Ryan Hoffrogge

Litcomp 8
Beowulf formal paragraph
February 1st 2010
In the book Beowulf, translated by Burton Raffel, the main character,
Beowulf, wins some big battles. I think that strength wins Beowulf these
battles.
First when Beowulf is fighting Grendle, Beowulf decides to not use
any weapons or defensive armour to fight him. When Grendle initially saw
him “he knew at once that nowhere on earth had he met a man whose hands
were harder.” Beowulf is so strong that in order for Grendle to get away “he
twisted in pain and bleeding sinews deep in his shoulder snapped, muscle
and bone split.”
Secondly when Grendle escapes he goes to his swamp, where his
mom lives, and dies. She comes and kills Esher, Hrothgar’s right hand man,
and puts the head as a warning, by her lake. This in turn has Beowulf
swimming “for hours he sank through the waves.” He then engages
Grendle’s mom in combat, but he finds out “that no sword could hurt her.”
But then “he saw, hanging on the wall, a heavy sword, hammered by giants,
strong and blessed.” So having broken the chain which bound the sword “he
lifted it high over his head and struck with all the strength he had left, caught
her in the neck and cut it through.
Lastly as a king he finds out that there is a dragon, “their words
brought misery, Beowulf’s sorrow beat at his heart: he accused himself of
breaking god’s law.” So he finds the strength, even though he is around
eighty years old, to go and try to vanquish the dragon. Then he entered battle
the “ the dragon came at him , encouraged as Beowulf ell back and he
suffered, wrapped around swirling flames- a king, before, but now a beaten
warrior.” After seeing this all but one, of his hand selected, people run into
the forest to hide the one soldiers name was Wiglaf, Beowulf’s cousin. So
Wiglaf enters into the fiery battle. Getting behind Beowulf’s shield “he
helped his lord by striking lower down.” But even though Beowulf is injured
and tired, “Beowulf drew his battle-sharp dagger: the bloodstained king
knew what he was doing, quickly, he cut the beast inn half, slit it apart. Even
though he died after killing the dragon he still found strength to kill the
dragon.
As you can see no ordinary man could do this. That is why Beowulf’s
strength got him through these battles.