NationStates Jolt Archive


I need some help here.

Mini Miehm
19-10-2005, 14:14
I'm currently sitting iun English, trying to write a paper, and I've run out of ideas, the paper contrasts beowulf, or the anglo-saxon hero, and modern heroes.

Help me out if anybody has any ideas.

Beowulf VS Modern Hero

The Anglo-Saxon hero is both like, and unlike the Modern Hero. Today heroes are those on the frontlines, those with the bravery and strength to put themselves in harms way to defend the rest of a nation. The Anglo-Saxon hero was a lone runner, or had only a small cadre of friends and companions to help him in battle.

Pfc. Sean Gallipeau and Beowulf both have a great deal in common. Beowulf fought an invincible monster to help those he knew only by reputation; while Sean fights Iraqi insurgents for those he has never met before. Both Sean and Beowulf are people who are well-trained fighters, in Sean’s case with a unit, in Beowulf’s case, as an individual. While they have much in common, they are also rather different.

Beowulf was an epic hero, with many qualities that no man truly possesses. In Beowulf he is able to shatter the bones in the monster Grendel’s with little effort. He is also an unstoppable swimmer, swimming for seven days and nights in full armor, carrying a sword, in the icy North Sea, without even tiring. Beowulf is also able to take injuries no man should be able to survive, and he treats them like minor flesh wounds, seemingly unphased by any injury that is less than fatal. He is obviously a larger than life person, verging on being a demigod.

Sean Gallipeau, Private First Class in the United States Army, is a much more human hero, lacking Beowulf’s epic qualities, but still a hero in the most common sense of the word. As a Private in Iraq, he was badly wounded in a convoy ambush during May 2004. He was sent home to recover, and was eventually voluntarily redeployed to Iraq to finish out his tour of duty there.

Here's what I have so far, barebones.
Jello Biafra
19-10-2005, 14:16
How long does the paper have to be?
Mini Miehm
19-10-2005, 14:22
About a page or 2.
Heron-Marked Warriors
19-10-2005, 14:29
Meh. Just hand in what you already have. What's the worst that could happen?
Mini Miehm
19-10-2005, 14:32
It's a little short, and I need a pass on this one.
Jello Biafra
19-10-2005, 14:32
Meh. Just hand in what you already have. What's the worst that could happen?I say the same thing, except he should write a conclusion paragraph.
Sierra BTHP
19-10-2005, 14:34
You're in Manassas? I'm not far from where you are.

BTW, Beowulf and the monster he fights are "archetypes". Real heroes in real life are not archetypes, even though the military or media may portray them as such.
Mini Miehm
19-10-2005, 14:48
Go OP. Manassas Park actually.
Heron-Marked Warriors
19-10-2005, 14:50
I say the same thing, except he should write a conclusion paragraph.

Andd everyone knows the last paragraph is the same as the first, but with a slight change of wording. Easy, really.
Jello Biafra
19-10-2005, 14:52
Andd everyone knows the last paragraph is the same as the first, but with a slight change of wording. Easy, really.Pretty much, yep.
The Charr
19-10-2005, 15:00
Modern heros feel a need to wear skin-tight, brightly-coloured clothing. Some of them shoot lasers out of their eyes, others shoot spider webs from their wrists. All of them suffer from crotch-crippling underwear problems. When jumping they can turn into computer renders, which allows them much greater strength and agility than they would ordinarily have.

Beowulf, on the other hand, had a sword which he hit things with.

There! For more completely useless posts by The Charr, please send a stamped addressed envelope to 234 Experimental Mental Facility, UK.
Sierra BTHP
19-10-2005, 15:01
Go OP. Manassas Park actually.
I go to Manassas Park every Saturday morning.
The WYN starcluster
19-10-2005, 15:32
What is a hero?
Heron-Marked Warriors
19-10-2005, 15:36
What is a hero?

A type of sandwich, I believe.
Grampus
19-10-2005, 15:37
Beowulf fought an invincible monster to help those he knew only by reputation...

Huh? Are we talking about Grendel, Grendel's mother or the dragon here? The fact that Beowulf slew them all kind of argues against them being invincible, no?
The WYN starcluster
19-10-2005, 15:40
A type of sandwich, I believe.
Nah - that there's a grinder.
Heron-Marked Warriors
19-10-2005, 15:42
Nah - that there's a grinder.

Really? Don't the Americans have about a thousand words for sandwich? I'm sure I remember a Simpsons episode where Homer said he wanted to eat a foot long hero.

And I am niot testing that by googling "foot long hero".:p
The WYN starcluster
19-10-2005, 15:43
Huh? Are we talking about Grendel, Grendel's mother or the dragon here? The fact that Beowulf slew them all kind of argues against them being invincible, no?
Keep quiet you!

We're having a serious sandwich discussion here.

:p
The WYN starcluster
19-10-2005, 15:44
{snip}
And I am not testing that by googling "foot long hero".:p
:eek: