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Grendel's Mother, Achilles / Abbie Hedden

 I'm going to say this now. I don't think Grendel's mom was a monster. In the same way one may say Medusa was a monster, I suppose you could claim that Grendel's mom was too... but neither of them truly were. Let's look at the facts. In Beowulf, beginning at line 1258, it says "...Grendel's mother, / monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs... [after Beowulf killed Grendel] his mother had sallied forth on a savage journey, grief-wracked and ravenous, desperate for revenge." Besides that hell-bride part, all we really have is a grieved mother who lost her son. In modern times, we'd probably sympathize with her. Later on, she ravages the hall of warriors and slaughters many men, taking the hand of her son back with her so that the soldiers no longer had their prize. Okay, maybe murdering isn't like a great thing. But how is she different from Achilles? He slaughtered countless men due to avenge the loss of his husband best friend and he was considered a great hero. Is it because of who she killed - those men were supposed to be the good guys, so whoever killed them was considered bad? Or perhaps, like Medusa, the author of this epic simply wanted her to be seen as evil. What do y'all think?


PS Madalyn Dillard and Hailey Morgan

Comments

  1. ClaboFebruary 22, 2021 at 9:29 PM

    I like your comparisons. I thought along very similar lines as I was writing my blogpost. Good and evil in many of the instances you listed are just relative and most likely determined by what side of the field you are standing on. In most cases, one doesn't have to look hard in order to find things to sympathize with amongst complex antagonists.

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  2. kaitlyn terryFebruary 22, 2021 at 11:06 PM

    I guess great minds think alike, because Grendel's mother reminded me slightly of Medusa as well. With Medusa's story specifically, it's hard to see someone villainized for trying to protect themselves. Grendel's mother had a similar motive with avenging her son. I'm truly not sure whether she was actually evil, or just portrayed as such.

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