Afternoons of Alterity

Afternoons
of Alterity
A Codex of the
Medieval and the Monstrous
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Afternoons
of Alterity
A Codex of the
Medieval and the Monstrous
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Table of Contents
From Medieval Marsh Monsters to Futuristic Space Fiends
Maura Whitman .................................................................................1
Projecting Otherness onto the Disabled
Sancia S. Huffman ............................................................................19
Monstrosity and the Irruption of Reality
Jaime Griffith ....................................................................................31
Whats Love Got To Do With It?
Andrew Bellush .................................................................................41
Darkness: The True Monster of Literature and Society
Lauren Apt ........................................................................................53
Serial Monstrosity
Emily Mastrobattisto .........................................................................69
Monstrous Mothers and Objectified Daughters
Sara Cruz ..........................................................................................81
Grendel: A Manifestation of Medieval Fears
Deanna Briscoe .................................................................................93
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The Monster Under the Bed
Anna Iuppa .....................................................................................103
Monsters: A Surprising Tool of Governments Past and Present
Caitlin Garvey ................................................................................115
They Walk Among Us
David Buisch ...................................................................................129
Home and Spatial Identity
Laura Lucyshyn ...............................................................................139
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1
From Medieval Marsh Monsters to
Futuristic Space Fiends
The Continual Evolution of the
Monstrous Kin of Cain
Maura Whitman
They are born out of darkness and haunt our nightmares with
disfigured images of brutality and violence, terror and rage. They
threaten our safety, yet capture our imaginations so that though we
may be repulsed, we cannot look away. Jeffery Cohen writes, They
can be pushed to the farthest margins of geography and discourse,
hidden away at the edges of the world and in the forbidden recesses
of our mind, but they always return (Cohen 20). Indeed, monsters
have always been with us and it is clear that they are here to stay. It
is also evident through studying both medieval and modern texts
that certain types of monsters are more prevalent than others in
Western societys imagination. It is possible to track the evolution
of these monstrous archetypes as they continuously reemerge, often
somewhat altered yet still recognizable over the course of time.
One such reoccurring archetype is that of the biblical God-cursed
murderer, Cain. In the rich medieval tradition of Cain monster
myths, Cain has often been described as a violent, cannibalistic,
deformed and exiled enemy of humankind, condemned to forever
wander the borderlands of civilization and credited with having
fathered of all of the malevolent, mythical creatures that have ever
been thought to exist. Placing one of Western literatures most
memorable monsters into this tradition of Cain myths, the poet
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2 afternoons of alteri ty
of the medieval text Beowulf describes the fearsome character of
Grendel as a giant, cannibalistic, rover of boarders, directly
descended from the line of Cain (Donaldson 3). I argue that this
archetype of Cains monstrous progeny has continued to survive
in the modern imagination and can be found manifesting in
ever-evolving forms in popular twenty-first century texts, such as
in Joss Whedons science fiction television series, Firefly, in the
form of the monstrous, cannibalistic, space-wandering Reavers.
Through an analysis and characterization of the monster Grendel,
an exploration of the medieval Cain myths out of which he arises,
and an examination of the striking parallels that exist between this
medieval monstrous archetype and the modern depiction of Joss
Whedons nightmarish Reavers, I intend to show how societys
conceptions of the monstrous endure and evolve over time. I
will also explore the implications regarding what has made (and
continues to make) this archetype so captivating and terrifying in
both medieval and modern thought.
Grendel Who?: The Complex Characterization
of a Medieval Monster
The character of Grendel from the medieval text, Beowulf, is a
manifestation of one of Western cultures most enduring monster-
myths; that of the biblical murderer, Cain, and of his deformed and
demonic kin. Grendel may be the most recognizable member of this
monstrous tradition, having perhaps even become an archetype unto
himself as Jennifer Ferrell notes, Grendel appears most frequently
in popular culture and continually evolves through the decades
as society needs him (Ferrell 934). However, in order to fully
understand the ways in which Grendel fits into a larger tradition
of Cain-monster-mythology and to discover the reasons why this
monstrous archetype is so captivating to the medieval and modern
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maura whi tman 3
imagination, we must first attempt to characterize Grendel, defining
who and what he actually is.
The first notable quality that marks Grendel as other, and
therefore as monstrous, is the fact that he lives on the outskirts of
society. Having descended from the cursed line of Cain the biblical
murder who was exiled from Eden by God after killing his brother,
Abel Grendel is also considered an enemy of God and humankind
in the world of Beowulf. He therefore does not live among the Danes
or participate in the camaraderie that takes place in the grand mead
hall, Herot, which represents the hub of medieval civilization within
the text. Rather, Grendel lives deep in a treacherous, untamed forest
set on the boarders of the Danes land. The poet of Beowulf describes
the harsh environment that Grendel inhabits, noting that his home
is a swamp whose waters boil with bloodand hot gore, are infested
with many kinds of serpents [and] strange sea-creatures, and is
located in a joyless wood surrounded by steep stone cliffs (Liuzza
97). Grendel is not so far removed from Danish society however,
that he cannot hear, brood upon, and eventually take violent action
against the joviality taking place in the mead hall that he is excluded
from. He is therefore an inhabitant of the borderlands, neither a
true member of society, nor entirely removed from it. In this way,
Grendel defies categorization and calls attention to his monstrosity
as Jeffery Cohen, teratology scholar, observes that, the monsters
very existence is a rebuke to boundary and enclosure (Cohen 7).
