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Theme of religion in beowulf
The religious portrayal of beowulf
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In the heroic epic Beowulf, there are various examples of religious beliefs, both Christian and pagan. These examples play a major role in the tale, and include things such as God’s love (Christian) and making sacrifices to several gods (pagan). Explanations of these beliefs are necessary to understand this epic and here six of these beliefs will be discussed, three Christian and three pagan.
One of the many Christian beliefs is expressed at the beginning of the tale, when the creation of the earth is explained. The epic describes creation by saying that The Almighty (God) made and shaped the earth. The explanation given matches that of the first book of the Bible, Genesis. This belief is used to help introduce Grendel and where he came from.
Another Christian belief is used when king Hrothgar’s throne is described as being protected by God. Royal possessions, and even royal members themselves, were ordained, therefore pure, clean, and protected. Such practices still exist today. However, only royalty and religious figures are said to be “ordained”.
One last display of a Christian belief is shown at the end of the tale, in which the men are said to have praise to God for the souls of the fallen to be able to make it to Heaven. Many Christians give praise and prayer to God at their beloved’s funeral to help in their healing and give assurances that the souls of the dead will be safe and protected on their journey to Heaven.
Not only are Christian beliefs displayed in Beowulf, but also pagan practices are used. A first of these is the ritual of sacrificing to the stone gods, the making of heathen vows, hoping for Hell’s support, and the Devil’s guidance in driving the warriors’ affliction off. This affliction was Grendel. Such actions were resorted upon when none of their prayers to God were seemingly answered.
A second pagan exercise is done when Grendel attacks the first Geat, and drinks the Geats’ blood from his veins, and then snaps his mouth shut, killing the Geat. Pagan practices such as drinking of another’s, or a victim’s blood, are believed to give the drinker all the unfortunate’s powers and knowledge. Even more, some believe this act gives the drinker the victim’s soul. Pagans believe this deadly beverage makes them stronger, and in some cases godly.
One of the biggest and final pagan beliefs is given at the end of the epic, when Beowulf’s body is burned.
In Beowulf, the protagonist Beowulf is shown as a hero with extrodinary strength. This is not what makes him a hero. By definition, a hero is a man of exceptional quality. However this term does not do Beowulf justice. His self-imposed purpose in life is to help others, and eventually sacrifices his own life in doing so. Beowulf’s battle with the dragon serves as a critique of the notion that Beowulf is a hero. The Dragon section displays many of Beowulf’s heoric characteristics. Beowulf establishes himself as a hero by fighting the dragon, exemplifing strength and courage when fighting the dragon, and sacrificing himself so that others can live.
The theology which appears in the Christian allusions in Beowulf is very vague and indefinete: there is no mention of Christ, the saints, miracles, Mary His Mother, specific doctrines of the church, martyrs of the church, the New Tes...
From the very beginning of this story, it came to my attention that Granny continually repeats are "there's nothing wrong with me" and "that's for tomorrow.” This repetition, to me, shows two very important aspects about Granny Weatherall as a person – she’s stubborn and hardworking, yet procrastinates all the time. When she felt death come upon her on her bed that day, she wasn't expecting it. We know this because of the repetition of all that she needs to do and that she'll get it done tomorrow. At the same, who can blame her for not expecting it? I mean, who really expects to die every day they wake up? Sure, one knows they are going to die, but they don’t wake up planning it to happen that day. Aside from that, it stood out to me that Granny Weatherall didn’t fail to mention that she thought she was going to die once before during her sixties. From this near death experience, she somehow, in my opinion, allowed herself to think she was invisible and immortal simply because she managed to survive.
Katherine Dunham, born on June 22, 1909 was an African American dancer. Her mother Fanny June Dunham died when she became sick and her father Albert Dunham Sr., left to work as a salesman. Dunham and her older brother Albert Jr., were raised by their loving aunt Lulu on the ghetto side of Chicago. At four years old, Dunham would go to the salon, her aunt’s workplace, and would always remember how much her mother loved music. It was not long before that when Katherine noticed how people would look at her aunt because of the color of her skin. It was why Lulu lost her job and had to move in with other relatives as her aunt could not afford their little apartment anymore. They moved several times with Dunham family members, where Katherine discovered
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“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” a short story by Katherine Anne Porter, describes the last thoughts, feelings, and memories of an elderly woman. As Granny Weatherall’s life literally “flashes” before her eyes, the importance of the title of the story becomes obvious. Granny Weatherall has been in some way deceived or disappointed in every love relationship of her life. Her past lover George, husband John, daughter Cornelia, and God each did an injustice to Granny Weatherall. Granny faces her last moments of life with a mixture of strength, bitterness, and fear. Granny gained her strength from the people that she felt jilted by. George stood Granny up at the altar and it is never stated that she heard from him again. The pain forced Granny to be strong.
Beowulf is a poem about strength and courage. This is illustrated in the eighth section of the story called “Beowulf and the Dragon.” A slave, a hero and a dragon play a big role in this section. The characters are well developed, as is the setup for the conclusion of the poem.
Throughout this analytical essay I will discuss, analyse and conclude the work of two contemporary modern dance pioneers, Alvin Ailey and Katherine Dunham. I will pay particular attention to the era 1935-1980 and focus on socio elements of this time period, using relevant literature to support my findings.
