Allegory In Beowulf

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Pages: 3

Beowulf is an epic poem that was written during the Anglo-Saxon period back in the sixth century. The best, yet the strangest part about it’s origin, is that we don’t know who wrote, but speculation suggests that it was some christian monks. Beowulf is the story about a young soldier who fights three beasts; the humanoid monster named Grendel, the shewolf Grendel’s Mom, and a fire breathing dragon. Each monster in this book represents something in the terms as a Christian allegory, or a story with a literal or abstract meaning. Not only do the monsters have abstract meaning, but other things in this story does to.

The first fight in the poem is the fight against Grendel. Grendel is described to be a hideous and malformed beast that
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It has been fifty years since Beowulf’s encounter with Grendel’s mother, and he is a much older man and is king of the Geats. The dragon goes crazy because a thief went into the dragon’s tower and stole a measly cup. This statement itself represents the dragon which is greed, another one of the seven deadly sins. The fight was long and hard battle, but Beowulf comes out victorious, but at the cost of his life. Beowulf, throughout the entire poem, represents good against evil or a christ figure, even though he is still human as this quote represents, “But I will fight again,seek fame still…”(609). He still is just a human, but one that will put his life on the line to protect his people, like Jesus did for us.

Beowulf is a Christian allegory, because it represents something about the seven deadly sins and what they will turn a person into, or how humanity can endure like the Israelites endured till they escaped Egypt and made it to the promise land, or how we can be christ like, even though we are only human. This is an allegory that has everything a Christian believes in and what they stand for. Each monster, each setting, and each person represents something in a Christian way, whether it be literal or