Just as Grendels place in society is difficult to clearly define, so is
his very body a hybrid of human and super-human/deformed features
that defies easy classification. Interestingly, the poet of Beowulf never
fully characterizes Grendels appearance, so readers are left to piece
together an image of him based on the sparse details that the poet
provides. Such details include references to Grendel as a giant and
misshapenform of a man, and feature periodic descriptions of
a number of Grendels body parts, including his formidable hand
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(the nails of which are described as heathen talons, and most like
steel), his inhumanly powerful arm, and his gigantic head (which,
once severed, causes even the likes of four stout-hearted men to
struggle as they attempt to carry it back to Herot) (Liuzza 66, 94,
83, 83, 103). Dana Oswald comments on the effect that Grendels
otherwise absent physical description has on his characterization
as a monster, writing, By never drawing Grendel in the text, the
poet emphasizes Grendels monstrosity, not his humanity This act
of erasure accentuates his strangeness and the dangers that his
excessive body presents. (Oswald 71). However, though Grendels
physical monstrosity may be emphasized, it cannot be denied that
he possesses recognizable human qualities as well. For instance,
though we are told that Grendels hand is entirely invulnerable to
attacks by iron tools, Oswald points out that, nevertheless, we are
not told that its skin is scaly or green or even rough In many ways,
this hand is just a familiar appendage whose appearance signals
Grendels status as a creature whose body is both like but not like
those of its onlookers (72). Similarly, readers are given a glimpse
of Grendels semi-human status as the poet specifically notes that
when Grendels head is severed, it is dragged across the floor by its
hair. Oswald remarks on the implications of this stating, We learn
that Grendel has hair, which tells us he does not have animal fur,
as few hunted animals were carried into the hall by their hair. Hair
also signifies a marker between the civilized and the uncivilized
Just as socially he exists on the borderlands, so too does his body
occupy the murky boundaries between the human and non-human
(72, 70). It is therefore evident that in terms of physicality, Grendel
is neither wholly other nor wholly human but a hybridization of
both. I would argue that this renders him a fascinating character
to both medieval and modern audiences. As readers are shocked
and repulsed by Grendels monstrosity, they are also attracted to a
degree, recognizing a reflection of themselves in him, and perhaps a
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maura whi tman 5
seed of monstrosity within themselves. This sentiment is echoed by
James Phillips who observes that humanity experiences itself in
the encounter with the monstrous as both familiar and intolerable
(Phillips 47).
The characteristics that arguably render Grendel most terrifying
and memorable though, are his wild and uncontrollable murderous
rage and his unethically violent and cannibalistic nature. Throughout
Beowulf, the poet describes how Grendel, provoked by the sounds
of human celebration in the Danes mead hall, ruthlessly and
repeatedly attacks the Danes under the cover of darkness, drinking
his victims blood and devouring scores of sleeping men, feet to
fingertips (Liuzza 76). Oswald remarks on the monstrousness of
Grendels method of murder, writing, Grendel is not just here to
kill but to consume; this is a hall for feasting, and he does just that.
But Grendels eating is more than ravenous, and even more than
bestial. He devours every part of this body, as the poet tells us, even
the hands and feetsuch excess reveals indiscriminate consumption
(Oswald 76). There is no indication given in the text that Grendel
has any moral or ethical misgivings about his murderous and
cannibalistic rampage. As Jennifer Farrell aptly notes, Grendel is
all action and no reflection (Farrell 934). To medieval and modern
imaginations alike, this is a critical component of Grendels character
that marks him as other in relation to humankind, and defines
him as monstrous.
The intricate complexity of Grendels monstrous identity can
be even more fully illuminated through an examination of the
differing ways in which Grendel is named and described throughout
various translations of Beowulf. Due to the fact that the Old English
Beowulf manuscript must be translated into modern English in
order to be understood by a broad contemporary audience, the
impression that a reader receives of Grendel can differ in significant
ways depending upon the translation of Beowulf that he or she
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is exposed to. Therefore, in order to come to a more nuanced
understanding of Grendels nature and identity, I have compared
the varying ways in which Grendel is named and described through
an examination of three different Beowulf translations: E. Talbot
Donaldsons, published in 1966, and R.M. Liuzzas, published in
2000, and Seamus Heaneys, published in 2000. By providing a
unique pallet of names with which Grendel is painted throughout
the text, each translator succeeds in emphasizing a different aspect
of Grendels human and/or monstrous qualities. For instance, of
the three translations, E. Talbot Donaldsons is by far the most
charitable and empathetic toward Grendel, emphasizing the
darkness, exile, and isolation associated with Grendels experience
living on the outskirts of society. Donaldson identifies Grendel by
such melancholy and humanizing descriptions as: he who dwelt in
darkness, unhappy creature, the creature deprived of joy, the
rover of borders, and the terrible walker-alone (Donaldson 3, 3,
13, 3, 4). These descriptions can be compared to those found in
R.M. Liuzzas translation which, while continuing to acknowledge
some of Grendels more human qualities in referring to him as a
miserable man, also succeeds in more clearly emphasizing Grendels
immense strength, power, and formidability through such names
as: mighty stalker of the marshes, the great ravager, greatest of
night-evils, warriorbereft of joys, and notorious one (Liuzza
56, 56, 58, 59, 75). Seamus Heaneys translation, by even starker
contrast, focuses almost exclusively on those aspects of Grendels
character that render him irreconcilably other, emphasizing his
brutality and monstrosity with such descriptions as: a fiend out
of hell, malignant by nature, merciless Grendel, dark death-
shadow, shadow-stalker, terror-monger, alien spirit, the
Lords outcast, and enemy of mankind (Heaney 9, 11, 11, 13, 47,
51, 55, 13, 89). While I would argue that no single translation of
Beowulf can convey a complete and ultimate depiction of Grendels
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maura whi tman 7
essence as a monster, it seems reasonable to postulate that by taking
into consideration a wide range of even seemingly contradictory
qualities associated with Grendel (particularly with regard to his
relatable human qualities vs. his mortifyingly monstrous ones),
a reader may begin to approach the essence of his paradoxically
repulsive, yet ever-captivating nature. Indeed, David Gilmore cites
this very ability to fuse opposites, to merge contraries [and] to
overthrow cognitive barriers as the source of monsters fascination
and power (Gilmore 194).
