BEOWULF VS. THE DRAGON DISCUSSION & ANALYSIS
1. Beowulf’s gearing up to fight a dragon – how old do we reckon he is at this point?
2. Beowulf. He crushes armies by day, stomps monsters by night, and spends his vacation swimming days at a time looking
for sea beasts to stab. Despite a life dedicated to the pursuit of Anglo-Saxon manly perfection, consider what happens in
15.1, and how Beowulf reacts emotionally – what might all this say about life?
3. The last line on 15.2 says “[Beowulf’s] fate hovered near, unknowable but certain…” What double meaning might this line
offer?
4. All Beowulf’s men – except Wiglaf – abandon Beowulf during the fight. In fact, Wiglaf runs after them and delivers an
rousing motivational speech, but is unable to persuade the men to return.
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Consider everything we’ve talked about regarding to Anglo-Saxon culture. Why then is it a really, really bad thing
that Beowulf, the king, is deserted by his thanes?
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Can you connect this moment, when Beowulf is abandoned, to your discussion of the second question?
6. How, ultimately, is the dragon taken out?
7. Pay close attention to what happens at the top of 17.1. How is it – in light of every amazing feat Beowulf has ever done (and how his
amazing strength has been the key to his success) – that this particular moment in the fight is ironic?
5. An epic hero is the physical embodiment of a culture’s ideals and values – the traits most important to a society in human
form. How does Beowulf fulfill the definition of an epic hero? (Use specifics in your answer.)
6. Beowulf is supposed to be the very personification of comitatus. Taking that into account, how might his death be
interpreted as the death of the idea of comitatus, or the death of a way of life (hint: think about Beowulf’s thanes’ role in his
death and the fact that he has no male heir).
7. Towards the end of the poem (18.1), it is suggested that with Beowulf dead, the Geats should expect “the wars with their traditional
enemies to be revived.” In light of the events of the last third of the poem, how do you expect these wars to go? Be sure to explain
your answer.
8. In a previous presidential election, when president Barack Obama was running against John McCain, during a debate the two were
asked the following question: “Does evil exist, and if it does, do we ignore it? Do we negotiate with it? Do we contain it? Do we defeat
it?”
Obama said that “we see evil all the time” — in Darfur, on the streets of our cities, in child abusers. Such evils, he continued, need to be
“confronted squarely.” And while we can’t “erase evil from the world,” we can be “soldiers” in the task of confronting it when we see it.
But, Obama added, “Now, the one thing that I think is very important is for us to have some humility” as we confront evil. Because “a lot
of evil has been perpetrated based on the claim that we were trying to confront evil.” After all, “just because we think our intentions are
good doesn’t always mean that we’re going to be doing good.”
John McCain took the question about evil to be in the first instance about 9/11. McCain asserted “of course evil must be defeated,”
and he put “radical Islamic extremism,” Al Qaeda in particular, at the top of his to-defeat list. In this context, McCain discussed the wars
in Iraq and Afghanistan, and concluded by mentioning “the young men and women who are serving this nation in uniform.”
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In your opinion, does evil exist?
In reading Beowulf, what lessons might one take away on how to combat evil, or violence in the world? Would you
say that Beowulf confirms the idea that it is always best to confront evil/violence with violence (think about the
repercussions of Beowulf’s actions).
Finally, consider all the events of Beowulf. On the nature of evil, does the story of Beowulf reflect McCain’s
perspective, or Obama’s?
o Does the story of Beowulf seem to endorse one candidate’s position over the other’s?