Journal About Beowulf

Throughout the epic poem of Beowulf, Grendel and his mother’s characteristics are portrayed by inhumane and malicious behaviors. When analyzing and comparing the human traits of the poem’s good versus evil, the antagonist’s traits have deeper meaning towards their unpleasant behaviors. The characters are viewed as evil because of their inadequate moral understanding of their behaviors. This results from being simple minded characters. The characters were only taught evil, resulting in only doing evil. Because Grendel and his mother express a motive for their behaviors and give human-like characteristics and emotions, these characters are not defined as evil. Just simple minded killers who do not understand the difference between rational and irrational.

Grendel is portrayed as the descendant from Cain, that is a carnivore with beast-like features. He expresses human characteristics through his emotional traits. The monster is shown as a coward who only “hunted down by the dark death-shadow/ who lurked and swooped in the long nights” (160-161). This resembled Grendel’s as a coward because of his beast-like features that only hunted men at night when they are vulnerable. Beowulf’s powerful grip on Grendel portrayed another human characteristic of fear. Grendel feared for his life when “every bone in his body/ quailed and recoiled” (752).  This actions shows his fear towards Beowulf by desperately fleeing to his safe lair. Grendel’s aggression to kill and haunt the people of Heorot are signs resulting from inner jealousy. He is jealous of the joy brought from a normal life. Grendel, the outcast, cannot become a part of this perfect human society because of his beast-like features, which gives him a selfish motive to make others suffer along with him. He just wants to be a part of something, but his lonely years’ creep into his mind and create hate. These emotional traits give Grendel understandable motivations to seek joy, but his irrational behaviors portray him as evil.

Grendel’s mother shows emotional human characteristics of love and vengeance for her son. She seeks revenge on her son’s life, instead of cowering in grief. This represents a sole motive to kill those who hurt the ones she loves. Although revenge is not morally acceptable, she can express the amount of love she has for Grendel, through killing and destroying. It is not fair to categorize Grendel’s mother as the monstrous killer like Grendel. When comparing both of their rational considerations to seeking joy and revenge, Grendel portrays the selfish character. Moreover, his mother only acts with anger towards Heorot out of vengeance. Her compassion of love towards her son do not define her as an evil irrational killer.