What do you think he means? How does this relate to Beowulf? How does this relate to our lives? In what ways can we follow Dr. King's words? Like Beowulf and Dr. King, how do we make sure we continue embodying lightness and love, even in the face of darkness and hate?
Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote shows that more neagtivtiy cannot stop more hatred and negativity. The only thing that could stop darkness would be love and light. This quote is a motif in the story Beowulf. For example, Beowulf defeated Grendel and his Mother without weapons but with love. Grendel and his Mother were the darkness that was droven out by Beowulf's light.
ReplyDeleteWe as individuals can follow King's words by being loving. We can drive out hate by showing the person love and compassion for them. You can follow King's words by keeping on the positive side of things and remembering that being negative will get you nowhere. We cann make sure to continue embodying lightness and love, even in the face of darkness and hate by staying positive. Don't let the hate get to you, but instead let your love get to them.
By saying this, Dr. King meant that you can’t fight fire with fire. You have to extinguish the flame with the light of good. I think he thinks that fighting negativity with more negativity will not result in a solution, but a bigger problem. Beowulf in many ways resembles Martin Luther King Jr. Not physically, but mentally. The minds of Beowulf and Dr. King are similar in the fact that they both understand that brute strength is not the solution to all of lifes problems. Beowulf slayed Grendel and his Mom simply by touch. He was able to do this feat because he embodied the light of goodness. Likewise, Dr. King used the power of silence to voice his message. Even though they had the numbers to cause havoc to the police force during protests, they endured the taunts and permanently changed history.
ReplyDeleteWe the people have to do our part to drive out the darkness. Think back to the Rachel’s Challenge assembly. When she stood up to those two bullies and defended that kid, she used the light of goodness to drive out the darkness in those two bullies, but also the darkness in the boys heart. If each person at our school truly tried to do our part, we could drive out the hate and replace it with love like John said. To truly drive out darkness and hate, we need to work together as well as do our tiny parts here and there.
Love the Rachel's Challenge reference!
DeleteI think this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. relates to Beowulf because Beowulf stood up against the monsters using his goodness. The monsters represented darkness and Beowulf represents light. When Beowulf, the light, was fighting Grendel, darkness, he was appalled of Beowulf because as Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.” Beowulf is the goodness, or light, and Grendel was the evil, or the darkness. The light drove out the darkness.
ReplyDeleteI agree with John, saying,”We as individuals can follow King's words by being loving. We can drive out hate by showing the person love and compassion for them.” That means anyone can drive out hate. All you need is a little love. You can be nice to everyone, and hate will be out of this world. Being kind takes a lot of work. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words relate to Beowulf, but also current times.
~Karina V卌
I think Martin Luther King Jr. meant you can't you can get rid of something with the same thing. For example, you can't drive hate or evil away with more hate and evil, if anything it will make it stronger. The only thing that can drive it away is love and good. Like in Beowulf, Beowulf had slain Grendel and his Mother or She by just touching them not thought force like the others. The reason he could slay them was because they embodied darkness and hatred while Beowulf embodied light and goodness.
ReplyDeleteWe as people can follow King's words by be kind and loving to others. By show kindness we can drive the darkness with the light in our words and actions. Also like what John said, "You can follow King's words by keeping on the positive side of things and remembering that being negative will get you nowhere". By being positive, we can get rid the negative by not even being negative at all! Furthermore, if we all do our parts to be kind we can drive the darkness away.
Fire can't fight fire, but water can. The same is true for all things and Dr. King knew that. His quote shows that hate can't be tarnished by even more hate. The only result will be even more hate. This is true for all negative forces or energy. For example, if there is one person with "hate" and another person is also there fighting him with even more "hate", there will basically be twice the hate. There are real life examples of this as well. For example, if their is one bully, and another person decides to be mean to him for being a bully, the first bully would want revenge and one way to do this is by bullying even more. You'll not only be creating negative energy yourself, but you'll be helping the other person have a reason for even more negative ambitions.
