UM Honors Blog 2020-2021

I know I may have discussed this topic somewhat in my blog post last week, but because we were prompted to discuss Abernathy's questions in this weeks blogpost, I decided to talk about this again because I find it the most interesting. When the question of whether Grendel's mother was evil or not is posed, I think an important question to ask is what the intent is. I feel that because she did not attack or terrorize Heorot more than once, it is difficult to assume or compare her evilness with her son. However, by looking at her intent, we see that her actions are much more noble than maleficent. Her actions were very similar to that of a heroic Greek or Trojan warrior going back to recover the body and/or armor of their fellow soldier. She was just doing her action in order to achieve vengeance for her son, and to bring honor and less shame to his passing. However, if one looks at her innate darkness and foreboding evil presence that constantly is surrounding her, one has to re...

  What is a Christian hero in Beowulf ? First, we must ask the question: What is a Christian hero? To go even further than that: What is a hero? When discussing the role of hero in literature, we can usually offer three criterion that universally describe the protagonist or hero.  1. Defeat an evil antagonist. 2. Meet rare and/or challenging obstacles. 3. Accomplish an impossible deed. Save the day! (Especially heroic when other great men have tried and failed to accomplish said deed).  I'm sure most of you have these notes from class so I'm not really saying anything new. Except for a few cases, these characteristics can be applied to any story.  Beowulf is no different. We see the main character, Beowulf, defeat Grendel and his mother. In the last portion of the story we see Beowulf battle a fire breathing dragon. He fights the monsters with inhuman strength; surviving the bare knuckles fight with Grendel, the underwater struggle with the monster's mother, and the ...

     The question "is Grendal's mother evil" is going to be a tricky one to answer. From Beowulf's perspective, she is considered as evil. For starters, she attacked them. She also killed and took the body with her so that "the Danes could not burn the dead body" (145). When Beowulf went to attack her, he said that he was barely able to escape with his life. To him, she was a cruel monster that deserved to die.     But why did Gendal's mother attack them, and why did she act out of as much rage as she did. Well for one she is mother whose baby was killed. For mothers, their kids are there life; if anything happens to them, they are going to fight with there life to keep them safe. Grendal's mother is only acting out of her natural instinct to protect her child. So from her perspective she is only doing her job as a mother.     So Grendal's mother is justified in her actions for avenging her son then, right? Not exactly. Its one thing to protect h...

       What is good and what is evil? Some people would have us believe that there is no definite good or evil and others would also contend that there are concrete definitions for good and evil. But in the case of Beowulf, is Grendel's mother evil? Does she exhibit good qualities or bad qualities? Her story is not very black and white in my opinion and if her story had been told from a different perspective then perhaps we would be more sympathetic for her and share in her grief. She was not some wild beast attacking people solely for the act of attacking. She was retaliating. Her child had been taken from her, so surely she was motivated by sadness and a feeling of loss.       Does that excuse the damage and heartache she caused for other people? Of course not. As the old adage says, "Two wrongs don't make a right." You could look at the situation from another perspective. If the townspeople were not going to bring justice for the death of her s...

Okay, I know that we talked a little bit about the treasure gained by Beowulf in the barrow, but now I am really getting into the discussion. It seems that there are contradictory ideas concerning the weapons and treasures of the past in Beowulf . On one hand, a common theme that runs throughout the story is the tried and true ideal, the belief that since something worked so well in the past, it must still work today. There are many places where this idea is prevalent, like the armor bestowed upon Wiglaf or Beowulf's sword Naegling, which, "...infallible before that day, / failed when he unsheathed it, as it never should have" (2620-2625, 2585-2586). Like many items we in the present hold dear, like the Bible, the sword and armor featured above have gone through the test of time and succeeded; therefore, they will last forever in their owners' minds. In contrast, all the items that had been proven true before Beowulf's time suddenly fell to pieces, disproving thei...

 I enjoyed reading Beowulf and discussing the text in class. There are several interesting questions and thoughts that come from reading an awesome work of poetry like this one. While reading, I noticed a few random things that I do not necessarily understand why they are in the text. They seem to be added in randomly with little to no point. If they are in the text, they must be of some importance. However, I do not understand the importance.  The main time I saw this was near the end of the text where it says, “A Geat woman to sing out and grief; /  with hair bound up, she unburden herself / with her worst fears, a wild litany / of nightmare and lament: her nation invited, enemies on the rampage, bodies in piles, slavery and abasement” (3150-3155). This quote is after Beowulf has died and they have had his funeral. I was surprised to see this quote. It seems random. The author does not express who this woman is in specifics, only that she is a Geat. Initially, I did no...

Of the various questions given to us I will be focusing on the topic of whether or not Beowulf won at the end of his life. After ascending to the throne to rule the Geats, Beowulf is faced with his third and final challenge: the dragon of the barrow. His pride is his eventual downfall as he recalls his days of glory fighting Grendel and Grendel's mother, a time when he was seemingly invincible and could take on both evil entities alone. But now, 50 years later, age has caught up to the valiant hero, and Beowulf is no longer the powerhouse he used to be. Regardless of how age has affected him, Beowulf insists on taking the dragon down alone, ultimately succeeding but dying in the process.  Before determining whether or not Beowulf won this battle, I think it's important to take a step back and evaluate not just this singular encounter but the entirety of his life. He served as a defender and hero of the Danes by ridding the land of Grendel single-handedly, defeating what the ent...