Beowulf
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Throughout history, the ongoing battle between one’s pride and one’s fate remains undefeated. One’s pride distorts the distinguishable difference between reality and that of the imagination. Pride offers one the appearance of control over fate rather than allowing the essence of fate take its course. Poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Beowulf exemplify the continuous conflict of illusion verses reality and how one cannot have both pride and the ability to accept one’s fate.
Gawain in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight feels as though he can control his fate when taking the belt in order to live for all eternity. He is offered a golden opportunity and finds himself at a weak moment, therefore taking the sash for his own protection. He fears his own inability to complete the task at hand and inevitably failing in the eyes of his peers. Gawains’ pride clouds his mind and removes the line between the possible and impossible. Desperate to find a solution to what he fears may be his very own inadequacy, Sir Gawain convinces himself that a device that will impose a human beings very own immortality actually exists. “If he bore it on his body, belted about, There is no hand under heaven that could hew him down, For he could not be killed by any craft on earth,” (p. 139).
It is in that very sash that Sir Gawain finds his own vulnerability. He has been so successful thus far and in doing so the public has built up such reputation of which no human being is able to fully live up to; even as the one it was initially built up to be. In the moment of accepting the sash he falls to the pressure of society in hopes of maintaining a false image appointed to him by everyone in his surroundings. His pride and inevitable Gawains’ ego allow the line between reality and illusion to become more gray than ever before, which in turn causes Gawain to believe that his own immortality lies within a mere sash. He chooses to take what little control he feels he has over his own fate, and gives in at a moment of weakness. He places his life in the hands of an object and therefore surrenders his fate, which he has up until this point believed that he has had complete control over. Gawain knows what he is about to face could very well be his demise.
The Girdle of green so goodly to see, that against the gay red showed gorgeous
bright. Yet he wore not for his wealth that wondrous girdle, Nor pride in its
pendants, though polished they were, Though glittering gold gleamed at the ends,
But to keep himself safe when consent he must To endure a deadly dint, and all
defense denied. (p 163).
He realizes that he has no other hope than that which is invested within the sash. Gawain is the only one who realizes that he will inevitably not be able to live up to his preceded reputation founded by all those around him. Because of his pride, he forces himself to take the sash as a security blanket despite how real or unreal this concept of immortality may seem. The sash resembles his last hope of holding onto his pride rather than loosing face in front of his peers.
Beowulf, like Gawain, has an already prenotioned reputation created by his own successful feats. After defeating Breca in his trivial swim, he has proved that through his own strength and agility that he is worthy in the eyes of everyone around him to be a mighty warrior. This reputation inevitably brings a self-destructing pride as well. Beowulf seems unable to find a contender close to equaling his own strength and ability. He goes on to defeat Grendal and Grendals’ mother thus affirming his ability to not falter to any opponent. For a while during his younger stages of life he goes on from one battle to another in order to fulfill his own pride. When fighting each battle he seems to have no question on whether or not he will live due to his ego. In his ego and pride the line of reality and endless possibility of failure seems to disappear. Beowulf does not seem to realize that even though he has been previously successful, there still lies the opportunity for failure. Instead he chooses to go into each battle as if it were merely a stepping stone in order to get to the next one. It is in his battles that bring success and from success comes his uncontrollable pride which erases all that of reality within his life.
Unlike Gawain, Beowulf eventually overcomes his pride and rather than allowing the line between illusion and reality to completely disappear. His alteration from his original thinking of great pride and self-involvement finally wavers a little and eventually