Essay On Monsters In Beowulf

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In the story of Beowulf we encounter three monsters. Immediately they are characterized as gruesome inhuman creatures for their appearance and nature without any thought given into who they really are. Is a monster only considered a monster if it opposes the main character? What about their side of the story? From their point of view wouldn’t the monster be switched? How did they become like this? Was it because of a person or society that made them turn? So wouldn’t the real monsters be those who influenced the said monster? Beowulf fights three monsters in his story, Grendel, his mother, and a dragon all named monsters because of their appearance and brutal actions. But you look at who they were before could you say they were the only monsters in the story. The first monster introduced in Beowulf is Grendel. His nature is …show more content…

Being that he is a descendant of Cain, he is exiled to the outskirts of human society, residing in the swamplands. Rage and jealousy takes ahold of his emotions and in a fit of anger he killed 30 men while they were sleeping. This went on for 12 years. When Beowulf hears of this horrible fate that has fallen on so many innocent people, he sets sail to slaughter Grendel. He comes to the hall and attacks Grendel weaponless and manages to tear off Grendel’s arm forcing Grendel to escape back to the swamplands and die of blood loss. Though his deeds and appearance are monstrous by interpretation, he is the most humanly portrayed villain of the three. Though an ugly appearance, it is still that of a human being and he has a name. In addition, once he knew he had been defeated by Beowulf, he goes back to the swamplands in seek of the comfort of his mother as he bleeds out. Not many monsters would do that. And when you look at how it all started, how society had banished him because of the way he looked and his size, that fed his

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