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Compare And Contrast Beowulf And The Green Knight

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Beowulf and Sir Gawain: Compare and Contrast
Life comes with many trials and tribulations, some of which we come out successful or defeated. Whether we are successful or not, we endure a pattern of life, growth, and experience, to which we can incorporate what we have learned in our everyday life. In the world of literature, this is commonly referred as the “Hero’s Journey.” The Hero’s Journey consists of 17 stages, divided into three main parts: Separation, Initiation and Transformation, and The Return. In the Old English poems, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight express distinct similarities and differences in the 16th stage, Master of Two Worlds; showing how their external and internal conflicts changed the main characters into masters of the known and unknown world.
First, in both pieces of literature, each main character experiences an external conflict in order to complete their quest and return home. The external conflict in the poems involve a struggle with man, nature, or both. In Beowulf, the external conflict is man versus man. Beowulf fights Brecca, Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the Dragon. As he progresses on, Beowulf’s opponents become less and less human, meaning that the risk of death is greater. He expresses this emotion when he addresses his men before the final battle with the Dragon. “I would rather not use a weapon if I knew another way to grapple with the dragon and make good my boast as I did Grendel in days gone by. But I shall be meeting

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