Mankind exists today because its predecessors were able to fight starvation, weather precarious climates, and outrun vicious animals and foes. Nowadays, survival is a game, whether it is proven through reality shows filmed in exotic locales or simply a video game blown up on a big screen television. To live is to survive, so it is easy to see why the survival instinct presents itself countless forms of media, dating all the way from ancient times to Old English to modern day. Beowulf, an epic poem from the 700s, exhibits the need for the survival instinct and displays the lengths mankind will go to keep himself safe. The survival instinct exposes itself as an archetypal trait in all humans, as characters will put others in harm’s way in place of themselves in hopes of …show more content…
In Beowulf, Grendel causes the Danes to live in fear for twelve years, all while Hrothgar rules over the nation, but he does nothing to act against the monster. He knows his life lies on the line if he tries to slay the beast, so he lets his people wither in fear, the mead hall closed for the foreseeable future. Most leaders would jump at the chance to prove their worth by saving their subjects from terrible fates, but Hrothgar values his own safety too much to tempt his fate, even when the culture of the time encourages fighting and prompts warriors to seek out altercations. When Beowulf finally comes to finish what Hrothgar could not start, the leader praises, “Now Holy God Has, in His Goodness, guided [Beowulf] here… to defend us from Grendel” (Heaney 10), as if the younger man has come to take the reigns from Hrothgar. But instead, the brawl with Grendel has just begun, thanks to Beowulf and Hrothgar lives on, hoping that the Geat can clinch a victory for the Danes. Like the Danish ruler, Jay Gatsby from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, the main man relies on his friends to woo Daisy Buchanan for him. Rather