Metaphors In Beowulf '

beowulf has a vast amount metaphors in its story mostly representing the beliefs of the original author. Some of these metaphor can be easily notabile such as on how good will always triumph over evil witch is represented by beowulf always defeating his foes. one of the many topics discussed throughout the story is gold and the influence on the characters. the story is based in anglo saxon times therefore most of the peoples beliefs would be about loyalty,honor, bravery and such. Gold throughout the story isn't really seen as economic value it's mostly used as as social object. For example when beowulf kills Grendel he is rewarded a large quantity of gold by Hrothgar. he also rewards beowulf's men with smaller amounts of gold as a way
he feels as if the treasure he had just acquired was worth risking his own life for. another use of gold in the story is to represent greed they do this by using the dragon that has been guarding gold for hundreds of years, this in a way is a representation of greed. Aside from that, after beowulf slays the dragon and ask wiglaf to bury him with the gold the narrator says “so gold can easily triumph, defeat the strongest of men, no matter how deep it is hidden”. In my opinion what the narrator tried to say was no matter how strong a person can be, gold can easily make anyone fall to greed. the way way gold affect today's society is that it's seen more of a social standard as an equal as economic standards. the richer you are the more you flash it with fancy jewelry or big houses or luxurious cars. it's still used as a form of wealth and power but it isn't sought after as it used to be in anglo saxon times. you don't need to have much fame or be as noble as some of the hero's spoken of in order to have large quantities of gold.aside from a social standard gold is also used for economic purpose. since we live in an economy where we trade money for good and