Comparing Beowulf, Grendel's Mother, And The Dragon

For the Beowulf art project, the artist creatively represented the weapons that Beowulf chooses in his battles against Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and the Dragon. This representation was accomplished by hand-drawing each weapon (a hand clenched into a fist, a sword, and a broken sword), and placing a quote that happened in each duel underneath the drawings. These quotes directly reflect upon the battle and killings (or the events leading up to the killings) of each of the monsters, and talked about each of the weapons in the specific scenes. In the background of each of the drawings, there are certain colors that show if Beowulf won the conflict or not. The lighter, happier colors in the background (yellow and blue) show that he won the fight,

This image was drawn because it is the weapon that Beowulf uses and ultimately kills Grendel’s Mother with. There was another sword that he planned to use to fatally strike the beast with, but that sword was lost in the midst of the battle. All hope seemed to be lost for him, until he found a different sword (the one depicted in the drawing). “Then he saw, hanging on the wall, a heavy Sword, hammered by giants, strong And blessed with their magic, the best of all weapons But so massive that no ordinary man could lift Its carved and decorated length”(23.1556-1562). This sword is much depicted much larger than the other on the poster, which is due to the fact that the sword was described as having such a large size that a normal man could not even lift it. Underneath this drawing, a quote was included describing what it was like the instant that Beowulf killed Grendel’s Mother. “...lifted it high over his head And struck with all the strength he had left, Caught her in the neck and cut it through, Broke bones and all. Her body fell To the floor, lifeless, the sword was wet With her blood, and Beowulf rejoiced at the sight”(23.1564-1569). Since the artist wanted to convey the picture exactly as the quote said the sword was like, she covered the top edge of the sword with blood to make it appear as if it has just come out of the battle. The quote was also chosen due to the fact that it describes the killing of her in such great detail. It shows specifically how the sword went through her body, and the impacts that it had on her. In the background of the depiction of the sword, she colored it a light blue. Blue can either be a happy color or a dispiriting color based upon the shade, so it was made sure that the color was a lighter color (what she considered to be a happy