The Epic of Beowulf: Order Overpowers Chaos

Beowulf, king of the Geats, engages in battles in order to protect his community from physical creatures while King Arthur’s knights engage in spiritual battles against evil temptation which lurks around every corner. Beowulf proudly displays his prowess before he must confront Grendel, the “God-cursed brute” when he declares with bold confidence that he “can calm the turmoil” (Heaney 11, 21). Beowulf boasts of his strength, pledging to kill Grendel with his bare hands. Grendel, the cursed descendant of Cain, enjoys death and destruction, ruining Hrothgar’s reputation with every attack on his kingdom. The monster kills one of his men, angering the Thanes and encouraging them to fight

Telling his men that he does not need them to fight Grendel is a way he shows off his pride and keeping his honor. He does not seem to be full of himself because he does defeat the monster with his bare hands, he even rips the arm off of Grendel. This shows me that Beowulf is slowly taking Grendel's pride and honor of being a fierce creature that everyone fears and does not want to mess with, to just a play toy to Beowulf that he can just rip his arm off. This major battle with this horrible monster took place in his home which is a cave, being destroyed on your own land just strips the pride and honor from you. Going to todays world with the example of the Firefighter, when a firefighter is in full official uniform people around the room gain a great respect for that person which the firefighter will feel great honor and pride inside of him and does express it like how Beowulf did destroy a monster with his bare hands. Having pride and honor just feels good and being respectable adds more to the job than anything. Firefighters create great honor in their workforce and in this world, heading into burning buildings that can fall down at any moment to save a life.

In the poem “Beowulf” the protagonist encounters three enemies of large proportions: Grendel the serpent, Grendel’s Mother, and a Dragon. All these creatures pose a large and terrifying threat that need a special protagonist to fight what the land’s strongest warriors could not accomplish. Before monks wrote this fabled tale in the form of a poem, Beowulf captured the attention of its listeners and teach them lessons about their cultural society and how to act in the society all in an oral fashion. Each battle has many similar environmental, physical, Moral, and cultural elements, but also differ in what elements were better represented from battle to battle.

The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic, chronicling the distinguished deeds of the great Geatish warrior, Beowulf, who travels across the seas to rid the Danes of the evil monster Grendel, who has been inflicting destruction and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land fiendish monsters and stopping the scourge of evil, while the monster, Grendel, is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves death for its evil actions. However, many have disagreed with such a simplistic and biased representation of Grendel and his role in the epic poem. John Gardner in his book, Grendel, sets out to change the reader’s perception of Grendel and his role in Beowulf by narrating the story through Grendel’s point of view. John Gardner transforms Grendel, once perceived as an evil fiend in Beowulf, into a lonely but intelligent outcast who is actually quite similar to humans, due to his intelligence capacity for rational thought and his real, and at times irrational emotions. Gardner portrays Grendel as a hurt individual and as a victim of oppression, ostracized from civilization. Although the two works revolve around the same basic plot,, the themes and characters in Beowulf and Grendel are often different and sometimes contradictory.

The Epic of Beowulf is about many things, one could say. It involves changes of power, darkness and light, overcoming challenges, temptation and destruction, war, et cetera, et cetera. These themes, and many more, make up what are known as major and minor themes. Both are of equal importance to a story in its entirety; the difference being that major themes address the writer’s most significant ideas, while minor themes refer to an idea that appears only momentarily.

In “The Battle with Grendel” we also see how Beowulf can be violent. For example, lines 385-397 demonstrates how powerful Beowulf is while fighting Grendel. The quote says, “Grendel/ Saw that his strength was deserting him, his claws/ Bound fast, Higlac’s brave follower tearing at/ His hands. The monster’s hatred rose higher,/ But his power had gone. He twisted in pain,/ And the bleeding sinews deep in his shoulder/ Snapped, muscle and bone split/ And broke….Grendel escaped,/ But wounded as he was could flee to his den,/His miserable hole at the bottom of the marsh,/ Only to die, to wait for the end/ Of all his days” (385-397). This moment in the text shows how intense and extreme Beowulf’s actions were while fighting the monster. We, as readers, start to see how Beowulf slowly becomes who he is trying to defeat.

The story of Beowulf is an ancient one, and one that has been passed down for generations. The ideals and themes are traditional and its message is clear throughout the entirety of the epic poem. Beowulf is told from the third person omniscient point of view, his conflict was always what one would call “the bad guy” or “the villain,” and though he died in the end, he won gold and victory for his kingdom; all bad guys defeated. John Gardner, author of Grendel, decided to take the classical story of good and evil, and tell a new story from the villain’s perspective. Grendel explores varying literary elements which exposes the character of Grendel to readers along with various themes represented throughout each page.

