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Beowulf a la Shmoop

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The Antagonist

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Beowulf and Grendel. So, you know,

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the context of society

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in a lot of ways gets defined by the

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way society allocates resources.

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Certain societies that have natural enemies -

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rains or earthquakes or whatever -

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allocate a lot of resources to various things.

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But as society grew and more people populated the Earth,

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resources in the form of land and boundaries

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started to be an issue.

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And the whole notion of antagonism

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became a social theme,

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which I guess gave rise to it being a literary theme.

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So here we have maybe the first English written antagonist

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in Grendel.

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And we don't get much of a physical description of Grendel.

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So, you know, it's kind of like almost, again, the symbology.

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It's just a force or a concept.

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Other than Grendel's a big, monstrous biped,

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who stands on two feet.

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And his motivations seem equally ambiguous.

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What can you tell us about Grendel?

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You know, he's Beowulf's - spoiler alert -

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first victim here.

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Yeah, you make a good point that he --

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We don't know a lot about him physically

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and his motivations are ambiguous, too.

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Compare that to Beowulf, right?

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We know everything about this guy.

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The story starts discussing --

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Some of the first lines of Beowulf

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are about his great-grandfather, about his lineage.

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We know his lineage. We know what he's like.

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We know what he cares about. He boasts, et cetera.

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Grendel, we really don't get a lot of information about.

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And that is because we are probably not supposed to,

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you know, sympathize with this character at all.

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He's really English literature's first serial killer.

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When we get introduced to him, all we know

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is that he is demonic with glee

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because he knows he's gonna

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rip these people to shreds

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and tear them limb from limb.

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He's not just gonna kill them;

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he's gonna tear them limb from limb.

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And he's super psyched about it.

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Here's what happens.

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Basically, Grendel hears a lot of

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partying going on at Heorot, the mead hall,

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and he's not psyched about it.

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And we can kind of think that it might be because

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he's seeing this bustling civilization

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when he is this, you know, primitive monster.

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He doesn't have that. He's isolated.

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And he doesn't really like the fact that these guys

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are all part of a fun community.

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So he goes and he keeps attacking the mead hall.

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And this is when Beowulf comes in

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and says, you know,

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"I'm gonna kill this guy.

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I'm gonna protect your civilization

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against the primitive Grendel."

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Another thing that we learn about Grendel,

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one of the very few things,

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is that he's a descendant of Cain,

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from the Bible.

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This is actually the only biblical reference

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that we get in Beowulf.

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But, as you might remember,

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Cain kills his brother.

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And he's the original murderer of the Bible.

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And so we're supposed to, again,

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connect Grendel with, basically, you know,

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the first murderer in the history of the world.

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And then here we have him being kind of the first serial killer/

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murderer in English literature.

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Again, we're not supposed to sympathize with him.

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And then, the last thing that Grendel --

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As you mentioned, he's more of a symbol than anything else.

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There's a big concept in this time period

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called the "death-price,"

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which means if you killed someone,

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you could then pay the relatives or community

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of the person you'd killed

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in order for them not to take revenge on you.

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Grendel doesn't have, you know, a community.

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He doesn't have a backing.

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He's totally primitive.

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So he basically just ignores all the laws.

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The death-price means nothing to him.

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So, you know, he kills a bunch of people

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and there's no way to make retribution,

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because he's on his own.

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He's, you know, his own character.

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So basically we're really showing --

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Grendel is a symbol of this divide between, you know,

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civilization, this grandiose civilization

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that we're supposed to be in awe of,

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and the primitivity of Grendel.

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So let me back you up a little bit.

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You mentioned lineage before

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as being an important element.

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So let me kind of backtrack,

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sort of just how my brain works on this.

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I think of this era

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as having very low levels of policing.

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I think of bands or hordes of bandits, gang members basically

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who had this new technology called a sword

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and maybe some armor

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against a guy with a wood spear

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tending his sheep or farm or something.

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Like, that guy's dead.

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So the notion of lineage being important --

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And also there's this concept of good and evil

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in the world

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and the hordes of gangs, I would think

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would be viewed as evil.

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That they would come in and rape and pillage the communities.

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So you wouldn't be able to trace someone's lineage

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if they were the seed of gangs raping the landside and so on.

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And so the notion of being able to

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follow someone's lineage, I guess, was important

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because this notion of evil

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not polluting your family line

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was a big deal.

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Right. If you can trace someone's lineage like we can

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with Beowulf, it makes them even more of a hero

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because we know exactly where they came from.

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And usually, in an epic poem like this,

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they come from some amazing background.

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- Right. - Right? And so, again, the story opens

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with information about Beowulf's great-great-grandfather.

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Which means that we can directly

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trace where he came from for several generations if not more.

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And I'm thinking about the purity of that lineage

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that's unpolluted, and then

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against the Grendel impurity

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that traces all the way back to Cain.

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- You sort of have this iconoclastic -- - Exactly.

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All we've got from Grendel is -

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we will later meet his mother -

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but we have Grendel, his mom, and Cain.

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It just goes -- It's monster, monster, and then original murderer.

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- So, not great. - Not great.

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How did antagonism become a social theme

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before becoming a theme in literature?

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Why aren't Grendel's physical attributes described in detail?

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What are Grendel's possible motivations for attacking Heorot

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and killing so many people?

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What is the "death-price" and what role does it play in the story?

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Why is lineage so important to a hero?

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English literature's first serial killer.

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