Shay Cooper Dr.

Jacobs December 14, 2009 Beowulf Grendel As a member of modern day America the idea of exile does not induce any sort of fear. In fact there were times as a child, being number five of six children, that I wished I could be an exile just so I could get away from everyone. So it's strange to think that at one point that exile was something akin to the death penalty. During times where society was an integral part of everyday life it's not a surprise for the thought of exile to be a scary one. In Beowulf we are introduced to an exile as a monster. Grendel terrorizes Heorot because the sounds of joyous togetherness hurt him. The Beowulf poet never really tells us that Grendel is an exile from society. However there are many things that are said about Grendel that makes me think that he is not just a monster but a man that has become monsterized. In this paper I will discuss the idea of the exile, in Anglo-Saxon literature, in the Cain tradition, and in Beowulf. During the time that Beowulf was set the idea of society was an important one. Often people stayed together not just for the company but for safety as well. If you stayed within your community it was almost always guaranteed that someone would be there to protect and take care of you and your family. If anything happened to you, your lord would be sure that your family was taken

care of. You also had somewhere to belong. Given that lineage was important, especially to those of noble birth, if you were exiled you were no longer a member of any lineage. You no longer exist according to the society of which you were a part. Exsilium is term referring to self-banishment when trying to escape prosecution for a crime and later become an indicator for banishment (Scullard). This term seems to be a forefather of our word exile. Although the idea of exile is not something that one goes into voluntarily. After a time exsilium became a legal institution, when magistrates were strictly ordered to allow the condemned person time to escape before executing the capital sentence (pg 496). The idea of exsilium became a substitute for the death penalty during the Republic and that idea seems to have carried on. When someone was exiled they became dead to that society so basically the individual was condemned to death. Even if the exile managed to integrate into another society they would never really be able to be a part of it. There would always be that stigma that they had been banished. So even then the exile would have no society. He would be left alone to wander the land or sea in search of what he could no longer have. Exile,in one form or the other, is a pretty common theme in old AngloSaxon poetry. Some of the more popular poems are The Wanderer and The Seafarer. In both poems you have a male figure speaking about how his life once was and telling us how much he misses it. Also in both poems the protagonist realizes that the only way he will achieve that sort of oneness again

will be in his salvation. According to Gordon these Anglo-Saxon poems are elegies, which was a common style. R. H. W. Rosteutscher has brought forward a theory that in Anglo-Saxon elegy, under the influence of Christian ideas, the state of exile itself, its loneliness and suffering, came to be regarded in poetic convention as a sort of 'pilgrim's progress' that would bring the sufferer nearer to the hope of heavenly life (Gordon, 11). Rosteutscher further believes that the exile's lament in these poems is intended to be symbolic, a convention used to signify the suffering that man must go through on earth to attain eternal bliss. For these two poems I can see how this theory could work. After all both are permeated with Christian allegory. They both realize that the suffering they are currently going through or have gone through will eventually pay out big later. Cain is the most widely known exile in the world. After he murdered his brother he became exiled. He could not find any peace anywhere. Depending on the version you have your hands on, the tale can be different but they are all the same in the fact that Cain killed his brother Abel and because of that he was cursed/exiled by God. He is exiled from all human community and intercourse and thought appropriate to his crime and any similar crime (Williams, 25). Because of this curse Cain is often thought of as a monster figure or rather his descendents are thought of as monsters. One of the reasons being that he had a strong association with animals because he was a worker of the earth. Because of this association it is thought that allegorically the association with the animal permitted the use of Cain as a figure for animal appetite, often specified as blood-lust (21). This could have been one of the

reasons he went into such a rage against his brother and committed murder. Because he violated nature by the drinking of human blood Cain is considered unnatural. Because of this unnaturalness he is separated from nature and that is the basis for the representation of him and his descendents as monster.(24). It is this idea of Cain's descendents as monsters that carries on through literature. In Beowulf Grendel is associated with Cain in the poem. Grendel is considered a monster by all everyone. The very first time we meet Grendel we are introduced to the idea that he is descended from Cain. Grendel lives among the beasts in the mere which is another thing that is associated with Cain as he was thought to have sought out a place among the beasts which is an important monster tradition. Williams goes so far to say that Grendel attacks Heorot because he is outlawed (forscrifen) with Cain's family, a band dedicated to perpetuating their characteristic crimes, the destruction of kin. And Grendel's murder of all the individuals within Heorot could be considered killing kin seeing as how such a band of men are often thought of as brothers. Grendel is not a monster. Not once is monster said in the Old English text. Instead, I think of Grendel as being exiled from society and thus thought of as a monster. It is perhaps most fruitful to see him as a symbolically monstrous version of a perverted man, displaying all the characteristics we would expect in a man perverted by sin, but on the exaggerated scale befitting his monstrous dimensions (Andrew, 405). He is tortured by the fact that he can no longer be a member of the society and it is the noise of happiness that draws him back out of his shadowy mere where he lives, I think, in part to show