However, though different Beowulf translations may characterize
Grendels nature in markedly varied ways, there exists one critical
component of Grendels character that remains universally
uncontested throughout varying translations of Beowulf : that being
the origin of his lineage. As previously mentioned, the poet of Beowulf
makes a point of noting that Grendel resides on the borderlands
of society, exiled for being a known descendent of the God-cursed
Cain. The poet even recounts the legend of Cain, describing how
after he killed his brother, the Maker forced him far from mankind
for his foul crime. From thence arose all misbegotten things, trolls
and elves and the living dead, and also giants who strove against
God for a long while He gave them their reward for that (Liuzza
56). The poets decision to place Grendel within the line of Cain is
highly significant because, as John Friendman explains, The poet
has been able to draw upon a rich legacy of evil and hostility for
the portrait of Grendel, which allows him to transcend a purely
local role. Through his connection with the universally condemned
figures of Christian history he gains a moral dimension not available
even to his adversaries, except in their victory over him (Friedman
106-7). Thus I argue that the Beowulf poets choice to endow Grendel
with familial ties to Cain serves to align Grendel with a powerful
monstrous archetype, situating him within an already rich tradition
of Cain monster-myths whose firmly established presence in the
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Western imagination endows Grendel not only with a heightened
level of legitimacy as a monster, but an evidently timeless appeal.
The Black Sheep: Cain and his Monstrous Progeny
Before exploring the ways in which the monstrous Cain archetype
continues to survive in the twenty-first century imagination, it is
important to examine the medieval tradition of Cain monster myths
out of which characters such as Grendel arise. One such medieval
account of the monstrous line of Cain can be found in the medieval
Irish text, Sex Aetates Mundi. In it, Cains descendents are shown
to be cursed, and are credited with having produced of all of the
monstrous creatures that have ever been thought to exist:
God commanded the descendents of Seth not to mingle
with the descendents of Cain and not to make children with
them, nor to take wives among them. But the descendents
of Seth violated that advice and took the maidens of the
descent of Cain, for their beauty was great, and they made
children with them in defiance of God, so that thence there
sprang the monsters of the world, giants and leprechauns
and every monstrous and misbegotten shape folk have had.
(Orchard 70)
Another thirteenth century Rabbinical text entitled the Zohar,
accounts for Cains cursed and murderous nature and subsequent
monstrous line of kin by claiming that he had been tainted even
prior to his conception, when his mother Eve was made impure by
the serpent in the Garden of Eden:
When the serpent injected his impurity into Eve, she
absorbed it, and so when Adam had intercourse with her
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maura whi tman 9
she bore two sons, one from the impure side, and one from
the side of Adam Hence it was that their ways in life were
different From [Cain] originate all the evil habitations
and demons and goblins and evil spirits in the world.
(Friedman 95)
Such texts establish the foundation for monsters such as Grendel to
have their lineage traced back into the monstrous line of Cain.
In continuing to examine medieval myths pertaining to Cain and
his progeny, it also quickly becomes clear that certain characteristics
are attributed to Cains monstrous kin that readily identify them as
members of Cains line. Perhaps not surprisingly, Grendel displays
all of the characteristics traditionally associated with members of
Cains kin, virtually without deviation. According to John Friedman
in his book The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought,
apocryphal accounts of Cains legend stress Cains violent nature,
his association with the devil, and his degradation from human
status, often figured by his ugliness or physical deformity (Friedman
95). Such violence and physical disfigurement are certainly evident
in the case of Grendel. Friedman goes on to cite a selection from
the Middle Irish text, Lebor Gabala, which embellishes not only
upon Cains deformities, but describes him as dwelling a wild
fugitive, in the eastern boarder of the land called Eden, thereby
characterizing Cain as an uncivilized wanderer on the edges of
societyanother characteristic clearly displayed by Grendel (96).
