Monsters In Beowulf

In the epic poem, Beowulf, the protagonist Beowulf encounters three monsters during his efforts to aid Hrothgar. These monsters are Grendel, Grendel’s mother and a dragon. Grendel is an ogre who raids the Heorot every night, killing Hrothgar’s men. Although these three characters are all monsters, they each have traits that are unique to themselves. In each of the confrontations, Beowulf has to handle the situations differently because not every monster is the same.

Grendel is an interesting character in the Beowulf. He is an ogre who basically haunts the mead-hall owned by Hrothgar. He looks somewhat like a man, with two legs, two arms, and a head. However, his strength and size is incredible; he is able to defeat dozens of men at a time. He uses his brute force to overpower men and kill them. Grendel is able to deflect many attacks from weapons because of his magical charm. When he kills men, he either devours them on the spot, or he returns them to his cave in a nearby swamp where he lives with his mother. His battle with …show more content…
One was that there was a lot of biblical references. In the case of Grendel and his mother, they were abandoned by God. They were known to be descendants of Cain who was also shunned by God. Their acts of rebellion towards God can be seen by Grendel’s act of jealousy and hatred toward humans and his mother’s act of revenge. In Romans 12:19, Paul says, “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: "It is mine to avenge; I will repay," says the Lord.” (Bible). Grendel’s mother disregards God’s will and goes ahead to avenge her son’s death. Another similarity that I saw was between Grendel’s mother and the dragon. They both had no reason to ever confront Beowulf until they seeked revenge for a wrongdoing that someone had done to them. In the dragon’s case, theft and in Grendel’s mother’s case, the murder of her