Macbeth cannot fully comprehend the possible outcome of his fate because he is mortal, and therefore is a victim to his power driven quest and his ultimate fate. Many have been said to agree with this statement. For example, as stated in Shakespeare A to Z, "The Witches are an enactment of the irrational. The supernatural world if terrifying because it is beyond human control, and in the play it is

Fate directly helps Beowulf kill Grendel. When Beowulf first arrives and meets Hrothgar, Beowulf believes that it is no accident that he and Grendel will meet. Beowulf believes they were brought together by fate saying “Now Grendel and I have been called together”

A Twist of Fate for the Great Hero Beowulf Fate seems to be an ongoing theme in the works of Boethius and Beowulf. Whether it is a belief of Christian providence or pagan fatalism, the writers of these works are strongly moved by the concept of fate and how it affects the twists and turns of a person’s life. Fate is most often seen as the course of events in a person’s life that leads them to inevitable death at some time or another.

Contrapositive to Beowulf we have Macbeth’s character in Macbeth. In this tragic piece Shakespeare tells of a man who receives a prophecy from

John Gardner explicitly conveys the motif accident to indicate that fate controls all creatures’ destiny. In the last chapter of Grendel, the major difference between Beowulf and Grendel appears at where Grendel totally attribute his failure in battle to “accident” (169). Grendel thinks that Beowulf is just a human, and he can beat Beowulf or at least flee away. But Grendel still loses in the battle due to an accident that he slips on a puddle of blood. Grendel expresses his word to Beowulf or fate with a sense of irony. He could get away from this situation, but an accident happened and it brings everything back to the predestined path which predicts that Grendel will lose and die. Accident is a thing that is not planed or out of expectation which is supposed to lead Grendel out of the control of fate, but it ironically traps Grendel in the story. Further, John Gardner mention accident in Grendel’s last few words which says that “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, (so) may you all” (174). These words to the animal and also to the readers can be either taken as a curse or

Fate is often a topic of interest in many literary works, as it provides an insight to readers as to how a person’s success or demise can be credited to their own doing or to the world’s chaotic web of tragedy that afflicts those at random. In Beowulf, pagan belief describes fate as an affliction through unmerciful forces of death and destruction that befall people at random. Actions and events that occur around us are mainly out of our control, though we can influence them at times, yet, we are susceptible to the world’s destruction, death, and failure. For these reasons, I believe: nature is hostile and uncontrollable at times, and that Beowulf can be described as a failure due to his inability to prevent conflict that befalls his country after his death.

Fate and free will are two topics that are often questionable because they go hand in hand. Fate is a belief that a certain event is said to happen, then that person's choice and free will lead them to what has been predicted as inevitable. Knowing whether something is fate’s fault or the fault of the person who’s going to enact the said action, is one question that has never been fully answered. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Shakespeare's Macbeth, fate is determined by their own choices and free will, the character Macbeth knows of what lies ahead of him, making him alter the present to create his idealistic future, however instead he lives a life of ruins. As for Oedipus his entire actions are based on one prophecy he desperately