Friedman additionally establishes cannibalism as a fundamental
feature of the kin of Cain, referencing the medieval Hereford World
Map which reads, Here are exceedingly truculent men, eating
human flesh, drinking blood, cursed sons of Cain (95). He further
cites the Middle English text, Life of Adam and Eve, which details the
origin of the cannibalistic impulse that Cains kin are said to display,
with the character of Eve stating, I saw in my dream Cain gather
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Abels blood in his hands and devour it with his mouth (95). This
feature of Cains monstrous kin, which incidentally is also displayed
by Grendel, is further reinforced by James Phillips research in his
article, In the Company of Predators: Beowulf and the Monstrous
Descendants of Cain, as he notes, Cains descendents are
predators in an aggravated sense. They prey not only on animals but
also on humans. They are cannibalistic, although this cannibalism
simultaneously differentiates them from human beings, establishing
them as monsters (Phillips 43).
Hence, it is clear that the tradition of Cain monster-myths is
well established within Western literature, art, and thought and
that Grendel is a manifestation of this monstrous Cain archetype.
Addressing the question of why this archetype may have been so
captivating to medieval audiences, Phillips offers us insight, stating
For biblical account and the numerous traditions it fostered
regarding the descendents of Cain, the monster is unsettling not
simply because it is intent on our destruction, but also because it
is related to us: the uncanniness of the monster is tied up with the
questionability of what it means to be human (42). I argue that
these fundamental questions about the nature of humanity and
monstrosity raised by the character of Cain have endowed his
monstrous archetype with remarkable longevity and appeal, allowing
it to continuously evolve and reemerge, appearing in new, yet still
recognizable forms in popular twenty-first century texts.
Them People Aint Human:
A Modern Manifestation of the Kin of Cain
In the world of Joss Whedons science fiction television series, Firefly,
the Earth as we know it has been destroyed, the science of space
travel has vastly improved, and people have begun to colonize new
planets, modeling them after the Earth That Was. The heroes (or
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maura whi tman 11
perhaps, anti-heroes) of the futuristic drama are an eclectic crew of
nine societal misfits who live and work as smugglers on the spaceship,
Serenity, flying under the oppressive government Alliances radar.
Their less-than-legal work sometimes brings them to the uncivilized
fringe planets that line the outer edge of the known galaxy, far from
the core planets which comprise the hub of modern civilization and
government control. As they venture farther into the borderlands of
space, the crew encounters terrifying monsters known as Reavers
monsters which I argue are twenty-first century reimaginings and
manifestations of the monstrous kin of Cain.
The Reavers monstrous nature is evident, beginning with the
etymology of their very name. According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, the word reaver signifies a robber, plunderer,
marauder, or raider (Reaver, n.). Containing the root word,
reave, the word is also related to the Old Icelandic term, raufa,
meaning to break up, break open, and pierce, the Old Icelandic
term, rjfa, which means to rip up or violate, and the Old English
prefixed form gerafian which means to lay waste or destroy
(Reave, v.1). Indeed, the violent notions embedded in the Reavers
name characterize them perfectly. In drawing an immediate parallel
between the implied nature of the Reavers and the monstrous
descendents of Cain, it is notable that in his translation of the
Beowulf text, Seamus Heaney also refers to the character Grendel as
a reaver from hell (Heaney, 13).
Keeping in the mythological tradition of the exiled Cain and
mirroring the borderland-wandering Grendel, the Reavers too live
on the very outskirts of civilization. In the pilot episode of the Firefly
series, viewers learn from the sheltered and well-to-do doctor, Simon
Tam, that on the core planets, Reavers are thought to be nothing more
than monsters featured in childrens campfire stories. According to
Simon, legend has it that Reavers were men gone savage on the
edge of space (Serenity). Viewers quickly learn, however, that the
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legends are true, as the ships co-captain, Zoe, explains to Simon
the horrors that will transpire if a group of nearby Reavers boards
Serenity, grimly describing, If they take the ship, theyll rape us to
death, eat our flesh, and sew our skins into their clothing. And if
were very, very lucky, theyll do it in that order (Serenity). Again,
this wild, unethical murderous rage and cannibalistic tendency
is clearly aligned with the traditional traits associated with the
monstrous line of Cain.
With regard to the Reavers physical appearance, it is most
interesting that like Grendel, whose body goes largely undescribed
throughout the poem of Beowulf, the Reavers bodies are also
suspiciously absent, never actually appearing on screen during any
of the episodes of the Firefly series. Erickson comments on the effect
that this writing and directing choice has on the characterization of
the Reavers, noting, By presenting Reavers almost totally through
their absence Reavers, within the framework of the series, almost
do not exist But although we barely see them, we see what they
can do, what seeing them can do to a person, and mostly we see the
fear the idea of them can create (Erickson 174-75). Just as readers
recognize the ferocity of Grendel through viewing the havoc and
destruction that he wreaks upon the Danes, viewers of Firefly are
introduced to the savageness of the Reavers through the terror they
inspire in the crew and the utter devastation they leave behind with
regard to their victims. In the episode entitled, Bushwhacked,
the crew of Serenity boards what looks to be an abandoned passing
ship, which they soon discover has in fact been attacked by Reavers.
