Megan Gailey
Professor Buzzard
ENG-205-I01
24 February 2020
Beowulf
When reading such an epic poem like Beowulf, it gets you thinking of the meaning of the
poem and why it had a certain story line. Beowulf is being portrayed has a horrible monster. The
question that needs to be answered is, is he really a monster or has he just gone through things
that have portrayed him in that way? Beowulf is a story of violence and battles of what we go
through every day. In this poem not only does it express him being a monster, but it also
expresses loyalty. Even though he was portrayed evil or known as a monster, he did do good. He
wanted to protect Geatland.
When reading this poem, you have to think to yourself what the character Grendel really
means. Is he portrayed as a monster? Is he just Evil? When we call someone a monster, we
normally think that they are an awful person, they are not right in the head. I believe that Grendel
isn’t evil or a monster I think he was just born into it. The poem Beowulf describes Grendel as an
unhappy being. In the poem it states, “This unhappy being had long lived in the land of monsters
since the Creator cast as kindred of Cain” (Anonymous 103-106). You have to think about this
really hard. If you know the story of Cain and Abel, it makes you then think that Grendel is an
evil person because of the poem saying he is kindred of Cain. Do you believe that he was born a
monster? I don’t believe he was I think he was portrayed a monster because of his background
story with Cain. The way Grendel is portrayed and how he was created it makes sense that he
would be evil, and it begins to make him believe it as well as everyone else, and maybe that is
why he is how he is. I feel as the reason he acts the way he does is because of how is was created
and since he is a descendent from Cain, he is just meant to be the way he is, a monster and evil.
An article I found helps you understand the difference between evil and what was pure.
All Grendel wanted to do was to protect his land and people. This article also focuses on
Beowulf and the Dragon. It is able to compare them. Who are we to say what is evil and what is
good? We wouldn’t know what to do until we are put into a situation like Grendel. This article
points out that some people will see the poem as a symbolic representation of man’s moral and
social struggles, with the monsters as earthly, virtually human creatures who are not entirely evil.
This is how I view this poem; Grendel is human but is just viewed evil because of the decisions
he made. However, some others view it more or less as the battles between the marvelous
characters representing cosmic confrontations between Christ and Satan.
