___ ___ ___ ___|: |___|: \ ___|: \ DizDate: 12/95 _______\___ \___ \___ ___\_______ WordCount: 1164 «¬¬¬¬¬¬| |: | |____| ___|¬¬¬¬¬¬« «¬¬¬¬¬| | |: | |: |¬¬¬¬¬« Subject/Topic is on: «¬¬¬¬| |: | |: | |¬¬¬¬« [Contrast of Mark Sway, Client] ----\___|: |\__ |\__ |---- [Dirk Pitt, Dragon and Beowulf] úúúúúúú\___|cd!|___/'úúú|___/'úúú [ ] `, a c e ,` [ ] `, e s s a y s ,` [ ] Grade Level: [ ]Grade School Type of Work: [x]Essay/Report/Term [x]High School [ ]Informational [ ]College [ ]Notes [ ]Misc ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>Chop Here>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ A woman her late thirties bellowed "My Baby! My Baby!", as her baby carriage rolled towards the bottom of the great hill. Off in a distance, a man of around early thirties heard these desperate calls for help. The man dashed out from his house and immediately followed pursuit of the blue baby carriage. Within one minutes, he safely reclaimed the carriage and the baby girl was safely returned to her mother without harm. This is an example of how the young man is showing traits of heroism, the traits being courage, intelligence, and strength. He was courageous to help return to the young woman the baby carriage, intelligent to act quickly and actually catch up to it, and his strength is shown by his ability to outrun a racing carriage down a deep hill. Different books use different characters to display heroism within their characters. Mark Sway of The Client is a story of a young boy's heroic battle against the Mafia and the FBI. The story of Dirk Pitt of Dragon is a story of how a older man of the nineteen- hundredths can overcome evil. Beowulf of the story Beowulf is an example of how even hundreds of years ago, heroes used the same traits as today. Heroes of every culture of all ages share courage, intelligence and strength. Courage is a prominent feature of all heroes. Within these three books, each character, Mark Sway, Dirk Pitt and Beowulf, display signs of Courage. Mark Sway was a courageous boy at his age of 9 years old. Mark would never quit from continuing with an idea of his if it was for good: "`We can't let them take the body, Reggie. Think about it. If they get away with it, it'll never be found.'"1 What this phrase points out, is that Mark did not want to leave the Mafia men to retrieve the body of the Senator Boyette, for if they got the body, his efforts to keep quiet about the whole situation would seem fruitless. Dirk Pitt used courage in order that he can continue perusing the enemies. Dirk never gives up exposing a plot of death and trickery of another person. Beowulf displays courage by fighting off the Troll, the Troll's mother, and the Dragon. Beowulf would not forfeit a fight with one of those people despite their gruesome reputations. Beowulf made a journey to the bottom of a pool to defeat the mother, showing his ambition and his courage to enter upon her domain and defeat her. Mark Sway, Dirk Pitt, and Beowulf each possess the quality of Courage amongst them. Intelligence is a third trait which the 3 characters share together. Mark Sway had immense intelligence which he showed many times within the book The Client. An example of this was when he broke out of jail faking a collapse. He showed intelligence also when he scared the men working for the Mafia away from the buried corpse in the garage. Dirk Pitt displayed intelligence against his enemies, also. Dirk Pitt was very experienced in using all the objects he was given to work with during a certain situation. "He rapidly twisted off the connectors to a pair of six-volt dry cell rechargeable batteries... It wasn't what Jordan and Kern would call an earth-shattering plan, but it was all he had."2 This passage shows while he was locked in a room in Japan, his mind continued to work to find itself a way in which to get out. His plan he made worked and by the end of the story was freed from the clutches of evil. Beowulf showed signs of intelligence during his battle with the Troll. He slept in the main hall where the Troll killed the people, leaving one eye open to watch out for the devilish creature. His intelligence in setting the stage for him to overpower the Troll, helped to decide if he was to win, or to lose. Mark Sway, Dirk Pitt and Beowulf all show signs of Intelligence throughout their books. Strength is another apparent trait of a hero present in all three books. Mark Sway used his emotional strength to continue on in the face of danger. Even when Mark Sway was confronted and scared by the Mafia men within the hospital, he continued to use his strength and push on to find the actual body, and keep the FBI from knowing where the body was to be found. Dirk Pitt used strength throughout his book in many ways. One prominent way, was when he was attacking Kumi near the end in a great sword battle which cost Kumi's head. Beowulf displayed signs of strength throughout his book in many ways, also. "Reaching out with his open hand, the fiend was about to take hold of the hero on his bed. But Beowulf at once saw the hostile move and propped himself up on his elbow. The archbeast soon realized that nowhere in the world had he ever met a man with such might in the grip of his hand." 3 The above passage shows how his strength was more powerful than that of a creature of the underworld. Beowulf was the strongest whom the treacherous creature has ever been put forth against. When Beowulf is fighting the Troll's mother within her murky pond, he shows more signs of strength. "During the struggle he saw a sword which had won fame in battle. It was a prize weapon, an ancient blade forged by the giants. But for the fact that it was too large for an ordinary man to use in combat, it was a choice weapon. ... He swung its whorled blade and furiously struck, so that the sword caught her on the neck and clashed clean through her backbone into her doomed body." 4 This passage shows how he was able to carry and use successfully a sword created for the giants and which "too large for an ordinary man" to use. Mark Sway, Dirk Pitt, and Beowulf all displayed different signs of strength throughout each of their books. The man that saved the baby from imminent death in the first paragraph, clearly possessed the same traits that heroes of every time and culture have possessed from years passed. Even in today's society, we have heroes who go out of their way to help another whom possess courage, intelligence, and strength. Mother Theresa uses her courage, intelligence and strength to help the sick and children who are not as fortunate as you and I. After working on this essay I realized that these traits are constant throughout history to the present as Beowulf is a sharp contrast to the books of today. All heroes share at least three things in common, courage, intelligence and strength. Footnotes 1. The Client by John Grisham. Page 516 2. Dragon by Clive Cussler. Page 372 3. Beowulf translated by David Wright. Page 44 4. Beowulf translated by David Wright. Page 64