The shooting script of the episode describes in gruesome detail the
annihilated corpses that the crew discovers: THE BODIES are
strung up from the ceiling. Three clumps of twisted flesh. The skin
pale, almost luminescent (Firefly: The Official Companion 89). The
crew also discovers the lone survivor of the attack, left disturbed
and psychologically broken from having been forced by the Reavers
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maura whi tman 13
to watch the murder and mutilation of his fellow crew members. In
shock, the man mumbles a string of incoherent sentences about the
attack on his crew, whispering that they were, Cattle. Cattle for the
slaughter (Bushwhacked). Witnessing such inhuman brutality
causes the crew to question the nature of the creatures that were
capable of committing such atrocities. The crews preacher, Shepherd
Book, suggests that Reavers are human beings gone astray, insisting
that they are redeemable men, too long removed from civilization,
perhaps but men (Bushwhacked). However, just as the various
translators of Beowulf refer to Grendel as a walker in darkness
(Donaldson 13) and a dark death-shadow (Heaney 13), the captain
of the ship, Mal, emphasizes the Reavers otherness and monstrosity,
describing them as a darkness that you cant even imagine
blacker than the space it moves through (Bushwhacked).
It is not until viewers reach the feature film, Serenity (created
as a follow-up to the prematurely cancelled Firefly series), that it
becomes clear that both Shepherd Book and Mal were correct in
their assessment of the Reavers, as the crew learns of the Reavers
human lineage and hybridized nature as Grendel-esque, humanoid
monsters. In the film, Reavers finally appear on screen and viewers
are able to see their recognizably human, yet deformed features.
Comparable in appearance to J.R.R. Tolkiens orcs, Reavers features
are mutilated and harsh, with accentuated, fearsome teeth, pointed
ears, and bleeding and broken, charred-looking skin. Their physical
appearance as hybridized demonic humans is clearly reminiscent of
the legends of Cains cursed and deformed kin. Additionally, like
Grendel whose lineage can be traced back to the human line of
Cain, the crew of Serenity discovers the unsettling truth behind the
origin of Reavers that renders the dividing line between humanity
and monstrosity too porous for comfort.
Upon their arrival on the isolated, presently uninhabited,
borderland planet, Miranda, the crew discovers a recording left
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behind by an Alliance government official, describing the tragic fate
of this once thriving metropolis. In the holographic visual recording,
the young, terrified female officer frantically recounts how a
governmental attempt to perform a pharmaceutical experiment on
the population of Miranda has gone horribly, horribly wrong:
Its the Pax, the G-23 Paxilion Hydrochorate that we
added to the air processors. It was supposed to calm the
population, weed out aggression. Well it works. The people
here stopped fighting, and then they stopped everything
else. They stopped going to work, they stopped breeding,
talking, eating. Theres 30 million people here and they all
just let themselves die. I have to be quick. About a tenth of
a percent of the population had the opposite reaction to the
Pax. Their aggressor response increased, beyond madness.
Theyve become well, theyve killed most of us, and not
just killed. Theyve done things I wont live to report this,
but people have to know, we meant it for the best. To make
people safer. (Serenity)
Therefore, like Grendel who has been rendered monstrous as a
result of the ancient sin committed by his human ancestor, Cain,
the Reavers are also revealed to be cursed human beings, turned
monstrous by the modern technological sins of their fellow
human beings whose medical experiment on the population of a
planet had catastrophically negative results. Viewers learn that the
Reavers lineage is human and are confronted with the terrifying, yet
fascinating realization that the Reavers are not so far removed from
even the films beloved heroes. For it becomes clear that any member
of the crew could have easily become a Reaver as well, had they
simply been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just as Grendel
and Cains monstrous kin horrify and captivate both medieval
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maura whi tman 15
and modern audiences through their connectedness to humanity
and ability to represent all that is dark within the human psyche,
Gregory Erickson offers similar insights regarding the hybridized
nature of Reavers, stating, They are the strangers we can never hope
to understand, or they are the dark recesses of our souls that we
do not want to acknowledge Reavers are both improbably other
and dangerously familiar. And as [Joss Whedon] makes clear, we all
contain the core of a Reaver. (Erickson 175).
Fiends Forever: Why Cain Monster Myths Continue to Endure
In studying the monsters depicted in medieval and modern texts,
it becomes clear that throughout history, certain monstrous
archetypes have thrived in the Western imagination. By noting
the striking similarities between the medieval monster Grendel
and Joss Whedons twenty-first century nightmarish Reavers, and
in comparing these monsters to the well-established tradition of
medieval monster myths surrounding the biblical character of Cain,
I argue that societys fears and conceptions regarding monstrosity
remain fundamentally unchanged from generation to generation,
allowing certain monstrous archetypes to survive for centuries,
evolving, yet remaining recognizable over the course of time. I believe
that the Cain archetype has thrived in the Western imagination not
only because of humans enduring fear of wild, unethical violence,
and fear of that which is perceived to be in some way other, but
because of societys fear of that which cannot be neatly categorized,
and fascination with that which reflects peoples own dark, violent,
and monstrous qualities. Grendel, the Reavers, and all monsters that
appear in the tradition of Cain myths, blur the lines between what
constitutes humanity and monstrosity, repelling audiences with
their viciousness and moral and ethical transgressions, yet inviting
people to glimpse a reflection of the monstrous within themselves by
5009631_text.indd 15 4/29/11 9:13 AM
displaying unmistakable human traits. As Gilmore observes, there
is always a non-fixed boundary between men and monsters. In the
end, there can be no clear division between us and them, between
civilization and bestiality. As we peer into the abyss, the abyss stares
back (Gilmore 191). As long as Cain monster myths continue to
question and challenge the definition of humanity and monstrosity
in these frightening and provocative ways, I believe that they will
continue to haunt and fascinate the human imagination, evolving
and enduring in Western literature, art, and thought.
