Beowulf

In the story of Beowulf, the monsters serve many purposes and stand as many different opponents towards the main character Beowulf. One of the main reasons for having so many different conflicts with monsters in the story is to entertain and have some rising action to keep the readers interested. Also there is always the role of “good vs. evil” that needs to be filled in a good epic story. Having Beowulf fight against monsters is how the author shows Beowulf struggling to protect his kingdom and always have the lingering fear of attack hanging in the essence of the epic tale. There are many other reasons why there are so many monsters in the story of Beowulf.

One thing that monsters could stand for in the story of Beowulf could be the role of religion. The monsters stand for the evil always trying to make its way into the kingdom. Like our world says that evil is always trying to get the best of the people, the evil in the story is trying to take over and kill all the good. Beowulf could be the role of a God trying to protect his ‘heaven’ by fighting the evil out of his land. Some of the reasons why this could be true are because Beowulf came from another group of people to help the king. Like God sent his son to die for us, Beowulf risks his life for the people. He is also doing everything in his power to keep the people safe and protect them with his life against the evil, which of course comes in the form of the monsters.

One monster in the story Beowulf is a dragon. It symbolizes evil, coming in the form of a serpent. Beowulf, being the leader he is, wants to give the treasure the dragon holds to the Geats’. Symbolically though, the treasure lies with the dragon, which shows that Beowulf’s death will come when the Geats’ get the treasure. This shows that when Beowulf fights the dragon, he will die.

Looking at this tale from the typical eye of a story, monsters are, well, monsters. What do monsters do? They wreak havoc and destroy things....