ReplyDeleteFor the "light" part, it is also true. If you are in a cave and it is full of darkness, light will brighten it. Lets bring back the same bullying scenario. Instead of being mean to him, if that person was nice to him, the bully might understand and stop his wrongness. Then the negativity will die out completely. Even if the bully does not fully get rid of the "darkness within his hearth" the person who was originally mean to him won't be. We can also use math to back this up. If you add two negatives, the negative number will get even larger (technically it'll get lower but this isn't math class). However if you add a positive to a negative, they cancel out. (DO NOT BRING UP MULTIPLYING/DIVIDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) In this case the positive is the "light" in the dark. This is all in the one quote the Dr. King said. The overall meaning of this quote is that darkness is futile and will get you nowhere while love, caring and light are always the choices to go when troubled.
This quote relates to Beowulf because Beowulf is the love of light, and Grendel and his mom are the darkness and hate. Beowulf is the light and he lit up Grendel just by touching him, just like one light source can light up an entire dark cavern. The same thing happened with Grendel's mom. She was "lit up" by Beowulf within seconds. If he used violence or a sword, all it would do is prove useless because "Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that." Violence is also dark so it would have been useless. However Beowulf's love and compassion was easily able to defeat them. The entire theme of Beowulf was the light trumps dark and that is exactly what this quote is saying.
~Jamal N.
P.S. Sorry for the three paragraphs, there was so much to talk about.
This comment seems big. wow.
DeleteI love it! You had a lot of powerful things to say!
DeleteI think in the quote Dr. King means that you can't fight fire with fire, and the same goes for the badness in our lives. Just because there's bad things going on in your life, for example you're being picked on by other kids, you can't fight with what they're fighting with, it'll only make a bigger mess. You could, however, take a different approach and be nice to them despite the way they treat you like Beowulf did with Grendel.
ReplyDeleteThe quote relates to Beowulf because in the book and the quote, Beowulf and Dr. King are basically on the same page. Beowulf is seeing the good in everyone and is acting kind even if the monster ate a lot of people (the fire breathing lizard not included) Beowulf didn't act harshly to him like everyone else, avoiding contact with Grendel by using swords and other various weapons. Beowulf just touches Grendel, holding his wrists, making a skin to skin contact unlike the others, and it defeated the monster. Sometimes you just have to kill them with kindness.
Life isn't always the black hole of mortal terror and torture, it can be, but you just have to see the good side in everything and stay optimistic and remember that life can be like a cup. It isn't half empty of goodness, it's half full. It really depends on how you see it, but its best if you see it in a more positive manner as to negative. If you do, you might as well end up like Unferth.
-Nikamarie F.
I think that this quote is very powerful. I think what Dr. King means is that if someone is mean to you, you can't get rid of them by fighting back. You must treat them with respect them. Yes, it will be hard but you will make them really take a step back and take a look at what they have been doing. They will say that they are sorry.
ReplyDeleteYou just need to give people a second chance. In Beowulf, Beowulf pitied Unferth, Grendel, and Grendel's mother. He gave them his love. That is what defeated them. They were confused by this light. They even tried to get away from it. They wanted nothing to do with it. Rachel Scott says that we need to give people second chances. Fight with love not anger!
Mine seems so small! :(
DeleteI think Martin Luther King Jr. means in this quote is that you can't make someone who is mean be nice by getting mad at them you have to kill them with kindness. This is actually way easier to be said then done because sometimes you just want to yell and scream at people who are mean or keep annoying you. The right thing to do would to just treat the person kindly and show sympathy on them. There are many times this relates with the text of Beowulf. Beowulf showed pity and mercy towards Unferth because Beowulf saw him as weak.
ReplyDeleteWe can follow Dr.King's words by counting to ten before we respond to anybody with negative comments. Another way is just by simply thinking " Is it really worth it to get frustrated with someone because they are immature." If someone is being negative towards you you can just walk away. We can also think about that person and show pity towards them because maybe they are having a bad day. All we can do is show sympathy and be as kind as possible even to people we may not like as much as others.
