The Greek Hero Vs. The Anglo-Saxon Hero Essay, Research Paper

The Greek Hero vs. The Anglo-Saxon Hero

The hero stands as an archetype of who we should be and who we wish to be.

However, the hero has inherent flaws which we do not wish to strive towards. In

literature, these flaws are not used as examples of what we should be but rather

as examples of what not to be. This is especially dominant in the Greek hero.

While the Greek hero follows his fate, making serious mistakes and having a

fairly simple life, the Anglo-Saxon “super” hero tries, and may succeed, to

change his fate, while dealing with a fairly complex life.

The Greek hero is strong and mighty while his wit and intelligence are highly

valued. In the Greek tragedy, the hero struggles to avoid many flaws. Among

these flaws are ambition, foolishness, stubbornness, and hubris-the excessive

component of pride. He must overcome his predestined fate-a task which is

impossible. From the beginning of the tale, it is already clear that the hero

will ultimately fail with the only way out being death. In Oedipus, the hero

is already confronted with a load of information about his family and gouges his

eyes out. At this point, when he tries to outwit his fate he has already lost

and is sentenced to death.

The Anglo-Saxon hero must also deal with his “fate” but tries, and usually

succeeds, to change it. While the Greek hero battles his fate with his

excessive pride and intelligence, the Anglo-Saxon hero tries to eliminate his

doom by force. The Anglo-Saxon hero is considered a barbarian of sorts due to

his sometimes unethical and immoral views and courses of action. At the end,

the Anglo-Saxon succeeds in altering his fate though.

The Greek hero is so normal, that the reader can relate to him. He is usually a

“common” human being with no extraordinary life. His story seems believable,

even possible. We would have no hard time imagining the hero’s conflict as

being ours. As in the case with Oedipus, we can understand how he feels it

would be possible for his circumstances to be applied to our lives. Although

the details may seem a little farfetched it is not impossible that there is some

truth to the story.

On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxon hero, being super-human, is especially

difficult to relate to. The Anglo-Saxon may reach the same pedestal as a God.

It is extremely hard to relate to this sort of person. Who can relate to

Beowulf, fighting a dragon named Grendel? It seems impossible. Such seems seem

to be pure fiction or folklore. Nobody could apply such a situation to his

life.

The Greek hero is more of a thinker than a violent individual. He tries to

outwit everyone including his fate. He has a high level of hubris. This is

exactly the cause of his death making his fight nearly pointless. Oedipus

deals with the human struggle for knowledge-first for knowledge of the evil

which sets on the state, but ultimately for self-knowledge. Despite the advice

of others, Oedipus remains with his illusion, he must find the truth even if it

will destroy him. Oedipus is a tragic hero according to Aristotle’s Conception

in The Poetics. He is not the victim of fate expressed in the oracles. His

tragedy results from within his character. He sees things only one way-his way,

and driven by his uncontrolled emotions, ends up dead.

Beowulf is the hands on, brutal type. There is no way he could overcome his

fate with his brain. The only way out of the situation is to fight. In the

Anglo-Saxon tragedy, there is no room to think and analyze the situation. The

hands on, physical confrontations seem more effective, since Beowulf is able to

change the course of his fate.

The tragic hero yearns to believe that there is purpose to his actions, yet many

of his actions lead to pain and disaster more so in the Greek than Anglo-Saxon

literature. He evolves thinking about right and wrong or good and evil,

believing that these come to him as divine revelations. Yet he often discovers

that his morality produces immoral results, and his good is often evil. The

Anglo-Saxon is content with what is happening and decides to use his power to

overcome his conflict rather than his mind.

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