Beowulf And The Monomythic Cycle

Often, heroes and protagonists in works of literature reflect the values and morals of their cultures. These cultural values usually reflect the time at which the works were written, and as these characters progress through their journeys (formally known as the Monomythic Cycle as described by Joseph Campbell), the reader, upon reading their tales learns about the character’s values and morals based on the culture that surrounded them at the time. The periods of the Early and Late Middle Ages encompass both the barbaric and the chivalrous age. Therefore, the epic poem and chivalric romance written in the Middle Ages, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, strongly represent what the Anglo-Saxons and the Middle-English cultures viewed …show more content…
Pride fuels Beowulf’s attempt to avoid dishonor, maintain a reputation, and gain recognition. Beowulf fights with an individualistic mindset, where he fights for his pride and justification. Beowulf does not allow anyone or anything get in his way in this pursuit of these values, something that Middle-English civilians would see as unchivalrous. A strikingly different fuel compared to that of Sir Gawain. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Sir Gawain’s call to adventure comes when the Green Knight challenges King Arthur or one of his noble knights to chop off his head. A challenge that is meant to test the strength, will, and loyalty of Arthur and his men, as it can be seen in his …show more content…
They view him as being a great, dutiful, loyal, and brave knight that has potentially sacrificed his life for the sake of King Arthur’s kingdom, the people of the kingdom, and in the name of his uncle. Honor and duty fuels Sir Gawain’s attempts to avoid dishonor, maintain a reputation, and gain recognition. Sir Gawain fights with a collective mindset, where he fights for Arthur’s kingdom and the reputation King Arthur’s knights. Sir Gawain fights with a conscious, knowing that all of his actions come with consequence, something Anglo-Saxons had very little regards for. Both, Beowulf and Sir Gawain, pursued the same values (avoiding dishonor, maintaining a reputation, and gaining recognition), but the differences come in the individual cultural meanings held behind those values and how the two ended up pursuing them. Other harsh contrasts can be made through the analysis of the rest of their monomythic cycles. In Beowulf, he encounters two thresholds of return, one being fighting off Grendel’s mother after she seeks vengeance for her son’s death and the other being that Beowulf must go after the Dragon that burned down his home. The fact that no one holds remorse for Grendel’s mother shows that the Anglo-Saxon culture is very coldhearted, brutal, and barbaric for they have no mercy for those they deem as evil