Charles Churchill once said “All hunt for fame, but most mistake the way”, implying that while fame is an important goal for people, they may not always go about achieving it the right way (Charles Churchill Quotes). For people who preoccupy themselves with being famous, their intelligence is overridden by impulsiveness, as they begin to make careless decisions in order to appear impressive. In many cases, this leads to the death of the attention-seeker, because their hasty decisions put them in perilous situations. In the story Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, the hero in the epic, is portrayed as a heroic figure, because he fights monsters and protects the town, but for the wrong reasons. Instead of defeating the monsters solely in order to protect the town and make sure that the members of the clan are safe, Beowulf fights so that people will remember him as a hero when he dies. Heroes in today’s society are people like firefighters, policemen, but they can also be everyday people, who happen to perform extraordinary actions. A contemporary hero is a person who …show more content…
Prior to his first encounter with Grendel, Beowulf blusters that he will defeat him on even terms, meaning that he will not use weaponry or armor for protection. In the book, Beowulf says “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” (436-440). This claim is not only laughable, but it also makes him look like a fool in front of his people. Heroes need to be rational, know their limits, and not make promises that a reasonable person would find outlandish. Heroes are admired for their courage, but also for their honesty. While Beowulf’s boasts might be thought of as him stating his qualifications as a hero back during the time that it was written, it is thought of as arrogant in today’s