5009631_text.indd 16 4/29/11 9:13 AM
maura whi tman 17
Works Cited
Bushwhacked. Firefly: The Complete Series. Writ. Tim Minear. Dir.
Tim Minear. Twentieth Century Fox, 2002. DVD.
Cohen, Jeffery Jerome. Monster Culture (Seven Theses). Monster
Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. J.J. Cohen. Minneapolis: University
Press Minnesota, 1996. 3-25. Print.
Donaldson, Talbot. Beowulf: A New Prose Translation. New York:
W.W. Norton & Compny, Inc., 1966. Print.
Erikson, Gregory. Humanity in a Place of Nothin: Morality,
Religion, Atheism, and Possibility in Firefly. Investigating Firefly
and Serenity: Science Fiction on the Frontier. Ed. Tanya R. Cochran.
London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. 167-79. Print.
Farrell, Jennifer Kelso. The Evil Behind the Mask: Grendels Pop
Culture Evolution. The Journal of Popular Culture 41.6 (2008):
934-949. Academic Search Elite. Web. 1 March 2011.
Firefly: The Official Companion, Volume One. London: Titan Books,
2006. Print.
Friedman, John Block. Cains Kin. The Monstrous Races in
Medieval Art and Thought. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press,
2000. 87-107. Print.
Gilmore, David D. Monsters: Evil Beings, Mythical Beasts, and
All Manner of Imaginary Terrors. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Print.
Graham, Elaine L. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters,
Aliens, and Others in Popular Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers
University Press, 2002. Print.
Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 2000. Print.
Liuzza, R.M. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Ontario, Canada:
Broadview Press Ltd., 2000. Print.
Orchard, Andy. The Kin of Cain. Pride and Prodigies. Cambridge:
5009631_text.indd 17 4/29/11 9:13 AM
D.S. Brewer, 1985. 58-85. Print.
Oswald, Dana. Monsters, Gender and Sexuality in Medieval English
Literature. Woodbridge: D.S. Brewer, 2010. Print.
Phillips, James. In the Company of Predators: Beowulf and
the Monstrous Descendants of Cain. Angelaki Journal of the
Theoretical Humanities 13.3 (2008): 41-51. Academic Search Elite.
Web. 1 March 2011.
Reave, v.1 Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University
Press, 2011. Web. 19 April 2011.
Reaver, n. Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University
Press, 2011. Web. 19 April 2011.
Serenity. Dir. Joss Whedon. Perf. Nathan Fillion, Summer Glau,
Chiwetel Ejiofor. Universal Pictures, 2005. DVD.
Serenity. Firefly: The Complete Series. Writ. Joss Whedon. Dir. Joss
Whedon. Twentieth Century Fox, 2002. DVD.
5009631_text.indd 18 4/29/11 9:13 AM
19
Monsters? In the twenty-first century, they have become demystified.
Yet, they are incorporated within cultures to include difference
made [into] flesh that has come to dwell among us (Cohen 7).
The monsters have been subsumed into categories of not me and have
come to define peoples existence as monstrous and dangerously
threatening. Before examining monsters in the medieval imagination,
I was of the impression that monsters do not exist. Truly, there are
natural and unexplained abnormalities within our universe that I
have rarely wondered or thought about because of fear of what I
may come to find. Indeed, such fear can cause the malignant and
benign anomalies of our world, or should I say cultural implications
of our world, to go unnoticed. One such cultural implication is
the inferior treatment of the disabled because of their cognitive or
physical characteristics to which society attaches multiple stigmas
and stereotypes that marginalize the disabled. By examining monster
theory as a phenomenon that correlates with the disabled, I intend
to analyze how society projects otherness onto the disabled. The
findings of my research are based on a mini-interview of two disabled
people along with extensive library research. The implication of my
argument is that as non-disabled we do not know what the disabled
are thinking. Yet, non-disabled are the ones with the power to make
Projecting Otherness onto
the Disabled
Sancia S. Huffman
5009631_text.indd 19 4/29/11 9:13 AM
decisions on-behalf of the disabled. The idea of monstrosity correlated
with projecting the disabled as other has more to do with power and
control in society. Because the disabled supposedly defy the category
of normal, the disabled are forced to assume the seemingly scary
and dangerous category of monstrous other. The idea of monstrosity
when applied to the inferiority with which society treats, views, and
classifies the disabled as monstrous others predates history. However,
the focus of this research is a demand for us to reconsider the liminal
space in which the disabled are forced to commit to the role of other
without adequately exploring alternatives (Sadowski 15). Given
that all bodies are monstrous, the inferiority with which the disabled
are regarded as monstrous others is societys attempt to project the
abnormal characteristics within the self onto the other.
