Theme Of Heroism In Beowulf

What is Beowulf? Beowulf is an ancient story about a heroism. Within the story one encounters a multitude of amazing things, such as dragons, monsters and mayhem, kings and queens, magic, unbelievable strength, interesting armor, and what it means to be a hero. What the story does not include is a major role for females. The only roles that females play within in this plot line are the monsters or understated characters. Now one might ask “Alright well why does that matter now? That story was written thousands of years ago.” To understand the question we must first look at the significance of the story today. Beowulf is significant because it shows the world that there has always been hero stories and that the themes that we have today have …show more content…
If one researches these queens online people will say that “the women in ‘Beowulf’ are overlooked; however, a close examination of the poetry demonstrates that the women play roles that are central to the story” (Grayson, 2014), but they are not remembered. Within a story everyone remembers the hero and the monsters he faced. No one ever remembers the queens that were peacemakers. As the quote states they are constantly overlooked, but one has to think is that not how the author intended them to be? When writing a story the author can make any choice they want, it is after all their story. We can see that the author of Beowulf has no problem making a female main character, hence Grendel’s mother. So why not make one of the queens a more active participant in the story instead of making them blend into the background? Is it because they are not monsters like Grendel’s mother? From a feminist perspective it seems as though the author decides that since these females are not monsters, like Grendel’s mother, they are not worth making into a memorable …show more content…
We can conclude this because although the monster, Grendel’s mother, is a better warrior than her son, Grendel, and perhaps even a fiercer creature she is not worthy of having a name, although her male son is. We can also draw this conclusion by the way that the other female characters are forgettable within the story. Even though they play huge role in being the peacemakers they are not main characters or even well-known supporting characters within Beowulf. This leads us to believe that although women have big parts within the story they will never be considered equal to the men who are in