First of all, let's start this second installment of the Massachusetts Medievalist's summer reading group by acknowledging this part of the poem as a separate episode in its own right-- not exactly a revolutionary statement in 2021, but for most of the poem's critical history
There’s a lot on my mind with this section. First and foremost I feel compelled to draw attention to the hypocrisy of Beowulf telling Hrothgar, “for each it is better,
His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him,” (apologies for the quote from the wrong translation) while the narrative itself, along with essentially the entire cast of characters condemn Grendel’s Mother for doing that very same thing which the hero says is better than sitting in grief. Not only do Beowulf and Grendel’s mother both actively seek out murderous violence, they do it with much the same motivation. By painting one as a hero and the other as a villain, the narrative seems to say that it is not our choices or actions that make us good or evil, but in fact something innate to who (or what) we are, and most likely beyond our control to change. This ties back into what I was saying before about the presence of a god in the story taking some agency away from the characters.
I was interested in the images you included in this post, and started thinking about what Grendel’s Mother might look like before reaching the question about it at the end (which I was then irrationally excited to get to). In my last reply I talked about what Grendel’s species might be, and my interest in the question has redoubled after a series of image searches have suggested that Grendel and his Mother don’t appear to be members of the same species. At least not in the majority of the illustrations and other representations I’ve found. Certainly sometimes they are both depicted as non-humanoid monsters, but at least as often, Grendel’s mother is shown as the embedded images here suggest: just as a woman, usually naked, perhaps with some subtle representative monstrous features. There’s something about the apparent sexual dimorphism of this unknown species that’s very familiar, that has clear echoes in contemporary media. I’m reminded of a trend in portraying so called “beast races” in fantasy video games, where the women look like humans in skimpy Halloween costume versions of the species that the men actually seem to be.
While I can appreciate Headley’s sympathetic portrayal of Grendel’s Mother, and absolutely understand the motivation to humanize her, a part of me just really wants her to be a monster. There’s such a widespread reluctance to portray truly monstrous women. But I want her to be twice the size of Grendel, with algae and moss growing from the cracks between her scales, hooves the size of Beowulf’s head, and a dozen different types of horns and antlers growing out of her head to form a parody of a crown. I want her to have gills and fins modeled after some deep sea creature, and be bioluminescent, and have her eyes in completely the wrong part of her head. I could fill so much space describing how I imagine Grendel’s mother. Standard narrative form seems to dictate that each subsequent challenge faced by a story’s hero should be more harrowing, and demand more sacrifice than the last, and I want Grendel’s Mother to represent that. I know I’m supposed to be analyzing this story, rather than rewriting it, but I would love to see something concrete that shows that this battle was a greater trial for Beowulf than the last one was. I want him to emerge from the swamp, victorious, having defeated his enemy, but missing an arm, and I want her to have ripped that arm off with rows upon rows of mismatched teeth taken from the mouths of various other animals. I want Grendel’s Mother to be a monster.
Excellent point about the hypocrisy in play here -- it seems more substantial than simply a double standard. The traditional critique always looks at the pair of Grendel/Beowulf and the pair of Grendel's Mother/Wealhtheow -- but you point out that Grendel's Mother/Beowulf are also a pair, and they reflect and comment on each other as well. In that sense, perhaps his monstrousness (which Headley portrays so smoothly) mirrors the monstrousness you want to depict in her?
There's definitely something refreshing about interpretations of the classic archetypal heroes that acknowledge their monstrous sides, particularly because they so often already exist in the source material, just without being properly acknowledged. That being said, seeing Beowulf portrayed as monstrous doesn't satisfy the same desire for me.
There’s a lot on my mind with this section. First and foremost I feel compelled to draw attention to the hypocrisy of Beowulf telling Hrothgar, “for each it is better,
His friend to avenge than with vehemence wail him,” (apologies for the quote from the wrong translation) while the narrative itself, along with essentially the entire cast of characters condemn Grendel’s Mother for doing that very same thing which the hero says is better than sitting in grief. Not only do Beowulf and Grendel’s mother both actively seek out murderous violence, they do it with much the same motivation. By painting one as a hero and the other as a villain, the narrative seems to say that it is not our choices or actions that make us good or evil, but in fact something innate to who (or what) we are, and most likely beyond our control to change. This ties back into what I was saying before about the presence of a god in the story taking some agency away from the characters.
I was interested in the images you included in this post, and started thinking about what Grendel’s Mother might look like before reaching the question about it at the end (which I was then irrationally excited to get to). In my last reply I talked about what Grendel’s species might be, and my interest in the question has redoubled after a series of image searches have suggested that Grendel and his Mother don’t appear to be members of the same species. At least not in the majority of the illustrations and other representations I’ve found. Certainly sometimes they are both depicted as non-humanoid monsters, but at least as often, Grendel’s mother is shown as the embedded images here suggest: just as a woman, usually naked, perhaps with some subtle representative monstrous features. There’s something about the apparent sexual dimorphism of this unknown species that’s very familiar, that has clear echoes in contemporary media. I’m reminded of a trend in portraying so called “beast races” in fantasy video games, where the women look like humans in skimpy Halloween costume versions of the species that the men actually seem to be.
While I can appreciate Headley’s sympathetic portrayal of Grendel’s Mother, and absolutely understand the motivation to humanize her, a part of me just really wants her to be a monster. There’s such a widespread reluctance to portray truly monstrous women. But I want her to be twice the size of Grendel, with algae and moss growing from the cracks between her scales, hooves the size of Beowulf’s head, and a dozen different types of horns and antlers growing out of her head to form a parody of a crown. I want her to have gills and fins modeled after some deep sea creature, and be bioluminescent, and have her eyes in completely the wrong part of her head. I could fill so much space describing how I imagine Grendel’s mother. Standard narrative form seems to dictate that each subsequent challenge faced by a story’s hero should be more harrowing, and demand more sacrifice than the last, and I want Grendel’s Mother to represent that. I know I’m supposed to be analyzing this story, rather than rewriting it, but I would love to see something concrete that shows that this battle was a greater trial for Beowulf than the last one was. I want him to emerge from the swamp, victorious, having defeated his enemy, but missing an arm, and I want her to have ripped that arm off with rows upon rows of mismatched teeth taken from the mouths of various other animals. I want Grendel’s Mother to be a monster.
Excellent point about the hypocrisy in play here -- it seems more substantial than simply a double standard. The traditional critique always looks at the pair of Grendel/Beowulf and the pair of Grendel's Mother/Wealhtheow -- but you point out that Grendel's Mother/Beowulf are also a pair, and they reflect and comment on each other as well. In that sense, perhaps his monstrousness (which Headley portrays so smoothly) mirrors the monstrousness you want to depict in her?
There's definitely something refreshing about interpretations of the classic archetypal heroes that acknowledge their monstrous sides, particularly because they so often already exist in the source material, just without being properly acknowledged. That being said, seeing Beowulf portrayed as monstrous doesn't satisfy the same desire for me.