The Idea Of Mortality In Beowulf

Adrenaline courses through his veins. A godly soldier locks eyes with a bloodlust beast, who has long overstayed his welcome. Yet even as famed and honorable as he is, even he knows that even he, is only just a mortal. In the story of Beowulf, a warrior faces an enemy in new territory, an enemy that has been terrorizing a town for 12 years. Throughout this story, the idea of mortality is constantly presented, and it shows the readers that no one really lives forever, only in the memories of others. Beowulf arrives to Hrothgar and to the king he says “God must decide who will be given to death’s cold grip”. He say’s this because Beowulf knows the reality of battle. He is a soldier who has slain enemies mercilessly and saw his own soldiers killed in the same way as well. When Beowulf …show more content…
Even in death, he would believe it to be a fitting death for a soldier because he would be remembered for ages to come anyways.
This idea of the outcome possibly being grim for Beowulf during battle has been shown throughout all his moments prior to when he fights. Beowulf emphasizes that his life would be endangered again, when he is at the feast and says that his “purpose was to win the goodwill of Hrothgar’s people or die in battle, pressed in Grendel’s fierce grip.” Again, he knows that he is only mortal, regardless of his immense strength and his past battles, in which he has slain sea monsters after sea monsters, there is always a chance that he may die. It would not be because he was weak, but simply because his time has come, as a mortal, in the eyes of God and fate.