Cohen, in his extensive work on the monsters implications
within cultures, has drawn upon the monsters existence as that
which is distant and distinct but originate[d] within (7). Cohens
assertion has two powerful implications for the argument of this
research. The argument suggests that the monster is a projection of
our thoughts, feelings and emotions. The monster is a part of our
beings just as the monster is a part of the beings that we visualize
as monstrous others. And, thus all beings are monstrous. Cohen,
along with several others, has demonstrated how the monster has
come to signify everything includingskin color, body size, and
in particularly birth defectswhich people cannot control. To
understand the monstrous other, it is necessary to characterize
monstrosity, which The Oxford English Dictionary defines as that
which is a [deviation] from the natural or conventional order;
unnatural, extraordinary (def. 1a), or of a person: strange in
conduct or disposition (def. 1b) and abnormally formed; having
a gross congenital malformation (def. 3a). Cohen also declares in
his analysis of monsters that the monstrous are disturbing hybrids
whose externally incoherent bodies resist attempts to include them
5009631_text.indd 20 4/29/11 9:13 AM
sanci a s. huffman 21
in any systematic structuration. And so the monster is dangerous a
form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions
(6). While these definitions do not entirely characterize the
monstrous others and pertinently the disabled, these definitions
are necessary for clarifying why monstrous others are disturbing to
most, and further emphasize the inability of disabled to be classified
as normal. Cohens assertion of the monster as a phenomenon that
signifies something other than itself implies that the monsters
existence is an embodiment of culture. Cohens argument is not
the only argument to characterize monsters existence, yet, it leads
one to understand how the monstrous races fit into the world. Liber
Monstrorum
1
classifies and compiles the monsters and prodigies
of the early medieval European world that strike fear and terror
in humankind, and requires us to synthesize and critique the
monstrous in all things that are related through binaries. In essence,
some of the richly coherent binaries normal and abnormal,
inhuman and human, power and powerlessness and difference and
sameness are the birth of otherness, which some humans within
their cultures project onto each other. The conceptualization of the
disabled, as abnormal, different, powerless and inhuman despite
having human qualities and features as ourselves, is a projection the
monsters within us. The binaries abnormal, difference, powerless
and inhuman help to project the monsters within us because we try
to assimilate and integrate according to the opposite of the binaries.
The binaries are mutually exclusive and cannot occur at the same
time therefore, the struggle to move from one oppositional category
to the other makes us become monstrous others.
Therefore, I argue that these definitions of the monstrous
certainly do not fit the disabled corpus. However, if we contend that
these definitions accurately characterize the disabled as monstrous,
Orchard, Andy. Liber Monstrorum: A translation. Pride and Prodigies. University of
Toronto Press: Toronto, 1995. 254-317. Print
5009631_text.indd 21 4/29/11 9:13 AM
then we must apply such characteristics to the self as well as those
people, whose alterations of their bodies become a disability that
most people in society accept as normal. People with bodily piercings,
tattoos and even those who have used plastic surgery to make their
lips, ears, and eyes more appealing are disabled because their bodies
have deviated from normal. The fact that we are all born with small
limbs, small genitals, and glands that grow overtime to become
overtly obvious means that we are all in the objectionable category
of monstrous others. Cohen asserts that the monster is everything
that it is and all that it is not therefore, the monsters destructiveness
is really a deconstructiveness that threatens to reveal that differences
originate in process, rather in fact (14). Cohens argument suggests
that difference is not real, and that false difference is easily projected
onto the monstrous other. The projection of monstrosity onto each
other is largely based on human perception, which is provisional
and unstable. Thus anyone can become and everyone is a monstrous
other. Margrit Shildrik offers an excellent explanation of how the
monstrous other can easily become an issue of concern that includes
all bodies. Because of vulnerability:
The permeability of the boundaries that guarantee the
normatively embodied self is not secure. Neither the
vulnerable nor the monstrous is fully containable within
the binary structure of the western logos, but they signal a
transformation of the relation between self and other such
that the encounter with the strange is not a discrete event
but the constant condition of becoming. The idea and
the corporeality of the monstrous is a status that everyone
is susceptible to assume. However, the negativity that is
associated with the monstrous is potentially damaging to
the self. (1-2)
5009631_text.indd 22 4/29/11 9:13 AM
The idea of the monstrous vulnerability and the corporeality of
the monstrous, which Shildrik uses to show how humans naturally
have the capability of becoming other, are important and relevant
in showing that the disabled other and the non-disabled other are
distinctly alike. What then is normal and abnormal? How do we/I
differentiate between the binaries of normal and abnormal? Where
do we fit in? And how do you fit in? Where do I fit in? Apparently
there arise concerns about deciding who becomes objectified and
otherized and who does not. Richard Kearny talks about the laws
of hospitality, contending that each host has the right to select and
decide who to include or exclude, and the right to discriminate. He
also suggests that the binaries must be removed before accepting the
other (68). But Kearneys argument is not in accord with people who
advocate for the inclusion of the disabled or even with relocating
the otherness with which the disabled are perceived. Giving the
host, who for the argument of this research is the non-disabled, full
authority to determine who is normal and by far who to discriminate
against negates Kearneys suggestion to remove the binaries in order
to embrace the other. Sarah Ryan, Morse, Wilson and Penrod,
whose works focus on the inclusion of the disabled in public places,
sees the social world as an inhospitable place in which the disabled
cannot experience a sense of community and belonging. The laws of
hospitality as a concept of inclusion and exclusion have a tendency to
promote insult, because not everyone will be accepting of the other,
in this instance the disabled. Given that all bodies mentally and
physically are not without significant defects and must be rendered
disabled, the disabled and the non-disabled bodies are monstrous
others and neither bodies are without a form of disability.
