In order for one to become a hero, a journey or process must be completed in order to do so. This process is known as the Heroic Journey. The Heroic Journey is separated into to ten stages consisting of leaving the ordinary world, the call, keepers of the threshold, the crossing, allies/enemies, road of trials, the reward(s), the road back, and the return. The ten stages are separated into two different parts, the ordinary and under world. But in the poem Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel, the main character by the name of Beowulf only transgresses through eight of the ten stages. To my own accord, Beowulf still qualifies as a hero or rather a super hero because of his heroic deeds.
             Stage one of proceeding through heroism has to do with the "ordinary world". In order for a hero to rise he/she must leave his comfortable and ordinary environment in order to enter the under world. This indeed is questionable in Beowulf's account. To begin with, Beowulf doesn't really live in the ordinary world, but more rather the under world, because of his battles with monsters like giants of whom he drove into chains and "chased all of the race from the earth" (Raffel, 154-155, pg.25), already a hero at the time. One could say that Beowulf leaves one under world for another.
             The next stages of the Heroic Journey are referred to as "the call" and "refusing the call". "The call" involves the hero being presented with the challenge or adventure, which is usually voluntary or involuntary depending upon the situation at hand. "The refusing of the call" has to do fear in answering the call or simply not being committed at all. In Beowulf's case, his call was voluntary because he chooses of his own free will to
             fight and destroy the mighty Grendel who is terrorizing the men of the Mead Hall without any type of regret. One might argue to say that Beowulf never reall...