Essay on The Seafarers Internal Conflict - 1021 Words

One of the greatest conflicts that every human must face is a conflict within his or her self. These sorts of internal conflicts are created and fought within our minds. The Seafarer, one of the oldest surviving Old English poems, depicts a man, who, despite being wise, is still desperate to find meaning to his existence. He is in exile, and because of this, his mind is in a state of desolation. He has conflicts within his own psyche seemingly questioning his very existence. He is desperate to find meaning in his life, which is full of despair and sorrow. His psychological state of mind develops from a state of desolation and exile, to realization of his Being, to finally finding a new meaning in his life through his manifestation and†¦show more content†¦The desolation that the speaker goes through is so extreme, in fact, that it is as if he is numb. The speaker finally reaches his lowest point in the first part of the story, where it seems as if he drowns in his own desola tion and loneliness. The open sea seems to swallow him. With these thoughts of his existence, the Seafarer suddenly starts to become conscious of his very own being, and realizes more about human nature. The speaker recalls of being pulled toward the suffering, being drawn toward his isolation that he is in. This could be a psychological aspect of the speaker in which his subconscious mind tries to punish the speaker for what he has done in the past. It could also be his mind interpreting the fact that if he goes through this suffering, he will find something greater. It is thus a paradox, then, when the seafarer says he is â€Å"seeking foreigners’ homes† (Raffel 19), because as he searches on and on, he is isolated more and more from the values that seek as a representation of these homes. The speaker introduces themes centric to the poem, which are stated as: â€Å"pride, greatness, boldness, youth, seriousness, and grace† (Raffel 19). The speaker then assert s that these virtuous themes will disappear one day, when one must rely on God’s judgment, and God’s mercy. With the implications of God, come the attributions the speaker asserts toward Fate, and the influence that Fate conjures in the lives of people. The speakerShow MoreRelated Conflicts in the Epic of Beowulf Essay1760 Words   |  8 PagesBeowulf – the Conflicts  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚  Ã‚   J.D.A. Ogilvy and Donald C. Baker in â€Å"Beowulf’s Heroic Death† comment on the hero’s culpability in his final conflict:    . . .the author describes Beowulf and the dragon lying dead side by side and observes rather sententiously that it was a bad business fighting with a dragon or disturbing his hoard. Beowulf, he adds, had paid for the treasure with his life. Some commentators seem to consider this passage, combined with Wiglaf’s remarks about Beowulf’sRead More Epic of Beowulf Essay - The Conflicts in Beowulf2005 Words   |  9 PagesThe Conflicts in Beowulf  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚        Ã‚   Brian Wilkie and James Hurt in Literature of the Western World discuss what is perhaps the overriding or central conflict in the poem Beowulf, namely the struggle between good and evil, and how the monsters are representative of the evil side: Ker was answered in 1936 by the critic and novelist J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, who argued that â€Å"the monsters are not an inexplicable blunder of taste; they are essential, fundamentally allied to