Beowulf's Epic Fight with Evil

📌Category: Beowulf, Poems
📌Words: 713
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 17 January 2022

What makes someone an Epic Hero? Is it fighting off evil, saving cities from destruction, or having remarkable superpowers? In the story Beowulf is an Epic Hero because he is: a demi-god, he isn’t added until the main climax is occurring, often a man of morals with the aid of having a truthful fight, as well as fighting off an evil opponent, and ultimately undergoing a dangerous journey where he travels to an underworld.  

To begin with, the hero establishes his nobility through single combat, often honor coming from being vanquished by a superior foe. In contrast, the hero will have a fair fight. In the story Beowulf is preparing himself to fight Grendel, in which he explains that “ hearing the monster’s scorn of men is so great he uses no weapon. Neither will I”. (lines 166-168)  Beowulf is the hero because he will not use a weapon if his opponent does not have one. This simply implies that the hero will have a fair fight regardless of the situation. But not only is the hero having a fair fight, he is the strongest person in the world. 

The hero is often a demi-god: possessing distinctive weapons of great size and power, often heirlooms or presents from the gods. Beowulf is described in the story as being the “Follower and strongest of the Geats- greater and stronger than anyone anywhere in this world”. (lines 110-111). The hero is stronger than anyone else and therefore, could defeat his enemies without a problem. To add on, Beowulf must also go through a dangerous journey to defeat his enemies. 

For Instance, the hero must undertake a long, perilous journey, often involving a descent into the Underworld, which will test his endurance, courage, and cunning. Beowulf is going after Grendel's mother to kill her, but to do this, he must go into the depths of Grendel's evil cave of hell. The story states that Beowulf “goes to the lake where the monster’s mother has her underwater lair. Then, fully armed, he makes a heroic dive to the depths of this watery hell”.  (Section 11) For this reason, a hero will go through hell and back to save his people, and that is what Beowulf must do to finally put the killings to rest. But in order to do this he must go against his evil opponents. 

To show that, Beowulf is a hero he must fight off his evil opponents. The two great epic adversaries, the hero and his antagonist meet at the climax, which must be delayed as long as possible to sustain maximum interest. One such device for delaying this confrontation is the nephelistic rescue. The story includes the fights of Beowulf with Grendel and his mother, and him defeating the dragon. When he faces Grendel, Beowulf explains that he is the “shepherd of evil, guardian of crime, knowing at once that nowhere on earth had he met a man whose hands were harder; his mind flooded with fear”. (lines 432-435). Although Grendel is seen as the evil opponent who could defeat Beowulf, he is a coward who realized that his fight with Beowulf ended when his arm was grabbed by Beowulf. Furthermore, the hero defeats evil and wins the battle. 

In the meantime, Beowulf isn’t introduced until the middle of the story. For this reason, the hero is introduced in the midst of turmoil, at a point well into the story; in which antecedent actions will be recounted in a flashback. Long before Beowulf “the hero” is introduced into the story, the killings of Grendels lasted for about 20 years. It wasn’t until the day he found out about the killings was Beowulf introduced into the story. The story says that “in his far-off home Beowulf, Higlac’s follower… heard about how Grendel filled nights with horror and quickly commanded about fitted-out, proclaiming that he’d go to that famous king.. when help was needed”. (lines 108-116) So needless to say, he put together a boat, sailed across the sea to Hrothgar's kingdom, and was on a mission to defeat Grendel. 

With all things considered, we the readers can conclude that Beowulf can be classified as a hero based on his immediate actions to danger. Not only: does fighting against evil not be introduced until the main climax, as well as embarking on a dangerous journey to the underworld, and having a truthful- fair fight, as well as being a demi-god describe Beowulf as a hero, but also implies that he is a good person. Therefore, we as readers can conclude that Beowulf indeed has the characteristics of a true hero.

+
x
Remember! This is just a sample.

You can order a custom paper by our expert writers

Order now
By clicking “Receive Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails.