Wiglaf

In the end of the book I would say Wiglaf is heroic like Beowulf. I would say he is heroic like Beowulf because he helps defeat the dragon with Beowulf, which makes them both heroic. This is heroic because it is saving people from the dangerous dragon. Wiglaf is also honorable because he goes in to help fight the dragon with Beowulf once he sees thats Beowulf needs his assistance. He doesn't go into the fight for fame or glory, he just goes in wanting to help Beowulf defeat the dragon. Even though both are honorable, I think that Wiglaf's honorability is different from Beowulf's. Their honorability is different because Wiglaf is honorable for going in to help Beowulf fight the dragon out of friendship and feeling. He doesn't think about what people will think if he helps defeat the dragon, all he is thinking about is helping beowulf. This is what makes Wiglaf honorable. What makes Beowulf honorable is the fact that he never stops fighting for his people. Yes, he loves the fame that he gets from being a hero, but he also cares about protecting his people. For example instead of winning the swimming race he defeats the sea creatures to help protect his people. This is why I think Wiglaf is honorable, but just different from Beowulf's honorability.

Unferth and Beowulf

At the beginning of this excerpt Unferth has a discussion about how Beowulf is not the best hero out there. By trying to prove this point he brings up the swimming match against Breca, in which he lost. By bringing up this swimming match Breca was trying to ruin Beowulf's reputation of being the best out there. Unferth thought that by bringing up this he could both hurt Beowulf's reputation and make himself look better. Unferth is doing this due to jealously because around his area he is known as one of the greats and by Beowulf stepping in he feels threatened and the only way to cope with this is by trying to hurt Beowulf's reputation. After Unferth says all of these accusations he responds in a heroic manner by not wanting to kick Unferth ass for saying all those things, but by explaining that Breca simply just swam straight to shore while he took detours to fight sea monsters to help keep the seas safe. He states that this is the only reason Breca won because all he cared about was winning and not helping keep the seas safe. By Beowulf doing this it helps show and prove how much of a heroic person he really is.