Beowulf Motifs Paper Essay

In classic literature, one will ofttimes see traces of literary devices that enhance the reading fluency as surface as entertainment for the reader. Often, the reader will enjoy literature because of the writers attention to bring humor, suspense, drama, and legion(predicate) more genres to life. In a floor a motif is any recurring or coherent element/entity that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition a motif can help produce other narrative or literary aspects such as a theme or mood. They atomic number 18 defined as entities/symbols that reoccur throughout a literary employ sometimes appearing in multiple forms. In the heroic poem tale, Beowulf, many motifs bring together the characters and the plot. Consequently, three significant motifs that enhance its theme are loyalty, revenge, and envy.One of the central themes of Beowulf, embodied by its title character, is loyalty. At any step of his career, loyalty is Beowulfs guiding virtue. Beowulf comes to the assistance of the Danes for complicated reasons. He is interested in increasing his account and gaining honor and payment. Beowulf does become queen mole rat and expressions with honor and fidelity to his office and his people for 50 years. In his final test, the burden of loyalty will rest on other, younger shoulders. Preparing for his put out battle, with the fiery genus Draco, Beowulf puts his trust in 11 of his finest men, retainers who have vowed to fight to the close for him.Although the now elderly king insists on taking on the tophus alone, he brings along the 11 in case he involve them. When it is apparent that Beowulf is losing the battle to the dragon, however, all save one of his men elapse and hides in the woods. Only Wiglaf, an inexperienced thane who has great respect for his king, remains loyal. Wiglaf calls to the others, but realizing that they will be no help and that his king is intimately to be killed, he stands beside the old man to fight to th e death theirs or the dragons. For Beowulf, sadly, it is the end. Although he and Wiglaf kill the dragon, the king dies. As he dies, Beowulf passes the kingdom on to the brave and loyal Wiglaf.Revenge serves as a motivating figure for several characters throughout the poem, initially stirring Grendel and his mother. Grendel seeks revenge upon mankind for the inheritance that he has been dealt. He delights in raiding Heorot because it is the symbol of everything that he detests about men their success, joy, glory, and favor in the eyes of God. Grendels mothers revenge is more specific. She attacks Heorot because someone there killed her son. Although she is smaller and less fibrous than Grendel, she is motivated by a mothers fury. When Beowulf goes after her in the mere, she has the added advantage of fighting him in her own territory. As she drags him into her cave down the stairs the lake, her revenge peaks because this is the very man who killed her son. Only Beowulfs amazing a bilities as a warrior and the intervention of God or magic can smite her.Finally, Despite Unferths jealous rant at the first banquet, the some serious embodiment of envy in the poem is Grendel. The ogre who has menaced Hrothgars people for 12 years is envious of the Danes because he can neer share in mankinds hope or joy. The goliaths motivation is one of the few undeniably Christian influences in the epic. Grendel is a descendant of Cain, the biblical son of Adam and Eve who killed his chum Abel out of jealousy (Genesis 4). The legend is that the monsters of the earth are Cains posterity and eternally damned.Grendel resents men because God arousees them but will never bless him. The bright lights and sounds of joy emanating from Hrothgars magnificent mead-hall, Heorot, especially annoy the ogre. The scops Song of Creation angers Grendel because it reminds him of the light and hope of Gods design and the loss he suffers because of Cains sin. Grendel stomps up from the mere to devour Danes and rule nightly over Heorot as a form of revenge stemming from this envy. glide path from a highly valued family name, Beowulf must earn his own reputation within his own family. Throughout his battles, Beowulf personifies the motifs of loyalty, revenge, envy, reputation, vengeance, and fate which contribute to the overall epic theme. Each of these contrasting themes contributes as to why Beowulf was such a nasty epic hero.