Free Sample Essays > European Literature
What are the values of Beowulf the Geat?
he recounts his heroic exploits to the King and Queen, but he also divulges his talk at one point to an aside on blood feuds (p. 65 Heaney). The blood feud in this case concerns the rivalry between the Danes and the Heathobards. Beowulf explains how even Hrothgar’s daughter, Freawaru whom is to marry Ingeld, a Heathobard, will not heal the old wounds of when the Danes massacred the Heathobards. Beowulf claims at the wedding what has happened will be rememberd by Heathobards that were there, and they will be both obliged and want to renew the blood feud. This aside shows the nature of feuds between the different peoples in the poem and continues the themes that the Finn episode started, thus re-enforcing at this point, that the world Beowulf lives in is a bloody and fragile one; one that the Geats are also caught up in.
Then time passes and it comes to pass that Beowulf is now the king and has ruled well for fifty winters. But then something happens that is entirely beyond Beowulf’s control – a slave from his own country discovers a hoard of treasure underground, but in the process awakens “this scourge of people,” the dragon. Inevitably the dragon wreaks havoc on the Geats’ land and the news soon reaches Beowulf. Beowulf shows that in age his values are not much different to those in youth. He will fight the Dragon to protect his own people and he decides he will do it alone. We also see a good example of Beowulf’s pride, after all he has defeated and achieved he is not scared of the Dragon at all and is ready to fight him. Already the poet and Beowulf are strongly linking what is happening to fate, in fact long before the two antagonists clash, we are told of the outcome on page 74:
“After many trials he (Beowulf) was destined to face the end of his days in this mortal world; as was this dragon, for all his long leasehold on the treasure.”
By once again diverging in terms of plot, before the battle with the Dragon and the end, we get to see more of Beowulf’s values, but also what awaits the end of the fight with the dragon.
When Hygelac, King of the Geats dies by the Friesians, Beowulf although not the next in terms of bloodline, was to be the new desired King of the Geats, but he refused, more prepared to support the rightful King, than take the power himself. When the King, Heardred is killed by the Swedes and his wife, Onela returns back to Sweden with them, Beowulf takes the suitable revenge of war against the Swedes, in which he kills Onela. The whole point of these passages before the final battle is to implicate the Geats in the feuds and wars that have been described beforehand. It is clear that the strength of Beowulf is what is keeping them from being attacked and if he were to die, the [next page]