What struck me in this story was the complete shock of an ending. I would never have thought Beowulf would go before a beast without men firmly behind him. Throughout the entire story, men felt honored and proud to fight with Beowulf and to be a part of his alliance. Yet, in the end, Beowulf was left to fight a monster with only one loyal warrior. It is clear that Beowulf had done something critically wrong with his kingship for people's perceptions of him or willingness to stand by him to change so drastically.
This idea of misconceptions or rather, failing to please, made me automatically think of how our government is run today. Every four years we as a country get revved up about the promise of a better future. Whoever is running must be better than who we have now, right? We look to them for hope and for direction. The new candidate is idolized in a way..their strengths are embellished. Yet, it is a guarantee that they will not completely fulfill their promises and within some time, the people that stood so firmly behind them while running will turn their backs without hesitation. As always, the new guy is always hated and criticized just the same as the old, oftentimes for the same reasons.
Of course Beowulf was physically capable of protecting his people. Once he had the title, however, he must have failed his people in some way or another. Though it is unclear to the reader what Beowulf lacked, I imagine he was caught up in his own self-image that other important factors of being a good king (þæt wæs god cyning) were forgotten. We act like this repeatedly because when a new "savior" comes along, we get excited. We feel hope and want change. It is funny that we shy away from a dictating style of government, yet we want the person in charge to do everything for us. We want him to be like a mighty warrior from a fantasy because we want him to fix all of our problems. We want him to be somebody we can idolize and rely on, so in other words, not much of a human at all.
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