Similarities Between Sir Gawain And The Green Knight And Beowulf

Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are both considered English epics. What defines an epic is based on several characteristics. The story is based around a hero who is able to complete impossible deeds with the use of superhuman strength, intelligence or by virtue. In both stories of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the tales go through the characteristics of an epic hero; great strength, travels over a vast setting, humility, faces against supernatural sources or have the aid of a supernatural source and the final conquering of death. While both Beowulf and Sir Gawain are considered epic heroes, the way that they are considered heroes differ based on their tale.

Beowulf is strong through brute strength and his good virtue as a warrior as told through his bloody epic. We first hear of his impossible feats from the story of the swimming competition with Breca. While he lost …show more content…
Beowulf sends himself on these quests to help the people, and not for his own self worth. He can still be considered prideful, as he brings himself to explain what really happened during the swimming competition to prove himself a true warrior. His final quest is for his country rather than a foreign place, making it even more important to be successful. Gawain decides to take on the Green Knight on behalf of his King, King Arthur, taking his place in this exchange of swinging the axe to the Green Knight and beginning the challenge. Gawain is also considered more than an ideal knight, something as an inhuman figure with great strength and a supernatural power behind him. His traits as a character is the prefered traits for a knight, as he has above average strength, endurance, and possesses the abilities of any other knight that lived such as horseback riding, and the use of weapons as seen when he is able to decapitate the Green Knight in a single bow with a large heavy