Heroes

2 Pages 533 Words

In the epic Beowulf, and romance Sir Gawain and the Green knight, the main characters are considered heroes but they hold different characteristics. There are many words that can describe a hero. In the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a Hero is described as someone endowed with great courage and strength, and someone celebrated for his bold exploits. To me, it takes more than just courage, strength, and boldness to be a hero it takes Honor.

Honor is the defining characteristic of Western Civilization. It determines what a man must do and what he must not do. Honorable actions are bound up with the Ability to achieve a desired result, the Courage to undertake it and see it through. We say that a man has honor accepts, as a duty, the responsibility of rendering necessary and valuable service to his own people and the vital interests of his country, and in so doing puts them above his own self-interests. It is the highest aspect of the Code of the Gentleman and is present only in high civilizations. Honor includes: integrity, courage, loyalty, respect, selfless-service, and duty.

Only one of the two characters in these two stories is what “I” would call a hero. That character is Sir Gawain, this is because he is more honorable. He actually overcame the challenge of having to deal with searching for the Green Knight, even though he feared it. When his weakness was put out there, when then Green Knight admitted to Sir Gawain that he had been in a test all along, sir Gawain was able to admit to the fact that he was afraid. He was loyal by doing as he said he was going to do and admitting that he was scared to get hurt, he showed respect towards the Green Knight by showing that he had been afraid and following trough with his word in order to show that he had been wrong, he was also selfless, and he did things for his own good not just to be considered greater than what he thought he really was.

In the other ...