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How Is Beowulf An Epic Hero

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The Anglo-Saxon society was from 449-1066 AD. Those people had strong beliefs and admired loyalty from their people. Those people also believed in fatalism which makes sense because Beowulf went into each battle saying fate would be the one to decide who would live and who would die. The Anglo-Saxons had mead halls. In Beowulf the mead hall, Herot, is where the story starts. Beowulf could be described as an epic hero as he exhibits the epic hero characteristics of a hero traveling to supernatural places, battling superhuman enemies, and supernatural abilities.
Beowulf is a man only a few have met but many have heard about. Beowulf traveled to places a person only sees in their nightmares. Beowulf had to go to a lake “a brilliant light burned all around him, the lake itself like a fiery flame”(472-474)to fight Grendel’s mother. Beowulf lives as a king of the Geats for 50 years until his peace got disturbed once again. Beowulf must go “toward the tower, under the rocky cliffs”(30-31) that “no coward could have walked there!”(31) to fight the dragon. By going to the lake and dragons den, Beowulf proves he has one characteristic of being an epic hero. …show more content…

Beowulf must battle Grendel, “he slipped through the door and there in silence snatched up thirty men, smashed them unknowing in their beds and ran out with their bodies, the blood dripping behind him, back to his lair, delighted with his night’s slaughter”(37-40). Beowulf decided that since Grendel used no weapons to kill those men, he would not use weapons when he would fight Grendel. Once Beowulf battles Grendel and then faces another superhuman enemy. His next enemy was Grendel’s mother because she has come back to avenge her son's death. Grendel’s mother who “took a single victim and fled the hall” (411) may not have been as strong as her son but still caused the same kind of pain. Beowulf showed another reason he is an epic

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