Beowulf And Everym Poem Analysis

In the epic poem Beowulf and the play Everyman the main characters’ actions, behaviors, character traits, and values are what bring the characters to the point in their lives that are written about. These traits make for two vastly different main characters; however, their overall drive and faith bring them to the same fate in the end. Beowulf being about a strong, brave, and faithful leader in the Anglo-Saxon period and Everyman being about a man who lived his life they way he wanted in the 16th century Christian period. Beowulf is like the idealistic version of a person and has such a strong belief in his faith he does not fear death; where on the other hand, Everyman in the exact opposite of an idealistic character but turns it around in …show more content…
Beowulf is known to be this brave, courageous, and honorable as well as having spiritual faith. In the poem he is even referred to as “the brave man”(688). Beowulf is also very prideful and confident in his strength when it comes to fighting Grendel he believes he is “as dangerous any day as Grendel” (678), even going as far as not using a weapon and armor to defeat him (683-684). Beowulf shows faith throughout the epic especially when he is about to face a battle, like with Grendel he makes the comment “may the Divine Lord in His wisdom grant the glory of victory”(685-686). This shows that Beowulf has a belief in a higher power which can be lead to assume that he follows a path that is consider righteous in that culture. Now if we compare these behaviors and characteristic of a great warrior in Beowulf’s culture to that of Everyman’s. Everyman is shown as a sinner in his culture because he was known for his greed and to give into worldly pleasures, which in the christian culture of Everyman means that he has lost God. His greed is shown many times in the play, for example when he tried to bride Death with his goods as well as in the episode where he talks to Goods to trying to get his help in redemption he makes the point that “all [his] life [he has] loved riches”(388) and has had “joy and pleasure”(408) in using them. These are the very reason he …show more content…
Everyman tends to be more self focused compared to Beowulf in what he values. Everyman seems to value his life, goods, strength and beauty which is why he is in the predicament of trying to find redemption because he failed to value what people in his culture normally do which is faith, good deeds, and knowledge. His values do him no good in the play for what led him to redemption is knowledge and what would have saved him is good deeds. However, he values the more shallow aspects of life which led him away from the life that is ideally laid out for people of christian beliefs, which is to follow God, the bible and do good in the world. Beowulf, on the other hand, has values of what most people would think heroic warriors should have which is strength, courage, and loyalty. His strength and courage is what drives him through his life, it is what brought him to Heorot to fight Grendel, which in the views of Everyman’s culture and Beowulf’s own is a good deed and looked upon as good value to have in life. His loyalty is a constant in the play whether it be his loyalty to his king, his men, or his God. His loyalty is important to him, he shows it by sending his treasures to his king after his battle, as well as his loyalty to his men who follow him when he asks Hrothgar to watch and take care of his men should something happen to him. Lastly, his loyalty to his God