Theme Of The Wanderer And The Seafarer

The Seafarer, The Wanderer, and The Wife’s Lament all contains faith verses fate. The three poems are very similar and very different. The three poems ranging from a lonely man, to a lost soldier, to a wife’s bedrail. The medieval poems show hurt, confusion, and loneliness.

"The Wanderer" and "The Wife's Lament" are both an elegy written during the Anglo-Saxon period, which makes the style of writing very similar. The themes are both similar revolving around sadness, exile, and lamenting which gives portrays a very melancholy, sorrowful, and wishful mood. The stories both are scattered with caesuras everywhere, because these elegy's were often memorized and repeated in this time period. Also, both stories include many figurative language like alliteration and assonance. For example, "my first on earth" (8), "turned round now" (23-24), "seizes me here" (33), "at dawn am walking alone" (35), "hence I may not rest" (39) are all assonances found in "The Wife's Lament." In "The Wanderer", "though woefully toiling" (3), "lonely and wretched I wailed my woe" (9), "with gift in the mead-hall" (25), and "shall come the loved counsel" (34) are some of the assonance in the story. There were also alliteration in both elegy's, but not as much as there were assonances. In "The Wife's Lament" I found "to seek service in my sorrow's need" (10), "mournful of mind" (19), and "bitter with briars" (31) while in "The Wanderer" there

When isolated from society, loneliness becomes a part of you. In the poems, The Wife’s Lament translated by Ann Stanford and The Seafarer translated by Burton Raffel, are two similar and different poems. The characters in these poems handle their exiles in different ways. The way the two characters reflect from their exile is based off Anglo-Saxon values and beliefs. These poems compare and contrast the exile between men and women.

In the novel The Old Man And The Sea by Ernest Hemingway, there is a fish that the old man finally catches after 84 days, but is consumed by Mako shark’s in the process of reeling it in. Santiago, the old man, had a strong connection with the marlin even though he only saw him for a short period of time. They taught each other many things through a tug and war type of play. Catching a marlin fish was a goal of Santiago that he had been attempting to fulfill for a decent period of time, and after being persistent and patient, slowly but surely he was able to succeed. Many symbols in Hemingway’s novel have their own counterparts in my own life, which include a goal, hope, and idolization.

The poem “The Wanderer” speaks of a man who has been exiled from his clan, and is now forced to roam the land alone. Separation from his fellow kinsmen and lord seems to be the worst fate imaginable. The man speaks of his great loss, remembering the time when he was happy with his liege,

In Anglo-Saxon culture blood feud was a common occurrence and if left unchecked could leave an entire area devoid of people that once called it home due to infighting. To avoid furthering conflict one could also pay the wer-gild but if the murderer refused to pay the wer-gild they would be exiled from their society of forced to live on their own on the fringes of civilization. The Wanderer is from the perspective of one man who was exiled after a blood feud and this part of his story is critical to understanding the poem within the context of the culture it was written. However The Wanderer has a backdrop of blood feud and punishment by exile surrounding it but it is not by itself a poem that condemns either of those things instead it contends with the idea of wyrd or fate and how it is inescapable.

With no pleasures or company to satisfy him, he lives his days alone, exploring the depths. Unlike most Anglo-Saxon epics, like Beowulf, the speaker in this poem is very relatable to sea travelers during the time. The author even expresses that the speaker is not the only one who lives this life “Who could understand, in ignorant ease, what we others suffer as the paths of exile stretch endlessly on?” (lines 55-57). The author is basically saying that all sea travelers understand the story of the speaker’s loneliness and exhaustion, and those that live a calm, happy life, are oblivious to the harsh paths that these people take.

Throughout life, one will endure hardship numerous times. It is unavoidable and inevitable; however, positives can always be taken from the hardship. Not only can life lessons be ingrained in the mind, but, almost always, beauty can be created from hardship. This is most definitely the case in three elegies from The Exeter Book, titled “The Seafarer,” “The Wife’s Lament,” and “The Wanderer,” which all share a theme of exile, even though it appears in different ways. In “The Seafarer,” it appears through the wretchedness of the narrator, in “The Wife’s Lament,” it appears through the anger of the narrator, and, lastly, in “The Wanderer,” it appears through loneliness and the melancholy attitude of the narrator. Theme is not the only thing that the elegies share, through the utilization of imagery, creating powerful feelings, or personification, all three elegies create beauty out of a painful experience. Even though a theme of exile appears differently in all three elegies, through utilization of these writing enhancements, each creates beauty out of a painful experience.

