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Suffering In Beowulf

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The Five Steps
The literature suggests that God was a prominent figure in their lives after the main character has experienced a great amount of suffering. God was to be absent to them until he or she ascended onto a high level of anguish and suffering. According to Anglo Saxon literature, God’s purpose is to make humans suffer so people can see their true selves or reflect to repent.
God’s plan for life is prominent in the most famous Anglo Saxon literature, Beowulf, where God uses Gendel as a way to make the Geats and Dains suffer. Grendel being his messenger from hell, preaches to Beowulf and the others by leaving the malled and distorted bodies of their loved ones in their homes, explaining to them that this is what God wants. What he …show more content…

“It’s good to guard your faith, nor let your grief come forth/...It’s good to find your grace/ In God, the heavenly rock where rests our every hope.”( The Wanderer 110, 113-114). In this piece of Anglo Saxon literature, the character has reached a stage in enlightenment that he is able to reflect on his life and is able to discover that the only proper way to live, is by living for God and his will. Towards the end of The Wife’s Lament, the wife has reached the stage to where she is able to reflect on her current misfortune and connect with God but states, “May that young man be sad-minded always/ hard his heart's thought while he must wear/ a blithe bearing with care in the breast/ a crowd of sorrows,” continuing her petting life and misery (42-45). She would be able to leave this world of misery if she was able to get over her worldly problems, which God had pushed on everyone, and come to the same conclusion as The Wanderer and The Seafarer.
“A man must conquer pride, not kill it/ be firm with his fellows, chaste for himself,/ Treat all the world as the world deserves/ with love or with hate but never with harm,” (The Seafarer 109-112). This quotes shows that this man has gone through all the necessary steps in life and has almost reached his time in this world, for he has served his purpose. Live through the suffering. Withstand the test of exile. Retrieve enlightenment. Reflect of your life and the life of others.

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