Exemplar Student

Mr. Ankeny

English 7

24 November 2010

Beowulf as Hero

In Robert Nye’s Beowulf: A New Telling, one pervasive question is: What is a hero? Through

interactions with a variety of heroic figures—Scyld, Hrothgar, Wealtheow, Beowulf—the reader

eventually develops an intimate understanding of what makes a hero. However, it is the story’s main

character, Beowulf, who fills the hero archetype most fully. Beowulf is heroic because he identifies his

own weaknesses and he overcomes evil not for personal gain, but to remove other’s suffering.

When Beowulf is first introduced into the novel, upon arriving at the land of the Danes, he is

described as “the rare kind of person who makes strength of his own weaknesses” (20). Beowulf makes

these weaknesses strengths by acknowledging them and then working deliberately to fix them. A true

hero is not born perfect, but works with discipline to improve his or her weaknesses.

Also during the hero’s introduction, Beowulf is said to have arrived to fight Grendel because “he

was determined to help, if he could” (20). Beowulf does not come boasting of his deeds and looking for

further fame. He comes to help the Danes, not forward his reputation. A true hero fights to remove the

suffering of other people, not to selfishly gain a well-respected name.

Beowulf is a hero because he makes weaknesses strengths and fights evil for the betterment of

other people, not only himself. This vision of a hero has survived for many generations because it taps

into the truth that we all can be heroes, each in our own small, but significant, way.

Student 1