subject: The Beast Grendel [print this page] The Beast Grendel The Beast Grendel
The song of Beowulf is an epic about a great hero Beowulf and his enemiesGrendel, Grendel's mother and a dragon.
In this oral sagas, it is Grendel instead of other characters that left me a very deep impression. It is recorded that Grendel is a cruel, savage and unhappy monster halfhuman, who tears people into pieces and eats up them when hearing the sound of harp and loud mirth from the Heorot hall. In this way, he brings the whole Hrothgar's kingdom continuous slaughters and gives the subjects eternal sorrow and woes. But he does not have remorse for what he did since he is filled with anger, enmity and spite against all the beautiful things. Why Grendel has such deep hatred of the people feasting in the hall? In my opnion, the main reason is as follows: Grendel is apart from the bright world and he endures a hardship for such a long time because of his crime. On hearing the mirth from the hall, he is naturally enraged. At that moment, he may think he is so poor, so all the people should be as poor as him. Then, he takes action, that is to kill the people full of joy feasted in the hall, to avenge himself. Grendel tastes the the pleasure of revenge according to his dreadful behaviors. We can understand it as Grendel's jealousness, lonelinessthe dark side of his characteristics is the main cause of his slaughter, loud mirth and joys of people in the hall is the indirect cause resulting in Gendel's bloody crime. Apart from the characteristics descrides obviouly in the story, Gendel is also childish, immature and frail. This can be seen from his impressionable emotion when he gets the sound of mirth from the hall and ambushes the people in the hall. Grendel also takes advantage of the weak and scares the strong.
The parts, which Grendel is cruel to the thanes while afraid of fighting againt Beowulf and wanting to flee away, can be the strongest proof to justify my words. That is Grendel in my eyes.