I think this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. relates to Beowulf in a lot of ways. This quote means that evil cannot drive out evil. Which can also mean if someone is being bad to you, you cannot drive them away with badness. The next part of the quote, "Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." This part means that if someone hates you and you want them to stop, you can't stop them with hate. You can only love them. This relates to Beowulf almost like a twin because Beowulf does the same thing as Martin Luther King Jr. Beowulf's enemies throughout the story hate him but Beowulf somehow finds a way to love them. But like Martin Luther King Jr. said love drives out hate. Beowulf also drives away the darkness with his light.
ReplyDeleteThe people on Earth need to follow these words of Martin Luther King Jr. We need to show love for everybody even when they are being negative or are hating. All everyone can really do is to not respond to negative things in a violent way. That really just makes you negative. Also, as Saskia said, give people a second chance sometimes.
"Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that" I think refers to how MLK thought that we should deal with our enemies. WE should treat our enemies the way that they haven't been treating us. If that sounded confusing, I'm basically saying that MLK is referring to the golden rule. If we want someone to go away, treat them like they are one of your best friends. You cannot deal with your problems through anger or hatred, you must show it the goodness inside of you.
ReplyDeleteThe way that MLK dealt with his problems was through peaceful protesting. Though it didn't end up quite so peaceful . The way it relates to Beowulf is that he pitied Grendel, G's mom, and even Unferth. He used the goodness inside of him to drive away the evil inside of those three. Also, he didn't get angry through the entire story. At last, he didn't use violence against the fire drake, he tricked it. It had done harm to the village because of one person, and for that, Beowulf took pity. MLK's quote and Beowulf can symbolize how people can be for a better world.
-Isaac E. =D
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. meant that the only way to bring violence to an end would be to act with reason and sensibility, rather than meeting violence with violence. He meant that in order to soften the heart of someone filled with hatred is to offer compassion and kindness. This relates to Beowulf because it reminds people about how Beowulf did not dive in with weapons, but instead planned his actions. When fighting Grendel, he refused to bring his sword. Beowulf didn't March up to the fire drake and blindly stab at him, he devised his trick with the beehives carefully, and ended up successful.
ReplyDeleteThis relates to our lives in many ways. If someone wrongs you, the worst possible response would be to get revenge. Whether it be something petty like taking one of your pencils, or serious, like dropping your phone into a river, what would you really gain from doing the same to them? These feuds would probably just go back and forth endlessly.
The right thing to do would be to make them see how well mannered and reasonable you are, so that you gain their respect. Once this is accomplished, the both of you can work out a compromise.
If you're feeling down and alone, I'm sorry, but wallowing around in self pity won't make it any better. Facing your own darkness with more darkness will just plunge you deeper into the abyss. Try to stop for a moment and think about what makes you happy. Think about the lights in your life. If you surround yourself with happiness and kindness instead of surrounding yourself with negativity, you'll see that your mood will improve. We can embody light by being positive people. We should stay strong even through tough times. All through out history, no one has ever won a feud by thinking about how much better their enemy is. They stayed strong, and positive. They dreamt of how much better the world would be.
- KA2
Well said, Agent Booth! I think your thoughts on refocusing your attention onto the things that make you feel happy are apt -- it's not just about driving out others' darkness, but our own. :)
DeleteMLK's quote definitely relates with Beowulf. As many of you said, fire can't fight fire. You always need the opposite cancel out the other. Beowulf is the light, while Grendel is the darkness. Light can't fight light, evil can't fight evil. Beowulf, light, defeated Grendel, darkness. It's all about light and darkness, good and evil, being the same as black and white.
ReplyDeleteAs Kayla #2 said, don't face your own darkness with more because it'll make everything more worse. Instead think positive by surrounding yourself with the people you love such as, family and friends. If you're going through a hard time, fill yourself with hope, it'll be better for you.
Like Martin Luther King Jr. said, "I have a dream!" Push yourself through the worst, like Beowulf, and fight it.
I believe King means that if you try to fight anger with anger, you will just add to the problem. To rid the world of evil we must show it how to be good. If not it's like teaching a toddler to hit harder. But if we show said toddler to be nice they would learn to be nice. However, it would take a lot more than one person to do.
ReplyDeleteI believe the way we could pull this off is by having just a person for each country to teach about peace. People would follow this person and would spread it. Now everyone is taking the way of peace. All evil would be forced to switch due to just pressure alone. Then we can apply jobs for people to retain that peace.
