The Journey Of Beowulf And The Hero's Journey

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Many people say that Beowulf was a great example of the Hero’s Journey, but many people also disagree that Beowulf was a great example of it. The Hero’s Journey consist of different stages the hero should overcome. In Beowulf, Beowulf had to overcome many difficult stages similar to the Hero’s Journey, but not just quite like it. In this essay I am going to discuss Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney and Excepts from Myth and the Movies, Stuart Voytillam Foreword by Christopher Vogler. Beowulf encounters many similar steps to the Hero’s Journey, but he never gets to fully complete the Hero’s Journey due to his failure to achieve peace. In “Beowulf” Beowulf was not able to complete the hero’s journey because of the time period, culture, and ignorant choices Beowulf took. The hero’s journey should help mold the hero who is on the journey by changing the inner character changes throughout the journey because of the surrounding events. Also in the hero’s journey once the hero completes the journey he is supposed to be recognized by the people he helped out and enjoy his life back at home. But in Beowulf this does not take place because once he completes the journey he does not learn from his mistakes, failures, and achievements that he faces while on the journey. The hero’s journey is supposed to teach and change the hero as they go through the adventures. In the hero’s journey the heroes purpose is to serve and sacrifice an answer or remedy that will help and could save one or many people’s lives. In “Beowulf,” Beowulf first receives a call to adventure from King Hrothgar and he agrees to the call of adventure to go to Denmark. When Beowulf accepts the call to adventure he skips a step of the hero’s journey as it is described as the ...

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... of continuing to fight battle after battle. He could have been back to his ordinary world sharing the elixir with others or heal a wounded land, but he decided to keep on battling and cause of his bad choices he cannot do this. In conclusion, the heroic poem of Beowulf is different to other heroic stories because they both went through the hero’s journey but the heroes learned a different ideas. Beowulf does not gain wisdom nor lose pride in himself, he decides to encounter everything that comes toward him. According to the hero’s journey Beowulf would always take the road back because he would not learn the lessons that the journeys were teaching him. He was not able to transform
Natividad 5 the power he had and transform that power into his understanding of life. Beowulf saved and protected many lives, but at the end of all he could not save and protect his life.

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