Grendel's Mother- More or Less Powerful (Post 3)

Throughout Beowulf, Grendel’s mother has been given somewhat confusing characteristics.  It is difficult to determine whether she is more or less powerful than Grendel himself.  The aim of this close reading is to view and discuss both sides of this argument.

On one hand, Grendel’s mother appears to be inferior to Grendel.  To begin with, she is only referred to as “Grendel’s mother” and sometimes called his “dam.”  This leads the reader to believe she is only relevant because of her connection to her son.  She is undeserving of her own name and therefore identifies solely with her son.  Similarly, Grendel’s mother is only mentioned after her son is defeated by Beowulf.  The epic explains that she has lived in the mere for a hundred years and has never been the problem that Grendel was.  However, after his death, she is driven by revenge and replaces her son as the antagonist of the epic.  Her delayed appearance is significant and can be interpreted by needing a male character to keep her in line. 


On the other hand, Grendel’s mother portrays more power than Grendel in more than one instance.  While she was not always a menace as Grendel was, this can be interpreted another way.  This might have been her own choice, showing that she has more autonomy than Grendel who is described to be directly descended from Cain without any choice of his evil behavior.  This type of autonomy portrayed by Grendel’s mother suggests more power and self-control.  Similarly, she portrays more power during the battle with Beowulf.  Throughout the fight, Beowulf relies on his armor to save his life.  He also is unable to defeat her with his bare hands as he was able to do so against Grendel.  All of these examples contrast the previous view that Grendel’s mother is inferior to Grendel.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 17, 2017 at 8:19 AM

    I like what you have to say about Grendel's mother having more self-control than Grendel and I think this can have a connection to her being a female. It is often an expectation of women to be passive and to act only if asked to act by a man so I find the fact that Grendel seems to have this uncontrollable urge to go after these people and Beowulf while his mother is never mentioned as having these urges is very interesting. Although she ultimately loses and is murdered by Beowulf, I think that her self control up to the point of losing her son shows a strength that beowulf does not possess.

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