Within the epic poem Beowulf, there are three main battles that each have a great influence on the story. In the poem, the three main battles are where Beowulf, the protagonist, fights Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon. In each fight, Beowulf must use his inhuman abilities to take on each opponent. However, even though Beowulf has these special abilities, that does not mean he automatically wins each battle just from pure strength. Beowulf also uses his past experiences to prepare him for these three encounters, but only stories are told of those battles, as Beowulf uses his tales to impress King Hrothgar, who was having an uncanny amount of trouble trying to defeat Grendel, who kept attacking his men. Had Beowulf not had such a high amount of confidence in himself, this epic poem, and its battles, may have ended very differently. King Hrothgar had been having trouble with Grendel for some time leading up to Beowulf’s arrival, and his men never stood a chance against Grendel’s power. Grendel would break into the mead hall and slaughter Hrothgar’s men, leaving him hopeless towards finding a solvent to this problem. …show more content…
When he fights the dragon, Beowulf has no choice but to use weapons. His age limited his ability, and he knew there was nothing to lose if he did use weapons, since his legacy would not be altered at that stage of his life. Had Beowulf used weapons for the entirety of the fights against Grendel and Grendel’s mother, his accomplishments may have been looked at a little differently by his peers. The only reason Beowulf used a weapon against Grendel’s mother was because he could not kill her using his bare hands, so as a result, he used the sword from her lair. With these three encounters, the story of Beowulf created an influential impact to his world, along with the real