Examples Of Pride In Beowulf

In Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon poem, written about a hero named Beowulf who aids the King of Danes to battle monsters. With his powerful strength, he was able to slay Grendel and Grendel’s mother. However, in his last journey, fifty years later, to battle the dragon, he succeeds but dies in the process. Throughout the whole poem, it is apparent that one important theme present is the display of pride and strength of the people in that society at the time. One of the first displays of pride and strengths in Beowulf can be seen in the first battle with Grendel. It is a wide known fact that Grendel is an evil and despicable creature. However, in order to assert pride and strengths throughout the battle, Beowulf decided to use no assistance during the combat. As seen in lines 433 to 440, Beowulf declares “I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of the broad shield, the heavy war board: hand to hand is how it will be, a life and death fight with the fiend.” This statement shows how the warrior decides that he would go into battle without armor or sword to display his strengths and gain

Prior to the battle with Grendel, Unferth who was jealous of Beowulf began to taunt the warrior himself. Unferth brings up an incident that occurred while back with Breca and Beowulf. He begins to taunt Beowulf by asking, “Are you the Beowulf who took on Breca In a swimming match on the open sea, Risking the water just to prove you could win” (506-508)? Unferth then stated what he heard about the story in attempt to embarrass Beowulf. However, Beowulf decided to defend himself and explain that this swimming match was much more difficult than any other competition, he had to endure the freezing deep sea while carrying heavy equipments for battle. It is obvious that no matter how small the situation is, Beowulf needs to defend himself from skeptics and to gains respect from the people around