Roles Of Women In Beowulf Essay

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What are the roles of women? Are they even considered people in these stories? When reading these Old English and Middle English to Renaissance stories Beowulf, Judith, Wife of Bath, Upon Judith Clothes and A Coy to His Mistress you will see the value and importance of women through these texts. Women are often the subjects of literary works. In the Old English tradition, women are seen as dutiful slaves or angelic creatures. In some cases men treated women like sexual objects and did not respect them, it was wergild. The importance of women varies from the physical beauty and sexuality of sex, or to nothing in these stories.
In some women symbols power and strength, even godliness personified, such as in Beowulf. The women in Beowulf are over looked however if you closely exam the text you will se that the women in this text are a valuable asset to this story. These women all played a major part in this epic story. There are three major women through out this epic: Wealhtheow, Grendel’s Mother, and Hildeburh. These women bring peace, societal expectations of the female gender, both directly and indirectly. They play the three major roles of women: the hostess, peacemaker, and the monster. The peacemaker is pivotal role played by women. As the peacemaker she is responsible for maintaining solid relationships between groups. Like the peacemaker, the hostess may help reaffirm social customs and openly establishes the status of the men who are presence of the king. Each has an important part. Unlike the peacemaker and hostess, the female monster embodies masculine energy and counteracts social expectations of women in society. Grendel Mother was powerful in this old English text. She was the creator of monsters and used her beauty...

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... seen differently during each of the eras of these works.
We started being considered as weaker and played subservient roles to then men and almost nothing into society, yet now we are considered a really important piece in the world. Women have morphed into asserting more independence and playing symbolic roles in stories. Their role into society is as important as men’s role. Certainly, nowadays we have the opportunity to see women occupying roles that used to be occupied by men. Women are important and are needed in every aspect in both past and present times. There is always an important female role though it may seem limited it is needed. There are some very important women throughout these text and without them in the story it wouldn’t be the same. Though in these times they may not seem to be as important women have always played a powerful role in society.

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