Similarities Between Catcher In The Rye And Beowulf

This trimester we read a lot of books that shared many common themes but were ultimately very different. As my group discussed this, we found a common theme throughout every book we have read. We discerned that through many themes in each book, one specifically stayed the same. Fear. Characters in every single story are guided by fear at every single point of their lives. We formulated a thesis saying, although honor and self-interest guide human nature, fear is the strongest influence on man.
Initially, we found this idea in Catcher in the Rye. We discovered that Holden is very afraid to let others become who he is become. This is shown when Holden is walking through Phoebe’s school, and he sees that, “somebody’d written ‘Fuck you’ on the

The only thing we found on fear was, “Beowulf and fear were strangers” and that did not help our thesis at all (Beowulf 1471-1472). But eventually we made a very strong connection to Beowulf and fear. As Beowulf fought Grendel’s mother, “all the greybeards whispered together and said that hope was gone, that the hero had lost fame and his life at once, and would never return to living” (Beowulf 1594-1597). We realized that Beowulf’s heroism came from fear. He is afraid of being forgotten after he died. This fear drives him to do extremely difficult tasks that would kill the average person. We thought it was interesting that the one story we with the (previously thought to be) fearless hero, was the most driven by fear. We were able to relate this to our own lives because everyone wants to leave their mark on the world. We all aspire to be like our favorite celebrities that we see on tv selling their hair products. However we are also realistic and know that it is very unlikely for this to happen. But on a smaller scale, when you are feeling alone, everyone does once in awhile, you think about if you have made your mark on the people in your lives. We are all afraid that we have not done enough to make our presence known by our peers and family. And this fear of course drives us to make our presence known, It drives us to become better and better so that we can be remembered by someone besides ourselves. This is a very good thing, as it is for Beowulf as well. We are not all killing monsters and saving hundreds of lives, but the push from our fears allows to accomplish many things so that we can one day change the world we live for everyone who lives in