Now that is an idea you could share with the United Nations!
DeleteI think that Martin Luther King Jr. is saying that negativity (Darkness, Hate ) can not defeat negativity, it only adds to it. And that only the positive ( Light, love ) can drive out the negativity.This relates to Beowulf in that Beowulf uses goodness and light to defeat great forces of darkness and evil. These evil forces are the monsters such as the fire drake, she , and Grendel. Beowulf does not use violence, but uses peace to cancel out the violence. Martin Luther King Jr also did not use violence, and used peace to bring justice.
ReplyDeleteWe can follow MLK's words by always caring for people, even if you dislike them. we can stop people from being rude to one another by using kindness to cancel another persons rudeness. We can make sure that we are following MlK's words by thinking of what we are doing to see if it is darkness or light, and to make sure that we follow this rule in good times and bad, and that we are not adding to the darkness but taking it away.
Right, Jack! It's easy to show kindness to people we like -- the challenge lies in showing kindness even to those we don't enjoy being around.
DeleteI think that Beowulf and Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote have the same idea. Evil is represented by darkness and good is represented by light. Martins's quote and Beowulf killing Grendel are very similar. I say this because darkness can only be driven out by light-Grendel being darkness and Beowulf being light. Martin's quote says that darkness can only be driven out by light, which Beowulf does.
ReplyDeleteDarkness can't fight darkness. It just makes things worse and darker. Also the quote is very deep and meaningful. Martin's quote relates to our lives because it can show us how to live life. There are a lot of similar things between Beowulf and Martin's quote.
I believe King means that if you try to fight anger with anger, you will just add to the problem. To rid the world of evil we must show it how to be good. If not it's like teaching a toddler to hit harder. But if we show said toddler to be nice they would learn to be nice. However, it would take a lot more than one person to do.
ReplyDeleteI believe the way we could pull this off is by having just a person for each country to teach about peace. People would follow this person and would spread it. Now everyone is taking the way of peace. All evil would be forced to switch due to just pressure alone. Then we can apply jobs for people to retain that peace.
This means to always be nice. In other words don't fight fire with fire, it will only make the problem even worse. It relates to Beowulf because he spreads kindness instead of anger because he knows kindness is more affective than anger. With anger people don't think when they are doing something and the choices they make, make them regret it.
ReplyDeleteThis relates to our lives because now people have a whole bunch of anger ready to unleash. If everyone became more peaceful and though more than the world would be a way better place. If the world became peaceful than we could get a lot more work done instead of long meet ins that resolve in nothing. I think that people should try to become more nice than mean overall than Earth would become way better.
I think what Dr. King means is that ,(as John said), if you try to drive away hate with hate, more hatred will result, and hatred can only go away from love and light. This relates to Beowulf because in the story, (as Karina said), Beowulf fought Grendel and his mother with his goodness.
ReplyDeleteWe can follow Dr. King's words by having everyone be happy and caring. By being kind
and caring, we can affect others and influence them to be kind to others, and make the light spread. When you are happy and kind to everyone, it can also make them look forward to living their life. What I mean is, for example, people are bullied so much that they hate living and don't want to live anymore, but by being happy and caring to them, you can make them feel more hopeful and happy about their life.Even if somebody gets negative and trys to spread hatred, we can try to cheer them up, continue being nice anyway and not let it stop us from making people happy.
Well said, Rawan! Thank you for acknowledging other classmates' perspectives, too. :)
DeleteI think that Martin Luther King Jr.'s quote means that you can't fight fire with fire. When someone is mean to you can't be mean to them for revenge because it makes the situation worse. This relates to Beowulf because Grendel and the other monsters was violent against others. instead of using violence against the monsters he used his wits. This very much relates to our lives. Many people get picked fight back but in the wrong way. They use darkness to fight darkness.
ReplyDeleteWe can follow King's words by loving others instead hating them. By showing them love and forgiveness they can spread to others. Everyone makes mistakes and we learn from them because that's what makes us human. Everyone has to acknowledge this so that we can forgive others instead of hating them. Everyone at one point in their life will face darkness but it is how we handle it that matters. We need to, like Beowulf, drive out darkness using love and light.
