grendelbeo Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? Essay -- Epic Beo

Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? My first impression of Beowulf was that of an enigmatic, somewhat esoteric work, a necessary evil on the way to reading the more important works. After a closer reading of the much-celebrated epic, I had a revelation. And what a revelation: Beowulf is wonderful! Perhaps it was the translation, or it might have been the basic substance of the work itself, but I found myself devouring the poem. I discovered two specific areas of appeal: 1) The fundamental attraction of the archetypical super-hero and 2) the more contemporary trend in modern culture to attempt to recapture the experience of this particular era via popular fiction and film.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The ideal of the hero is a concept so completely integrated into the human psyche as to be virtually built-in. From Homer's Ulysses to Nietzsche's Ubermensch, we as a race of beings are fixated on the individual who makes things happen, who gets things done, p referably with a healthy dose of bravado. Perhaps this is attributable to an innate sense of vulnerability in each of us, that unsettling little voice which whispers to us that, despite all our efforts, we have overlooked some crucial factor which will lead to our ultimate demise. The hero has no such insecurities: he is invincible!   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   It is interesting to note that not only has the hero figure continued to thrive in the collective human consciousness, but, in our own western culture, the Beowulf-prototype has come full circle: there is a whole genre of fantasy novels which center on one form or another of the Anglo-Saxon warrior tradition, as well as a veritable plethora of movies. Fleet upon fleet of ring-prowed ships sail ever-onward on the seas of our imagination, on qu... ...pand the characters, making them more whole, more three-dimensional.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Looking at the two works side by side, a question arises: Who is the true monster? Beowulf fans will, no doubt, assert that their hero is the undisputed good guy, and that Grendel was a vicious bastard who got what he deserved. But the Gardner perspective offers an interesting twist: Beowulf was insane! An unbalanced, obsessive weirdo babbling bizarre gibberish into Grendel's ear as he rended the unfortunate creature's arm from his torso. This latter interpretation is not as far-fetched as one might think; the police departments of every major city in this country contain a certain number of these so-called "heroes," men so mired in violence that their perceptions become distorted, that they ultimately become the very thing they've fought so hard to defeat.