Firstly, she began her career in her hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Her talent did not take long to get noticed, and it helped Dunham to make a name for herself. In 1933, when she was only 34 years of age, she was a star performer in Ruth Page’s La Guiablesse. At the same time, she a student at the University of Chicago (“Katherine Dunham”). By 1938, she had undertaken field studies
He is described as a monster, demon, and a fiend. Grendel has swift, hard claws, and enormous teeth that snatch the life out of his victims, which are numerous. This “shadow of death” not only kills; he drinks the blood of his prey. His forefather, Cain, was also known for this fiendish act. Just as Grendel is an outcast, so Cain was cast out of the Garden of Eden. To the Anglo-Saxons, the worst crime a person could commit was the crime of fratricide, the killing of one’s own brother. Their society and culture was structured around themes of brotherhood and kinship. The mead Hall, Herot, was a symbol of peace. It was a place where warriors gathered in a spirit of brotherhood and harmony to celebrate. Grendel was jealous and enraged by the festivities and the sound of laughter that he kept hearing while he was alone in his mere.
On August 29, 2005, the third strongest and biggest hurricane ever recorded in American history hit the Gulf Coast at eight o’clock a.m. The interaction between a tropical depression and a tropical wave created a tropical storm later referred to as Hurricane Katrina (FAQS, 2013). Forming over the Bahamas, Hurricane Katrina gradually strengthened as it moved closer and closer to the Gulf of Mexico. Recorded on August 28th, 2005, Katrina jumped from a category three storm to a category five storm with maximum sustained winds up to 160 miles per hour. Although other hurricanes, such as Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Wilma, exceeded Katrina, this dominant storm was classified as the fourth most intense hurricane based its pressure capacity. Once Hurricane Katrina hit land, it was pronounced as a category four storm moving slowly. While people thought that the slow speed of this storm prevented trauma, records show that Katrina did more damage than any fast-moving storm could have ever achieved (Solanki, 2013). Katrina produced abundant debris. The debris was in such large quantity that if it was stacked together on a football field, the rubble would reach the elevation of ten and a half miles. The size of Katrina also caused 90,000 square miles to be affected. Once proclaimed a category three storm, Hurricane Katrina slowed to the speed of 155 miles per hour. At this point in time, Katrina proved to be the sixth most prevailing hurricane traced in history. (Solanki, 2013). Several different aspects of life were impacted by Hurricane Katrina such as availability of gasoline, economic issues, and the ability to have an adequate supply of drinking water (Solanki, 2013). Hurricane Katrina was a large storm ...
Hurricane Katrina was one of the most deadliest and horrific disasters in United States’ history. The hurricane started building up in the Bahamas from the “interaction between a tropical wave and the remnants of Tropical Depression Ten.” On August 23, 2016. A day later the storm strengthened and was named Tropical storm Katrina. As the storm developed it at one point became a category five hurricane when it hit the gulf of Mexico. On August 29, 2015, the hurricane weakened to a category 3 hurricane and hit the Gulf Coast of the United States. The hurricane pounded most parts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, but most of the devastation was concentrated in New Orleans. Several days before the disaster, Louisiana activated their emergency
At the Superdome in New Orleans, where supplies had been limited to begin with, officials accepted 15,000 more refugees from the storm on Monday before locking the doors. City leaders had no real plan for anyone else. Tens of thousands of people desperate for food, water and shelter broke into the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center complex, but they found nothing there but chaos. Meanwhile, it was nearly impossible to leave New Orleans: Poor people especially, without cars or anyplace else to go, were stuck. Governor Kathleen Blanco did not called for the National Guard for days to come.
Beowulf has been estimated to have been written over twelve hundred years ago. According to The Norton Anthology Of English Literature, “It is now widely believed that Beowulf is the work of a single poet who was a Christian and that his poem reflects a well-established Christian tradition,” (37). This conclusion was likely drawn by accounting for the time at which Beowulf was written and factoring in most people in the area of where it was believed to be written had already been converted to Christianity. In a way, this provides the best explanation for why Beowulf contains a high level of Christian influences for the story to have taken place when it did. Dr. J. Michael Stitt of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas says that, “Much of this epic poem is dedicated to conveying and exemplifying the heroic code which values such attributes as strength, courage and honor. Conflicting with this ideology are other factors such as Christianity, and these tensions affect the lives and decisions of the narrative's characters.” If the one of the main focuses in Beowulf is the heroic code and the heroic code convicts with the authors beliefs than why did he write it? This is not to say that authors do not write about things that they ...
Families of people are torn asunder because not only do they now know that their beloved relative is now put for execution but now that their time with that person is put to a death clock that continuously ticks down resulting in just countless hours of grief. Occasionally, in some cases, people are wrongly accused of horrible crimes and are charged with the crime in which they had no involvement yet when they are to be judged to be put on the death row while being completely innocent. This means that not only are they losing their life for something they did not commit but that because this law exists it, therefore, makes matters exponentially worse for the individual and family causing them stress. With that in mind and with the millions of cases that have been put on trial, the chances of a few of those cases sentencing an honest person to death are not as slim as some may believe it to be. There have been multiple reported cases in which there have been people released days and if not hours away from their soon to be execution. Not only do they get released but they are also given compensation for being wrongly convicted and the trauma they have been put through for being incarcerated and put on death row for a horrible act they did not commit. Not only is the capital punishment of the death penalty a complete utter waste of people’s tax dollars as well as government funds, but it is completely an illiterate way of handling punishments for other human beings which corrupts the morality of people and in some cases causes much more damage than it does