Jeremy, great job on this post! I decided to read yours before I wrote my own because you mentioned women in the title and as someone that writes mainly about women in connection with our assigned texts, I am struggling this week! Glad you're experiencing the same frustration! Great job articulating Brak's death and how women's sacrifice never amounts to hero/martyr status.
Jeremy, I really could hear you through your tone in this. It's honest and you do a great job of explaining what happens in Beowulf and Egil's Saga surrounding the women but also telling it like it is that they weren't properly represented. I specifically connected to the parts of Brak and her physical strength in contrast with her motherly side. This may be too cliche but I feel that she was killed off because she was too powerful for the story and time that she was presented in.
This savior and nurturing figure is given for the women because it is believed that men are, and are supposed to be, the opposite of that. That's why I think the contrast between Egil's violent side and his poetic side was so important to him as a character and the story. Though it still missed the mark, I believe Egil's Sage did a better job at portraying the women in the story and attempting to acknowledge them more than a shadow of a woman who is not important enough to be named.
You did a great job on this post! I really enjoyed the Harry Potter reference. I think it resonated with readers because it shows just how deeply entrenched the savior trope is, because Hermione is the picture of a prepared and calculating fighter, but, even though she's written by a woman, she must be rescued by Harry and Ron. I can't wait to read more of your stuff in the future.
Jeremy! A great post, once again. I appreciate the emphasis you put on the lack of feminine representation in both of these stories. I really liked your comment, "While her being the sister of someone or other is clearly one of the most important things about her, because God forbid she stand on her own right, she is at least named, and named early on, which is more than can be said of the first female character in Beowulf." Your specific phrasing was very evocative. When a woman is introduced, I wouldn't expect the next comment to be mentioning her family or relatives. It's very disheartening to think about how women characters are treated in these stories, and your post explains exactly why. I'm reminded of Henry James's "Daisy Miller," and how flat Daisy's character is portrayed. The only character development for Daisy is based on Winterbourne's observations of her, which is less problematic than how the women in these stories are represented, but still deeply problematic. Thank you for this great post!
This is great. The savior trope is a very controversial topic of discussion for readers for the better or worst. The connection to Hermione is one that genuinely struck me because as a Harry Potter fan, I never understood how she just so happened to not have her wand. Brak's story is no different in the way it has had me confused and wanting to know more about her.
Hi Jeremy, you've expressed my frustrations with the savior trope in stories perfectly! The Hermione one in particular is deeply disappointing because even when a story is written by a woman, these tropes are still annoyingly popular. Brak's story in particular was the most disappointing of all the women(as few as there are) in Egil's saga. When I read the introduction to Brak, I was hoping we would get some kind of history or short story about her impact on Egil's life. I mean, we learn a few generations of every male character's family history and how they got to where they are in the story, why not Brak's? Not that being reduced to Egil's stepmother isn't also problematic, but at least her character may have meant more than a brief annotation in my copy and another death added to the count.
Brak’s story struck me as well. Perhaps, Brak had to die because she stood up to a man. It is nice to read more about a woman than simply her lineage, and Brak is certainly an interesting character, but if she lived after defying Egil’s father, wouldn’t that disrupt the social order? The few lines dedicated to Brak and what makes her “her” seem sympathetic of the writer towards women, even if she must meet the same fate that other women of that time meet: physical or literary death.
Jeremy, this is an interesting post. I wonder if it might be fruitful to compare two queens mentioned in Beowulf and Egil's Saga. I wonder if perhaps the stories of the two different queens might even be emblematic of the overall themes, or tones, of the two larger works. In Beowulf, Queen Modthryth is said to have "perpetrated terrible wrongs" (Heaney & Donoghue 52, l. 1932), but would later "grow famous / for her good deeds" (53, l. 1952-53). As I proposed in one of my posts, this is a movement toward the positive, and toward growth and healing that could be said to be thematic in Beowulf.
In Egil's saga, on the other hand, there is a scene involving a queen with a very different tone. Egil, while drinking and being served by Bard, speaks ill of the host, who then "went up to the queen and told her that this man was bringing shame on them" (Óskarsdóttir and Scudder 74). Without pause, "The queen and Bard mixed poison" (74). This seems fitting for a tale replete with actions done in haste, and violence carried out in the heat of the moment without reflection upon virtue. Perhaps these two women characters, both queens in fact, provide a mirror image. Even though their appearances are brief, they symbolize the tone of each work.
Works Cited
Donoghue, Daniel, editor. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Translated by
Seamus Heaney, W.W. Norton and Company, 2019.
