Similarities Between Beowulf And The Wife's Lament

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In both the excerpt about unferth form Beowulf and the poem “The Wife’s Lament”, themes of betrayal and anger are woven into the texts. To begin with, Unferth expresses his feelings of anger and contempt towards beowulf. For example, unferth states, “ are you beowulf who competed with Brecca,.. but Brecca outstayed you, he was stronger.”(Line 420-435) Thus, Unferth tries to embarrass beowulf and ruin his reputation. However, beowulf responses to unferth by saying, “ Truly, Unferth my friend, all this beer has made you talkative”(Line 445) In short, Beowulf realizes that unferth is a sad, old drunk and explains to unferth what really happened with him and Breca. Moreover, Beowulf explains to Unferth that he was attacked by nine sea monsters that night and brings up unferth's …show more content…

For instance, Beowulf states, “.. I slew nine sea-beasts with my sword... I have not heard tell that you have taken part in any such contests, in the peril of sword-play.. I do not boast of because of this-through of course it is true you slew your own brothers.”(Line 490-505) To summarize, Beowulf takes a humble approach to the aggressive Unferth and questions his past. Furthermore, Beowulf shows his anger and contempt when speaking to unferth about his reputation. To illustrate, Beowulf says,” you will suffer damnation in hell... If you were in fact as unflinching as you claim, the fearsome monster Grendel would never have committed so many crimes against your lord, nor created such havoc in Herot.”(Line 505-510) As a result, Beowulf creates shame to Unferth and perceives him as a waste of a Dane. Secondly,the wife’s lord left their family and sailed away, leaving her behind; which mentally frustrated her. To continue, she began to undertake a quest to find

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