Sierra Rain
Ms. Bosch
Romantic Literature- 3 Page Response Essay

Beowulf is an epic about a hero who faces life challenges and extremes. Based from the Anglo-Saxon period Beowulf reveals the Anglo-Saxon culture and beliefs such as strength, bravery, and honor. Beowulf is portrayed as a hero, a rescuer in times of trouble. The idea of having an almost humanistic God-like figure, as the hero opens the reader to connect on a totally different level. Beowulf display’s a unique character, he’s strong and brave, but he also is arrogant and wealth hungry. Do you think he’s an ideal hero? He does provoke an admiral hero, but through out the story it seems as though all he’s considering is his wealth that he’ll achieve after doing the task of killing the beast.

Grendel, a descendant of Cain, is described as a evil being. Not having very much description makes him a unknown, a monster lurking in the dark that all men fear. Being half human, half beast, vicious, cruel and cannibalistic. Grendel will kill anything that disturbs him and being one of and undefeated race, man is fearful until Beowulf comes to stop him from murdering everyone. Grendel, image of an omnipresent evil, “invisibly following them from the edge of the marsh, always there, unseen” as described in- (II. 161-2). Beowulf being the hero must fight the evil being, one-on-one. As Beowulf defeats Grendel, the beast pulls away thusly destroying it’s self. As a story of moral and unmoral characters, the evil is never really gone. When Grendel dies his mother comes for revenge, after taking only one person like would the saying go “an eye for an eye”. Beowulf charges into her home as she welcomes him with arms open. Faced with strong moral choices as Grendel’s mother has the upper hand for a moral compass.

As the king he’s faced with the ultimate test of his courage when he’s pushed to face the dragon. As represented the dragon is death itself, a threat of both moral and physical strength. Though Beowulf is innocent and has no moral pulse to kill the beast he is