Óskarsdóttir, Svanhildur, editor. Egil’s Saga. Translated by Bernard Scudder,
Jeremy, great job on this post! I decided to read yours before I wrote my own because you mentioned women in the title and as someone that writes mainly about women in connection with our assigned texts, I am struggling this week! Glad you're experiencing the same frustration! Great job articulating Brak's death and how women's sacrifice never amounts to hero/martyr status.
Jeremy, I really could hear you through your tone in this. It's honest and you do a great job of explaining what happens in Beowulf and Egil's Saga surrounding the women but also telling it like it is that they weren't properly represented. I specifically connected to the parts of Brak and her physical strength in contrast with her motherly side. This may be too cliche but I feel that she was killed off because she was too powerful for the story and time that she was presented in.
This savior and nurturing figure is given for the women because it is believed that men are, and are supposed to be, the opposite of that. That's why I think the contrast between Egil's violent side and his poetic side was so important to him as a character and the story. Though it still missed the mark, I believe Egil's Sage did a better job at portraying the women in the story and attempting to acknowledge them more than a shadow of a woman who is not important enough to be named.
You did a great job on this post! I really enjoyed the Harry Potter reference. I think it resonated with readers because it shows just how deeply entrenched the savior trope is, because Hermione is the picture of a prepared and calculating fighter, but, even though she's written by a woman, she must be rescued by Harry and Ron. I can't wait to read more of your stuff in the future.
Jeremy! A great post, once again. I appreciate the emphasis you put on the lack of feminine representation in both of these stories. I really liked your comment, "While her being the sister of someone or other is clearly one of the most important things about her, because God forbid she stand on her own right, she is at least named, and named early on, which is more than can be said of the first female character in Beowulf." Your specific phrasing was very evocative. When a woman is introduced, I wouldn't expect the next comment to be mentioning her family or relatives. It's very disheartening to think about how women characters are treated in these stories, and your post explains exactly why. I'm reminded of Henry James's "Daisy Miller," and how flat Daisy's character is portrayed. The only character development for Daisy is based on Winterbourne's observations of her, which is less problematic than how the women in these stories are represented, but still deeply problematic. Thank you for this great post!
This is great. The savior trope is a very controversial topic of discussion for readers for the better or worst. The connection to Hermione is one that genuinely struck me because as a Harry Potter fan, I never understood how she just so happened to not have her wand. Brak's story is no different in the way it has had me confused and wanting to know more about her.
Hi Jeremy, you've expressed my frustrations with the savior trope in stories perfectly! The Hermione one in particular is deeply disappointing because even when a story is written by a woman, these tropes are still annoyingly popular. Brak's story in particular was the most disappointing of all the women(as few as there are) in Egil's saga. When I read the introduction to Brak, I was hoping we would get some kind of history or short story about her impact on Egil's life. I mean, we learn a few generations of every male character's family history and how they got to where they are in the story, why not Brak's? Not that being reduced to Egil's stepmother isn't also problematic, but at least her character may have meant more than a brief annotation in my copy and another death added to the count.
Brak’s story struck me as well. Perhaps, Brak had to die because she stood up to a man. It is nice to read more about a woman than simply her lineage, and Brak is certainly an interesting character, but if she lived after defying Egil’s father, wouldn’t that disrupt the social order? The few lines dedicated to Brak and what makes her “her” seem sympathetic of the writer towards women, even if she must meet the same fate that other women of that time meet: physical or literary death.
Jeremy, this is an interesting post. I wonder if it might be fruitful to compare two queens mentioned in Beowulf and Egil's Saga. I wonder if perhaps the stories of the two different queens might even be emblematic of the overall themes, or tones, of the two larger works. In Beowulf, Queen Modthryth is said to have "perpetrated terrible wrongs" (Heaney & Donoghue 52, l. 1932), but would later "grow famous / for her good deeds" (53, l. 1952-53). As I proposed in one of my posts, this is a movement toward the positive, and toward growth and healing that could be said to be thematic in Beowulf.
In Egil's saga, on the other hand, there is a scene involving a queen with a very different tone. Egil, while drinking and being served by Bard, speaks ill of the host, who then "went up to the queen and told her that this man was bringing shame on them" (Óskarsdóttir and Scudder 74). Without pause, "The queen and Bard mixed poison" (74). This seems fitting for a tale replete with actions done in haste, and violence carried out in the heat of the moment without reflection upon virtue. Perhaps these two women characters, both queens in fact, provide a mirror image. Even though their appearances are brief, they symbolize the tone of each work.
Works Cited
Donoghue, Daniel, editor. Beowulf: A Verse Translation. Translated by
Seamus Heaney, W.W. Norton and Company, 2019.
Óskarsdóttir, Svanhildur, editor. Egil’s Saga. Translated by Bernard Scudder,
Penguin, 2004.