In the Beowulf poem the battle scenes are described more vividly descriptive and including a lot of symbolism. The first fight is between Beowulf and Grendel, "a fiend out of hell, […] grim demon haunting the marches, marauding round the heath and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time in misery among the banished monsters, Clain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts." (p. 6) Beowulf sets out to kill this monster in order to achieve fame. He isn't forced to do so, especially as Grendel doesn't attack the Geats (his clan) but the Danes. Nevertheless Beowulf settles out to destroy the demon and declares that he will fight Grendel there is a feast: "Now I mean to be a match for Grendel, settle the outcome in single combat." (p. 15) Afterwards there is a feast in Hereot and at dusk Beowulf prepares for the fight and awaits Grendel's attack. "Then down the brave man lay with his bolster under his head and his whole company of sea rovers at rest beside him." Beowulf's companions stay at his side and this is a symbol for their closed circle of society. The Germanic culture is based on the

First, Beowulf shows his loyalty to human kind when he defeats Grendel, a monster who terrorizes King Hrothgar's men. Beowulf formulated an intricate plan to defeat the monster who continuously attacks Hrothgar's men, while they were sleeping at the mead-hall. When Beowulf encounters Grendel, when he attacks the mead hall, he is described as,“flooded with fear-but nothing could take his talons and himself from that tight hard grip”(Beowulf,435) This shows the negative emotions and pains that Grendel experiences as he confronts Beowulf, his most powerful adversary. The strong grip that Beowulf squeezes Grendel by can be interpreted as Beowulf’s loyalty to the people who have been constantly terrorized by Grendel, and also the amount of anger

Then the fiend step nearer,(558-564).” Beowulf still sat unfrightend by what occurs and waits for the right moment to attack Grendel. He approaches Grendel after the consumption of the man and grabs his arm and begins to crush it with his hand. “His courage fled; but he found no escape! He was fain to be gone; he would flee to the darkness,(571-572).” Beowulf full of rage and anger began to beat this monster with his bare hands. “And Beowulf gained the glory of battle. Grendel, fated, fled to the fens, to his joyless dwelling, sick unto death,(632-634).” Beowulf without fear or hesitation fought this monster and won. This beast had killed many men at a single time, but Beowulf’s courage let him prevail in a situation where fear takes over the hearts of many men.

Beowulf’s wrath is swift and justified. He plays no games with his opponents. Beowulf even shows respect to his foe and honorably faces them with no undue advantage. A classic example of the honor usually associated with heroes lies in Beowulf’s decision to use neither sword nor armor when facing the monster Grendel in Heorot. Beowulf instead opted, in the name of fair play, to fight the monster on it’s own terms. Unsurprisingly Beowulf conquered his foe in true idolic form, tearing Grendel’s arm from his torso with only the strength of his grip and the power of his arms. This is what we cheer for in such stories, this is the satisfying victory over evil by the true embodiment of good: the hero.

The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic chronicling the illustrious deeds of the great Geatish warrior Beowulf, who voyages across the seas to rid the Danes of an evil monster, Grendel, who has been wreaking havoc and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land of a fiendish monster and halting its scourge of evil while the monster is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves to die because of its evil actions. In the epic poem, Beowulf the authors portrays Grendel as a cold-hearted beast who thrives on the pain of others. Many have disagreed with such a simplistic and biased representation of Grendel and his role in the epic poem. John Gardner in his book, Grendel set out to change the

The epic starts in a clever way beginning Beowulf’s tale with an extremely powerful and cunning opponent, for it immediately becomes intriguing. Both the link between man and beast, and the driving force of hate behind his assaults, and his reaction to these feelings make Grendel extremely important in this book.

Beowulf showed a large amount of honor against Grendel. Grendel is a monster, a descendant of the biblical leader Cain who terrorizes the mead hall created by King Hrothgar leader of the Danish people. Grendel would attack the mead hall named Heorot at night and kill/eat soldiers due to his foretold immense brute strength. Beowulf hears of this so called unbeatable creature and as a sign of respect fights the monster with his bare hands due to the face Grendel carries no weapons and has not used one in battle. Beowulf displaying his true honor battles the creature with his bare hands and even in some depictions of the story battles Grendel naked, this shows how far the Anglo-Saxons vision of honor would go for.

Beowulf begins with a conflict that symbolizes the hostility of nature, Grendel’s acts of terror are