These poems exhibit first person point of view, which display the theme of writing during this time period and also allows the reader to connect with the writer. These poems resemble in the ways that the narration effects the point of view exhibited. In both The Wife’s Lament and The Seafarer, the writer use the need of sympathy to draw the readers in and allow you to connect with the plot. In The Wife’s Lament, the narrator exclaims, “I am able to tell- all the hardships I’ve suffered since I grew

"The Seafarer" is a story of a man who exiled himself from everyone else. He goes into details about how he misses the sea and voyaging. The culture he once knew is now changing from pagan to Christian. Altho he's come to term with that change he just misses his past. All he once cared for and loved had died off and that's something hard to get over.He then goes into detail about what a king used to be and what they've become; saying " The weakest survives and the world continues,/ Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished." (Lines 87-88 Raffel).

The elegiac tone expressed in “The Wanderer” is that of loneliness and longing, and is recurring throughout the course of the poem. The main character’s apparent loneliness and longing is most evident when he wakes from his hope filled dreams which results in his “grief renewed” (line 44), because he always finds himself alone. However despite being alone, since the loss of his kin and lord to war, the wanderer cannot stop himself from hoping that he can one day find a place of belonging. This idea is referred in “the gift in the meadhall” (line 25) which in Anglo-Saxon times was a

The lists of abhorrent practices, like forced labor and human trafficking, that are involved with slavery and racial segregation has helped not only create a social divide between education and economic programs but has supported the values of capitalists within the American society today. Captain of the Wanderer, John Egbert Farnum, had rhetorically redesigned the architecture and setup of one of America’s fastest racing yacht to twist its functional maritime purpose of slave trade even though it had been banned by Congress half a century before. The Wanderer ship’s owners supported the dehumanization of others by enslaving them within a double layered reality. The reality of separate hidden floors on this ship not only ripped the African passengers’ freedom from them but also objectified them as items of economic profit. The use of an extravagant ship such as the Wanderer, in one of its final voyages to harbor slaves from Africa, is an example of an unresolved problem in the United States that include how slaves were dehumanized while they were hidden behind symbols of a great, wealthy, and a proud patriotic country.

“The Wife’s Lament,” is a preview into the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon England, a point in time when wine streamed in the rivers, and colossal titans roamed the earth. The poem setting is the wife is in a stone cave surrounded by water with no one to help her if she is in danger. In the beginning of the poem she introduces her elegy as a sad tale of her heartache; that never in her life she has gone through. She tells the reader how her husband’s family sent him out to sea and does not know if he will come back to her. The wife then explains how she is anxious for him, she does not sleep, or she wakes up in the morning, and only thinks about her husband. The she made the decision to be banished, which was a norm for women whose husbands had died or left them. She then goes to his people for

"The Wanderer" also deals with the same themes. This poem portrays a "lost" character that needs to find his way back into society but can't. It shows his feelings of loneliness and hopelessness. It also gives an impression of his loss: "So have I also, often in wretchedness fettered my feelings, far from my kin, homeless and hapless, since the days of old, When the dark earth covered my dear lord's face, And I sailed away with sorrowful heart, Over wintry seas, seeking a gold-lord, If far or near lived one to befriend me." (18-24). The author is saying that this character just experienced a loss of his king and it forced him to go out and search for another. The use of the image of the earth covering his lord's face gives the reader an exact look at what is happening. The poem contains two speakers that convey the

Many successful people credit their achievement to a mentor above them, a guiding force that helped push them to their full potential. Anyone can try to reach greatness individually, but it is undeniable that having a guide to help along the way takes some people very far in life. Strong leadership is the puzzle piece that connects two seemingly unrelated stories, The Old Man and the Sea and Finding Forrester. The lessons that both Jamal and Santiago learned in both works carry similar messages that can be found upon digging deeper into the novel and movie. The stories in both The Old Man and the Sea and Finding Forrester can be strongly connected by the relationships between the mentor and student as well as the themes of destruction without defeat.