Examples Of Pride In Beowulf

Beowulf, a brave warrior, displays characteristics that influenced a positive attitude toward his people. Beowulf’s bravery and loyalty were two characteristics that influenced his people. Arrogance was another characteristic shown by Beowulf. However Beowulf’s arrogance showed a negative effect on the Danes. His arrogance was not as prevalent as his bravery or his loyalty but it still threw off his positive characteristics.

One example of Beowulf’s strengths was no other man could do the same tasks, and fight the battles he fought. Beowulf goes into many battles throughout his lifetime. Also, the quote in line 505-506 “If weapons were useless he’d use his hands, the strength in his fingers”. Beowulf also lifts the giant forged sword from the wall and swings it hard enough to cut of Grendel’s mothers head. A sword that is described as “so massive that no ordinary man could lift its carved and decorated lengths.

Beowulf displays bravery several times throughout the story. He shows bravery by coming to Herot to help Hrothgar and his men by offering to fight Grendel. He stated “Now Grendel and I are called together, and I’ve come, grant me then, lord and protector of this noble place, a single request” (pg.48). He again shows bravery when he goes down in the water to fight Grendel’s mother, after she attacked and

Robert Kraft once said, “Envy and jealousy are incurable diseases.” In the novel or epic poem, Beowulf: A New Telling, Robert Nye sets the themes of this novel as envy and revenge and reveals that jealousy often leads to self-destruction and that people who are vengeant sometimes end up only avenging the very people that they admire. Beowulf, a Geat warrior offers help to the Danes when a monster attacks the Danish settlers repeatedly. When Unferth attempts to criticize Beowulf, his envy takes over and he starts to quest revenge on Beowulf. Unferth’s rude and flaw-finding qualities are fueled by his jealousy, which in turn makes him revengeful.

The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf touches on the vice of pride, and is instilled in the main character, Beowulf, the great and mighty warrior. His boasting and arrogance when first dropping anchor at Heorot transitions throughout the poem, and, in contrast with his ideal kingsmanship, motivates him to accomplish and overcome the many challenges he faces as an epic hero. The contrast of his absent humility in the rise and fall of the story help promote the progression of the story, through its different purposes. Beowulf, when first landing upon Hrothgar’s kingdom, boasts, which does not go unchallenged, so that he might gain the trust of the Danes, but when knowingly facing his last battle, uses bragging to comfort and brace himself for his ultimate demise.

Pride is a trait everyone poses, but is having pride and being boastful a double edge sword? Pride and boasting are something that appears in many different characters with different manifestations through literature. In "Beowulf" and "Lanval", the pride and boastfulness are demonstrated as both a strength and weakness. Having the pride to boast caused many issues for Beowulf, Lanval and the Queen Guinevere.

“Where is the glory in doing something that others have done” (Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief). A quote befitting of the character Beowulf who slew the abomination known as Grendel to save the people of Heorot, then killing his vengeful mother using the sword Hrunting and finally as his last legendary exploit he brought down a mighty dragon to save his kingdom, the most prominent definition of an epic hero and the epitome of what the ideal Scandinavian hero is. On the surface, this may seem like Beowulf is a selfless hero willing to go to great lengths to save the people around him but after deeper analysis of the story, it may be that Beowulf’s pride and search for glory is what truly drives him.

Theme is the matter of a subject within a piece of writing. Throughout this essay examples of mesopotamian literature, old english poetry and ancient greek literature are brought up. The central theme throughout all these epics is bravery. I chose bravery because each one of these characters risks their lives to save others. The ability to take on life threatening battles is an extreme form of bravery.

In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, courage is undoubtedly the most important trait a man could have. The Geats thrived for 50 years under the powerful and courageous reign of King Beowulf. However, the Danes suffered through twelve winters under Grendel because of King Hrothgar’s fear. The strength and bravery of a strong leader and warrior can lead many countries to peace and power. Throughout Beowulf, many characters exhibit courage, which increases their morale on the battlefield and leads to victory.

Throughout literature readers often times find that it encompasses many thoughts and ideas of today’s society; literature written ages ago often times reflects the values of the cultures about which it is written. In the stories “Beowulf” and The Odysseys’ the main characters both exhibit pride as being a major influence to their actions. The theme of arrogance provides lessons for people in the present day. During the course of the stories both lived in a society that valued pride prominently. The way in which a given culture views self-importance portrays and demonstrates the type of morals that are present.

Valor is defined as displaying great courage in the face of danger, especially in battle. Characters in literature often display intense courage when they face a difficult or dangerous situation. In the epic poem Beowulf, the protagonist, and hero, Beowulf displays extreme courage in the situations thrown his way. Beowulf had to fight many horrible creatures, such as Grendel, a prideful demon who wanted everyone to be as miserable as he was, Grendel's mother, a spiteful she-wolf, and the dragon, who is greedy and hateful. In each of the battles, Beowulf showed intense courage where others did not.

People everyday struggle with problems comparable to the ones in Beowulf. That is one of the reasons why this poem is still so popular even one thousand years after its release. It has been translated into many different languages and by many different people throughout the years because of this reason. It also shows that people back then dealt with the same problems people still deal with today. Whether it is lust, greed, fame, fortune, arrogance, or even sticking to your own customs and tradition, people have dealt with these problems long before my time and will deal with them long after.

Pride is a common theme throughout English Literature, but it impacted each time period in different ways, as shown by comparing “Beowulf” from the Anglo-Saxon time period and Hamlet from the English Renaissance. In the Anglo-Saxon time period, pride is shown through code of the warriors. Warriors were expected to fight under any circumstance and were praised regardless if it ended in death. Within the epic poem of “Beowulf”, the main character Beowulf potrayed the perfect Anglo-Saxon hero in that he never ran away from a challenge, even to the extent of a dragon, which resulted in the death of Beowulf. For people within the English Renaissance, pride was much subtler.

Beowulf, an epic poem, was written by an anonymous author who described the Anglo-Saxon era. During this era, Anglo-Saxon heroes were classified as courageous, generous and faithful. In the poem, the character Beowulf is classified as an Anglo-Saxon hero. People of the Anglo-Saxon era spoke what is now known as Old English.

Is Beowulf A Hero? " Nor have I seen a mightier man-at-arms on this earth than the one standing here: unless I am mistaken, he is truly noble. This is no mere hanger-on in a hero's armour." Beowulf is the definition of a hero. Beowulf showed these heroic characteristics with his loyalty, bravery and strength.