Beowulf is a classic poem, sometimes categorized as an epic poem. It’s a fiction, although it may have elements of history in its side stories, old English reading. By the end of the story Beowulf passes away, passing on his legacy, but first, he goes through all the nuances of life, and faces three main monsters. Grendel, a demon descended from the biblical Cain and pagan giants, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon.
Beowulf died many decades after the beginning of the story, he was an old, successful king. He passed away after a heroic battle with the dragon. So what was different from his first two battles? He won those after all.
Grendel was the first challenge for Beowulf, that battle is talked about in more detail in a previous post on this website here. After Grendel, Grendel’s mother sought after Beowulf. Without any other context, you might assume this was a grieving mother who thought of Beowulf as the bad guy, but in reality, this character knew all along that Beowulf was the good person in this scenario. People have a tendency to be like this. Throughout your life, you face obstacles to obtain your ultimate goal, stress, schoolwork, debts, and people. Grendel’s mother was ultimately one of those nasty people that you may face in your life.
Grendel’s mother was this large scary creature, shrouded in darkness, the creator of a cynical, narcissistic monster. She was anger. She was self-righteous, her own messiah. Sometimes, people you see every day are the kind of people who have always been cynical about the world, they are just good at hiding it. They’ve gone their whole lives navigating themselves in a world that is not as cynical as they are. These people are inclined to always be right, even tending to go after the good guy. For example: These people think that life is meaningless because the point is proving to everyone else (good people) that life is meaningless. Cynical people target good moral people, not because they’re monsters, but because they’re not.
Grendel’s mother could rationalize what she was doing with a moral standpoint, but she understood that Beowulf was right, she just wanted to be right. Grendel was an evil creature, a psychopathic narcissist that killed people while throwing his tantrum. Grendel’s mother found an opportunity in her son’s death to be mad about something, so she took it and died for it.
There is also something to be said for how Grendel’s mother died. Grendel died by Beowulf’s bare hands. Beowulf took Grendel’s arm, but that’s not what he did with Grendel’s mother. Grendel’s mother was a new obstacle. He had to come at it from a different angle. We do the same thing all the time. When you were a baby you cried to get what you needed, that was your only resource, it’s how you solved all your problems. Now, you can’t cry and scream to get what you want. You have to use the better resources you have now. This is what Beowulf did. Beowulf attempted to kill Grendel’s mother with his sword. That didn’t work. He had a new ordinary sword that could not kill such a beast. So, Beowulf picked up the nearest weapon he could during the struggle of the fight. This just so happened to be an ancient sword Grendel’s mother kept with her treasures.
This was a new resource Beowulf found when his go-to resource didn’t work. This sword that was new to him, was an ancient sword made out of a material that we still can’t figure out how to recreate to this day. He used an old way, a “tradition” to face problems that couldn’t be solved by what he already knew. You can use old ideas that are new to you to face your own problems the same way Beowulf faced Grendel’s mother.
After defeating Grendel’s mother, Beowulf traveled home, told his tale, and after a few years, he was declared king. Decades later, his people are terrorized by a dragon. The dragon itself is a significant symbol across all cultures. (Peterson). In the story so far, anyone who has been there to back Beowulf up hasn’t been mentioned. Nobody really did anything other than be there for Beowulf. He didn’t need it as much. And yet, there were a lot more soldiers there for Beowulf when he was young and ambitious than as their aging king decades later.
There are many things going on here. Beowulf goes to fight this dragon and he takes twelve guys with him. Beowulf goes after the dragon with a sword. The sword instantly breaks on the scales. Beowulf goes through swords like coffee filters. Anyway, Beowulf picks up a dagger and, as one of his men finds the soft spot on the dragon and stabs it, Beowulf goes to slice it’s throat, but not before the dragon manages to bite him on the neck along with giving him many other injuries. Beowulf passed away from the dragon’s venom in the end.
Notice how only one of his men helped? The rest ran away. When one guy does it all for too long people get used to letting him. His people were committed to patting Beowulf on the back. They thought that was all he needed. Don’t let that one guy be you. You can also look at it from what the soldiers learned that day. Think of the men as learning people. In childhood, you depend on people who seem strong but as you get older the people you used to depend on become peers and you have to navigate the unknown. These men did not do well at facing the unknown when they were peers fighting alongside their seemingly strong and reliable king. You can’t depend on others completely and you shouldn’t have to.
Anyway, now that we’ve taken a look at the soldiers, what about the death of the dragon? That seems way more important than the soldiers, right? Beowulf went in with a sword but was successful with the dagger. The dagger was the smaller weapon, and you had to get a lot closer to the big scary dragon to use that dagger, so why couldn’t it have worked to use the sword if Beowulf had just used it on the throat in the first place?
Sometimes you have to get up close and personal with your dragon, your monsters, whether that is a person or an obstacle in the way of your goals. The hardest thing you will have to do is go through all the hardships in life, and you will only come out on top if the more dire the circumstance, the harder you're going to fight with what little you have. That’s what Beowulf did. But, in this story, the dragon was the last monster to fight. You can never come out on top from your last monster in the way you think of winning. With the dragon, at the end of the story, Beowulf died, and so will everyone, which is why you must fight the dragon, and the Grendel, and his mom. There’s always a dragon, you defeat the other monsters to face the unknown itself.
Works Cited
Peterson, Jordan B. "Images of Story & Metastory." Maps of Meaning. 6 Mar. 2017, University of Toronto, youtu.be/F3n5qtj89QE?si=xfI13iYnHGLm2gZ_&t=6422. Accessed 8 Sept. 2024.
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