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Theme Of Loyalty In Beowulf

Decent Essays

Loyalty and courage are two themes that emerge throughout the poem ‘Beowulf by Seamus Heaney’. With a focus on an extract in Beowulf, this essay will explore how Seamus Heaney shows the themes loyalty and courage through the use of diction and imagery.

In this extract, Beowulf is seen battling the dragon with his companions, however, Beowulf’s companions all leave except for Wiglaf. Wiglaf expresses his loyalty and dedication towards Beowulf through a speech and bravely helps Beowulf. Beowulf then uses his sword to try and kill the dragon, but the sword snaps as it is made of iron. The dragon attacks Beowulf in which it succeeds, biting Beowulf in the neck. Wiglaf saw his king in danger and rushes to his rescue, knifing the dragon in its …show more content…

The imagery of the word ‘lunged’ also depicted an image of Wiglaf diving headfirst into danger to fight the dragon who harmed his leader, showing Wiglauf faithfulness to Beowulf while also illustrating Wiglauf’s bravery.

Courage is also a theme seen throughout the whole poem and specifically in this extract through Wiglauf’s speech, action and also Beowulf’s action. The speech as a whole shows that Wiglauf is willing to courageously fight with Beowulf even if it meant he would die. The line ‘I shall stand by you’ in line 2668 not only displays Wiglauf’s loyalty towards Beowulf but also the courage bestowed upon Wiglauf. The contrast between Beowulf’s companions leaving and Wiglauf staying to fight with Beowulf also presents to us the loyalty and bravery Wiglauf has in his character. During the fight, Wiglaf’s body armor was ‘useless to him’ as the fire from the dragon was too powerful, nevertheless, Wiglaf did not retreat. Instead, it is seen in line 2675 that ‘Wiglaf did well under the wide rim’ showing that even though the body armor that protects Wiglaf from harm’s way wasn’t up to par, he did not cower, rather fought bravely side by side with Beowulf to defeat the dragon.

Another example that showed Wiglaf’s bravery was when Beowulf got bitten on the neck. After Wiglaf noticed that Beowulf was hurt, Wiglaf went to fight the dragon without any hesitation even

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