Beowulf Motifs Paper Essay

In classic literature, one provide often assure traces of literary devices that enhance the reading fluency as well as entertain custodyt for the reader. Often, the reader will enjoy literature because of the writers attention to set ashore humor, suspense, drama, and many more genres to life. In a narration a motif is any recurring or consistent part/entity that has symbolic significance in a story. Through its repetition a motif can help produce other narrative or literary aspects such as a theme or mood. They are defined as entities/symbols that reoccur through disclose a literary work sometimes appearing in multiple forms. In the epical tale, Beowulf, many motifs bring together the characters and the plot. Consequently, three significant motifs that enhance its theme are loyalty, avenge, and envy. bingle of the central themes of Beowulf, embodied by its title character, is loyalty. At every meter of his career, loyalty is Beowulfs guiding virtue. Beowulf comes to the ass istance of the Danes for complicated reasons. He is arouse in increasing his reputation and gaining honor and payment. Beowulf does become king and rules with honor and fidelity to his office and his hoi polloi for 50 years. In his final test, the centre of loyalty will rest on other, younger shoulders. Preparing for his last battle, with the warm dragon, Beowulf puts his trust in 11 of his finest men, retainers who have vowed to fight to the death for him.Although the direct elderly king insists on taking on the dragon alone, he brings along the 11 in case he needs them. When it is unmingled that Beowulf is losing the battle to the dragon, however, all but one of his men run and hides in the woods. Only Wiglaf, an inexperienced thane who has great respect for his king, remains loyal. Wiglaf calls to the others, but realizing that they will be no help and that his king is about to be killed, he stands beside the old man to fight to the death theirs or the dragons. For Beowulf , sadly, it is the end. Although he and Wiglaf kill the dragon, the king dies. As he dies, Beowulf passes the kingdom on to the stout and loyal Wiglaf.Revenge serves as a motivating factor for some(prenominal) characters throughout the poem, initially stirring Grendel and his mother. Grendel seeks revenge upon mankind for the heritage that he has been dealt. He delights in raiding Heorot because it is the symbol of everything that he detests about men their success, joy, glory, and favor in the eyes of God. Grendels mothers revenge is more specific. She attacks Heorot because someone there killed her son. Although she is smaller and less powerful than Grendel, she is propel by a mothers fury. When Beowulf goes after her in the mere, she has the added reinforcement of fighting him in her own territory. As she drags him into her cave beneath the lake, her revenge peaks because this is the very man who killed her son. Only Beowulfs amazing abilities as a warrior and the interventi on of God or magic can defeat her.Finally, patronage Unferths jealous rant at the first banquet, the most hard embodiment of envy in the poem is Grendel. The ogre who has menaced Hrothgars people for 12 years is envious of the Danes because he can never packet in mankinds hope or joy. The monsters motivation is one of the few undeniably Christian influences in the epic. Grendel is a descendant of Cain, the biblical son of Adam and Eve who killed his brother Abel out of jealousy (Genesis 4). The legend is that the monsters of the earth are Cains descendants and everlastingly damned.Grendel resents men because God blesses them but will never bless him. The opaline lights and sounds of joy emanating from Hrothgars magnificent mead-hall, Heorot, especially annoy the ogre. The scops variant of Creation angers Grendel because it reminds him of the light and hope of Gods creation and the exhalation he suffers because of Cains sin. Grendel stomps up from the mere to devour Danes and r ule periodic over Heorot as a form of revenge stemming from this envy.Coming from a highly valued family name, Beowulf must earn his own reputation at bottom his own family. Throughout his battles, Beowulf personifies the motifs of loyalty, revenge, envy, reputation, vengeance, and fate which contribute to the overall epic theme. each(prenominal) of these contrasting themes contributes as to why Beowulf was such a tremendous epic hero.