Your first comment! And it was a good one. Well said, Benji.
DeleteMy interpretation of King's quote is that fighting bad with bad will only result in a bigger problem. Negativity against negativity will not do justice. Refering back to Beowulf, he was different from other heros because he knew the right thing to do. He knew what the error of ways the other heroes had tried to defeat Grendel, and used the power of touch instead of savage strength. He truly believed the same thing Martin Luther King Jr. believed.
ReplyDeleteFire can't defeat fire, and darkness can't defeat darkness. The right thing to do is side with the opposite of darkness, King uses this quote to tell people to spread the love. Love brings light which can wipe out the negativity whether its mental or physical. People need to use only light to wipeout darkness just as Beowulf has done.
-Shreya S.
I think that Martin Luther King is say ing that hate bonded with hate just creates a bigger pile of hatred.This relates to Beowulf because, Beowulf was the light and he was fighting Grendel, the darkness. Light can drive out the dark, and that is what happened. Beowulf knew that grendels strength can defeat his, but he outwitted Grendel. What King is trying to get at is you have to fight your problems with the opposite of what that problem is.
ReplyDeleteThere is another quote that you cannot fight fire with fire. This is also like kings. Martin Luther king wants you to dread love, peace and happiness around to all. You have to set examples with good and bad. Like beowulf did you have to fight the darkness with his light. He knew he could not win by his strength, Beowulf used his love to defeat darkness, lil what martin is trying to tell us in that quote.
I think that he was trying to say, in this case, that fighting fire with fire would make matters worse. This relates to Beowulf because when he was fighting Grendel, instead of fighting, he just held on to Grendel and was kind to him.
ReplyDeleteThis relates to out lives because we have Rachel's Challenge, which wants to prevent bullying and be kind to everyone. We could follow Martin Luther King's words by being kind to everyone in general and by not being mean. We could embody kindness in the presence of hatred by always being positive.
I love that we are seeing this message enacted here at our campus. Next week, during the Great Kindness Challenge, I cannot wait to see what you all come up with! :)
DeleteI think he was trying to say that darkness and darkness will bring more darkness, but light will drive that out. And, hate and hate will be in more hate, but love will drive that out as well. This relates Beowulf because Grendel was hate and everyone hated him back. Beowulf used love to kill grendel though, so love drove him out. There's also the scenario with She an love.
ReplyDeleteThere's also the quote "you cannot fight fire with fire". You'd need water to fight fire. Like Apolo said, this relates to our lives with Rachel's Challenge. In Rachel's challenge you try to drive out bullying which would b Like fire. But bullying them back will not make them stop. You have to use kindness to stop bullying, in other words, kindness is the water you need to put out the fire of bullying.
~Juliana P.
Martin Luther King's quote comes to say that "you cant fight fire with fire" (Andrew U). By that i mean we cannot stop negativity with negativity. Instead,we drive out negativity with positivity. In a sense,King's quote relates to Beowulf. Throughout the story,Beowulf doesn't fight Grendel or "She" with weapons. He fights them with kindness and love. Beowulf's positive view of others drove out the negativity that Grendel and "She" brought. Without Beowulf's kindness,the story wouldn't be the same as it is now.
ReplyDeleteIn King's quote,you learn that you can only drive out the bad with the good. Unfortunately,if somebody judges you,we often also judge them and call them miserable,etc.. However,that's beginning to reduce and were able to spread positivity and happiness at school,home,online,etc.. MLK's quote also embodies lightness and love in todays society as it did in MLK's time.
-KA#1
I think it means exactly what it sounds like to me. darkness can't drive out darkness means bad can't drive out,bad. The phrase two wrongs dont make a right comes to mind. This refers to beowolf because trying to kill grendel could be concidered as darkness. Only beowolfs inner light or goodness could overcome darkness.
ReplyDeleteBeowolf tricked the firedrake which he considered could be imoral. This brings the phrase thats often used as a joke to mind. Two wrongs dont make a right but 3 lefta do. That means that what beowolf did wasn't exactly right (left) but it still wasn't wrong . And he still ended up having the right result.