The Enemy Outside And Within: Grendel And His Mother

In many stories throughout ancient times, monsters have been the focus for the problems within society, causing any number of woes for the people. The monsters themselves, however, are quite often distanced and set apart in numerous ways from the peoples whom they plague, including physically, mentally, emotionally, symbolically, and oftentimes ideologically as well. In the old English epic, Beowulf, this pattern of making monsters out to be outsiders remains firmly in place, witnessed through the descriptions, attitudes, and actions of the fiend Grendel and his horrific Mother. There exists, however, a paradoxical symbolism within the epic’s framework concerning this beast and his kin in which they serve as examples of the negative aspects of the Germanic society in which the story originated. Therefore, while they are still placed outside of the boundaries of Human civilization, they are, at the same time, a part of it as they represent the evils of the culture whose imagination spawned them.

From the moment he appears in the story, Grendel is an outcast in every conceivable manner. His form, although vaguely humanoid, is hideous and deformed. He is d

escribed as a monster, a demon, and a fiend. Grendel has swift, hard claws, and enormous teeth that snatch the life out of his victims, which are numerous. This “shadow of death” doesn‘t stop at killing, but also eats of the flesh and drinks the blood of his prey. Not only is Grendel set apart from humanity by his grotesque appearance and monstrous actions, but by his bestial, sub-human, and animalistic mindset which serve to render him “malignant by nature“ (ln.137). His mind is filled with an omnipresent rage and bloodlust which seem to permeate his every thought, and at the same time lacks all the decencies and compassion which one would believe crucial to defining humanity itself, being described as “insensible to pain/ and human sorrow” (ln.119-120). Yet another vital way in which this creature is alienated from the society is through his ancestral ties. He is a descendant of Cain, having been,"...spawned in that slime, conceived of Cain/ murderous creatures banished By God..." (106-107), and therefore, by definition, is an outcast of society, doomed to roam in the shadows, always from the outside looking in. His whole existence, coming as it were from one of the original sins, is grounded solely in the moral perversion to hate good simply because it is good. Finally is the religious fact that, quite simply, unlike the rest of humanity, Grendel is an enemy of God and can therefore not know God’s great love.

And so, as one can see from analyzing the two antagonists from Beowulf, monsters can be both outside threats to the societies which they torment, and inner representations of those society’s evils or faults. Whether these failings are physical, metaphysical, behavioral, ideological, or theological in nature depends on

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