Thursday, September 5, 2013

Today's Beowulf

                Throughout the story, Beowulf has been described as brave, fearless, strong, daring, etc; and after reading about his adventures and his battles, I can see why he deserve all of those titles. But when dealing with a “modern-day Beowulf”, I tried to abridge the main ideas from the story. Now-a-days, we don’t have monsters that have flesh of evil, or warriors that can naturally swim to the bottom of a lake, or dragons. With that being said, it made me wonder how great Beowulf’s deeds would be if he was put in our reality. I managed to simply it to Beowulf going out of his comfort zone to help others. Beowulf went to Denmark to help Hrothgar and his men, all of whom he was unfamiliar with, who have been harassed by this demon named Grendel. So by my definition of a “modern-day Beowulf”, I believe that anybody can achieve that title. Of course it may not be as dramatic as slaying a demon, and bringing the demon’s head back, but if you really think about it, with our society, many people won’t go out of their way to help others. I think that every person has their own personal “Grendel” that constantly harasses them, causing them stress, or discomfort; and sometimes, having a “Beowulf” to be there and reach out to help can change a person’s world. It sort of goes in a cycle, people don’t realize that others have “Grendel” because they’re dealing with their own personal “Grendel”. But going back to what I said earlier, people can achieve being like Beowulf simply by trying to help others. 

1 comment:

  1. This is an incredibly interesting take on the question. While most people tried to put a face on a "modern day Beowulf", you said that anybody can attain "Hero" status by just going out of their comfort zone to help somebody else. I think that this is an awesome perspective and really makes a lot of sense. It really gives me a new way to think about what exactly a hero is and what he does. Awesome idea and post.
    Liam

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