Beouwulf And Eodipus Essay, Research Paper

Beowulf and Oedipus the King: Two Different Heroes

In both of these epics, Beowulf and Oedipus are seen as heroes and as saviors of the cities. Oedipus saves the city by solving the riddle of the sphinx, and Beowulf save the city by slaying Grendel and his mother. They both do possess characteristics that are very similar, but at the same time, they are two different men.

Oedipus saves the city of Thebes by solving the riddle of the sphinx. The riddle, which had never been solved before and when Oedipus solved it, he was made the king. This was a great feat and deserved to be given the title of king because he was the savior to his people. He took a lot of pride in himself, but still had an inner struggle that he wanted to resolve. Oedipus wanted to find the man whom had killed his father. All knowing that he would find the person whom had killed his father, he never looked where the answer was all along, him. Because he did not know his history, he was the murderer of his father. Also, the person whom he considered his wife was really his mother. This was a hard situation to handle because he was such a proud person that at the end, he was his own enemy. His great reign was ended when he decided to gouge his eyes because he did not want to look at the eyes of anyone in his great city of Thebes.

Beowulf was a different kind of hero. Beowulf was a hero because of his physical strength and not because of his intelligence as in Oedipus the King. Beowulf was a man of great honor and savior to the city. He had defeated Grendel, whom had terrorized the people because of too much noise. Grendel had killed mercilessly and deserved to die but no one in the city could accomplish this. Beowulf did accomplish this single-handedly. He also killed Grendel?s mother because she was avenging her son?s death. Beowulf prided himself in his strength rather than his intelligence. Because of his pride, as was Oedipus, was the cause of his death. Beowulf had become king and when the challenge came for him to battle another monster, he believed he was still as strong as he was in his youth. Subsequently, he was killed.

Both of these men were very proud. Because of their pride, the both subsequently died. In both cases, they were considered heroes. Heroes they were but not the same type of hero. Beowulf was a hero because of his physical strength. Oedipus was a hero because of his intelligence. They were both gentle to others and always tried to help others. They prided themselves and because of their pride they met their fate.

Each man had an inner struggle and was trying to deal with it. As in Oedipus, he was trying to find his father?s murderer and finally found him in himself. Beowulf had tried to maintain his pride by defeating another great monster but age had gotten the best of him and he could finish his battle. Each was the same in that they were heroes trying to deal with inner struggles of pride, but the both met the same fate because of their pride.

As anyone who prides himself in anything that they may accomplish, they should always deal with inner struggles because if they don?t, that will be their downfall.