UMAR IJAZ - FINAL EXAM ESSAY

Beowulf – A Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey, specifically in Literature, is the passage if the hero through three significant stages, the Separation, Initiation, and the Return. After completing the Hero’s Journey, the hero in the story, is significantly changed or his life is dramatically impacted in some way. Paintings, movies, and even real life exhibit the Hero’s Journey, as well as Literature. In the old Anglo-Saxon story, Beowulf, a Hero’s Journey is clearly established in the inception of the story. In the conclusion, there are various indications that Beowulf, distinctly the hero of the story, has completed a hero’s journey.

Beowulf leaving his home in Sweden illustrates the Separation, the first stage of the Hero’s Journey. The motive for this separation, or the calling, can be discerned as the need to go and provide the much needed assistance to Hrothgar in defeating the evil monster Grendel, who has been terrorizing and maliciously feasting on Hrothgar’s people. The actual onset of the journey, known as the threshold is marked by Beowulf’s eagerness and firmness to go on the journey and not return until Grendel is defeated. After the meeting between Beowulf and Hrothgar takes place, the threshold has been promptly crossed and Beowulf seeks out and effortlessly defeats Grendel. After learning of her son’s swift death, Grendel’s mother is filled overcome with rage. Beowulf is lured by his overconfidence, at this point in the story, into the depths of Grendel’s mother’s lake, with the presumptuous hopes of killing her as well. This action constitutes the descent, or the journey into the unknown, as Beowulf has no clue to what kind of a place or situation he is about to get himself into. The calling, threshold, and the descent show a break between Beolwulf and his homeland, while also describing the onset of a great journey.

When the hero of the story finds a mentor and performs various heroic deeds, the second stage of the Hero’s Journey, the Initiation, has started. Beowulf departs from the Initiation stage when he performs other heroic deeds, such killing Grendel’s mother, and in the end the dragon. The trip to Herot can be interpreted to be the abyss or the unknown of this initiation. The Mentor in the Hero’s Journey is almost always a person or another being of some sort. However, this is not the case in Beowulf. The Mentor in Beowulf turns out o be the sword that Beowulf finds in Grendel’s mother’s lake. The same sword he uses to slay her with. After all of the heroic deeds are performed, Beowulf has become disparate or has been transformed, thus this being the transformation of the initiation stage.

The Return marks the final stage of the Hero’s Journey. During the retuen, the heo returns to his home, family, society, etc. At the end of the story Beowulf doesn’t necessarily return to Sweden, but after defeating the dragon, returns to Herot, which has been his home for many years. Beowulf’s people have achieved great security and wealth as a result of this return. Grendel’s defeat and the establishment of a much more wealthier and secure Herot for Hrothgar and his people, is what is known as the creation segment of the return.

Beowulf dies a true hero to the people of Hrothgar and to his own soldiers as well. This death connotes Beowulf’s completion of a Hero’s Journey.