Identify one symbol in the passage below.  If you are not familiar with symbolism, you should look it up in a handbook of literary terms.  Note that a symbol is anything of concrete value that can be used to represent an abstract idea.  After selecting a symbol, you should use it to establish a claim (thesis) that will enable you to do a focused interpretation (analysis) of Beowulf.   Use your chosen symbol as a starting point for a close-reading analysis of Beowulf.  The aim of your essay is to select one symbol from the below passage and explain how this symbol magnifies an understanding of Beowulf as an e epic poem.  In other words, you are interpreting the significance of the chosen symbol in Beowulf.  Your thesis statement (claim), therefore, should serve as an organizing principle for the essay.  
Essay length:  At least 2 pages
 
Passage
“ His parting from life
hardly seemed sad to any man
who examined the trail of that inglorious one,
how he went on his weary way,
defeated by force, to a pool of sea monsters,
doomed, put to flight, and left a fatal trail.
The water was welling with blood there–
the terrible swirling waves, all mingled together
with hot gore, heaved with the blood of battle,
concealed that doomed one when deprived of joys,
he laid down his life in his lair in the fen,
his heathen soul–and Hell took him” (Beowulf, lines 841-852).