Beowulf is a literary poem about a warrior who comes and protects a town from monsters who continuously terrorizes them. One of these monsters includes a creature named Grendel who comes into the town and steals thirty of the King's great danes and brings them to his lair. In this essay, I will analyze a passage of this poem and give examples supporting how Grendel is not as petrifying as he pretends. Considering the frightening and fearless creature Grendel portrays himself as does not measure up to the same creature that is detected within his actions, Grendel's monstrous representation of himself does not measure up to his cowardly actions. .
First of all, it is significant to understand how this passage is so relative to the period of the text. The text is set in the Middle Ages. This was a time of invasion and movement of peoples. This goes along with Grendel invading the king's mead hall and taking his danes away. .
This passage begins with a sense of liminality. The first line says "With the coming of night came Grendel also " (Beowulf line 114). The word " coming " is saying that night is not yet here, but it is on it's way. The same goes for Grendel. It goes into the next couple of lines saying "sought the great house and how the Ring-Danes held their hall " (lines 115-116). In accompaniment of this line having alliteration along with lines 118 and 121, in this passage, the great house would be referring to the mead hall that the king, Hrothgar, had built for his people. It is the place where they usually celebrate, feast, and show great amounts of joy and laughter. This is also a place that is very guarded by the king's danes. When Grendel goes to the hall to see how protective the dane's are guarding it strikes a red flag. Since Grendel was cursed by God because of Cain's sins, he is a "creature of evil " (line 120) and very destructive. He is always portraying himself as very beastly and frightening.