the others just how his life has been as a exile. Cain is the abhorred other according to Nelson, and is a threat to his society (Nelson, 468). Grendel fits into that mold easily because of his acts of violence against the society. Grendel's attacks on Heorot are the ultimate violation to the hall. Not only does he violate that idea of brotherhood in arms he goes so far as to eat/drink his victims blood. This image monsterizes Grendel more than almost anything else. Cannibalism is so abhorred and the drinking of blood so taboo that anyone who does it is considered at once evil and a monster. Grendel is said to be a 'mearc-stapa,' a walker of bourdries (Nelson, 469). Another reason I like to believe that Grendel was at sometime a human is because the men of Heorot expect him to behave according to the social norm. When, instead of paying a victims family for his murder, he continues to slaughter and ravage the hall, the men are upset by it. Because they expect him to behave accordingly leads me to believe that they at one time might have known him as a man. Nelson says that the members of Heorot implicitly recognize a trace of the human, a vague reference to a capacity for choice and a lost history of moral struggle (Nelson, 474) Another reason that I believe that Grendel is an outcast because we as readers are given insight into how Grendel feels and into his mental torment. Grendel is the only character that we get such detail into his world. Grendel demonstrates the horror of a mind confined to interiority by the excesses of its own psychological condition (p.325) according to Near. I am a believer that Grendel's psychological condition is because of the fact that he was likely

forced out of a society that he once belonged to. Because he was deprived of that social contact that we as creatures seem to need his mind became depraved. When he heard the people of the hall singing we are told that it hurt his ears to hear. I think that night he just snapped and became one of the monsters he had been forced to live with and so his rampage of Heorot began. From what I've gathered in class this poem far out dates it's written form so even though the Cain tradition was used so often Grendel could have been any other exile. But because this poem was written by someone very well versed in what parts of the Bible were available then it is likely that he or she decided to sort of slide Grendel into the Cain tradition slot. It's not hard to do since there are some many similarities between the two exiles. Cain is a murderer. Grendel is a murderer. Cain is forced to live with beasts. Grendel is surrounded by monsters where he dwells. Cain is forced to live in a wasteland. Grendel lives in a marsh. Both characters succumb to blood lust. And both past saving. I think that the poet could see these elements within the original (or as near original) oral poem and decided to bring in the Christina elements to help his audience to fully understand exactly who Grendel was. Grendel's exile was not of his own doing, it was likely forced upon him. Whereas, and I'll only mention this briefly, Beowulf himself seems to be an outcast and voluntarily so. Granted Beowulf does not physically live outside of his society but he seems to live outside of it psychologically. Beowulf has a set of ideals that he believes to be the proper truths of the world and yet they so

often do not match up with reality. I believe that Beowulf sets himself apart from the others because of this. One example of his exile is that he insists on fighting alone both with Grendel, his mother, and the dragon. Granted the man might have the strength of thirty men in one arm but that does not mean that he could use a little help in his battles. He makes these choices knowing that they could very be his last because of them. It is fully my belief that if exile was still thought about today as it was hundreds of years ago then I think that more people would abide by the law. Exile is not something that one should take lightly. It means no contact whatsoever with anyone you may have loved. During the time Beowulf was composed and even written the idea of exile was equal to that of the death penalty. There are many exiles in and throughout our history and literature. The most famous figure of the Christianized world is Cain. A close second, in my mind, is Grendel. There are many things that bring together Grendel with Cain, all of which would have us believe him to be a monster. Well what else are you supposed to become when you are forced to associate with monsters? It is my belief that Grendel first started off as a man who once shared a bench and an ale with those that still resided in Heorot. And that he was forced to adapt into a world suitable on to those creatures that existed there. Thus Grendel became the monster just as Cain did.

Bibliography Andrew, Malcolm. "Grendel in Hell." English Studies 81.5 (1981): 401-10. Academic Search Complete. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. Gordon, I. L. "Traditional Themes in The Wanderer and the Seafarer." Oxford Journals 5.17 (1954): 1-13. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec. 2009. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/510874>. Near, Michaek R. "Anticipating Alienation: Beowulf and the Intrusion of Literacy." Modern Language Association 108.2 (1993): 320-32. JSTOR. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. <http:..www.jstor.org/stable/462601>. Nelson, Brent. "Cain-Leviathan Typology in Gollum and Grendel." Extrapolation 49.3 (2008): 466-85. JSTOR. Web. 14 Dec. 2009. Scullard, H. H. "Exsilium." The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Ed. N. G. L. Hammond. 1970. Print. Williams, David. Cain and Beowulf. Universtiy of Toronto, 1939. Print.