The degree with which the disabled are viewed as monstrous
varies by perception. In Visualizing the Disabled Body: The Classical
Nude and the Fragmented Torso, Lennard J. Davis compares two
womens bodies, one of a statue and the other of a living woman,
5009631_text.indd 23 4/29/11 9:13 AM
both of which are disabled. The statue and the living woman have
similar disabilities. However, the statue, Venus de Milo, who romantic
poet Heinrich Heine calls Notre-Dame de la Beaut, fits the ideal of
western beauty and is considered normal. The living woman, whose
disability becomes the focal point for horror and pity, is considered
abnormal (126-130). Davis argument suggests that disability is a
superficial phenomenon that has more to do with power and less
to do with being disabled. It is a plausible argument. The degree of
a disability does not determine how someone is viewed. The power
of deciding who is disabled is based on society. As Kearney stated
earlier society determines who to discriminate against and who not
to discriminate against (68). Despite having more similar degrees of
humanness as the self and less quality of the other, the disabled are
perceived as something other than the self or different from the self.
The classification of the disabled as monstrous others comes from
the failure of their bodies to fit the social construct of normal, which
is arbitrary and therefore fallible.
The self-perceived classification of the disabled, which societys
social attitudes define using the binaries normal and abnormal,
make the disabled become liminal and unable to assimilate or
integrate. Thus, the disabled are rejected as having no place in the
modern world. It is however, because of where the dominant power
lies in society that the disabled are regarded as monstrous others.
Can we honestly say that we have never at some point in our lives
disregarded an individual because of how s/he looked regardless
birth defect or artificial alterations? We cannot say we have not.
As humans, we have the natural tendency to stare, or scuffle along
when we see someone that we view as different from ourselves.
David Church and Lennard J. Davis point out that the non-disabled
subject the non-normative body (traditionally, that of a person with
disabilities) to the albeist gaze (3). Even if their skin color, hair, facial
features or their bodies are similar to ours, the fact that they are
5009631_text.indd 24 4/29/11 9:13 AM
not us and are in the proximity of difference, they are put into an
oppositional category of not-me (Margrit Shildrick 2-3). Rosemarie
Garland Thomson writes, people who are visually different have
always provoked the imagination of their fellow human beings
which is the cause of our misconception of the disabled as monstrous
(1, Introduction). Yet, such provocation does not justify the inferior
treatment of the disabled that eventually subjects the disabled to
otherness. However necessary it may be for people in society to form
an identity based on their interactions with each other, the disabled
do not need to be demean.
Although I work with the disabled community, I have never
really asked how my clients feel about the inferiority with which they
are treated in society. On the twenty-third of March two thousand
and eleven in the early afternoon, I conducted a mini-interview at
the Finger Lakes Community College campus in Canandaigua NY
in which I interviewed two people, whose names will be withheld for
privacy purposes. The first subject is a forty-six year old woman, who
is non-ambulatory and has spina-bifida, and the other is a twenty-
three-year old young man, who has mild mental retardation and
suffers from infrequent seizures. Both are self-advocates, they have
attended a college experience program at Finger Lakes Community
College and have completed coursework in public speaking and art.
I will use the woman and the young man to refer to the subjects.
I also want to make it known that their experiences cannot be used
to account for the inferior treatments of all disabled people. I asked
three questions which are:
1. Do you see yourself as different from other people non-
disabled or disabled?
2. Are you every discriminated against?
3. Do you believe that society has done a good job to facilitate
people with disabilities and if they have what do you believe
5009631_text.indd 25 4/29/11 9:13 AM
can be done to make the disabled develop a sense of belonging
with their community?
Although they did not answer all the questions, our discussion was
very interesting. Base on the mini-interview that I conducted, the
woman and the young man asserted that they do not feel as if they
have any reason to think that they are different from other people.
In fact, they made it known that they went to college and are able to
speak for themselves and those who may not be able to exercise their
rights or speak for themselves. The only concern that they have is that
they are unable to enjoy all the luxuries of society because society is
not set up to accommodate then. When I asked what they meant by
that, the woman responded that most times she wants to integrate
and become a part of a social network in society, but she cannot
because some facilities are not set up to accommodate her and her
wheel chair. During our conversation, the young man advertently
told me that the non-disabled are jealous of the disabled because
they are not as multi-talented as the disabled are. When I asked the
young man to explain what he meant by that, he exclaimed that the
disabled are unique in the way that they are accepting of all and are
capable of doing things that the non-disabled cannot do. I asked
him to tell me what it is that he feels that he and other disabled are
capable of doing well that the non-disabled are incapable of doing.
He told me that the disabled are capable of overcoming the barriers
and stigmas that society uses to keep them from succeeding. He
explained that the disabled do that by just being themselves. He also
mentioned that the disabled are being featured in multiple ways,
which he feels is an attempt to make them be more valuable.
After conferring with these two disabled individuals, I realize that
as non-disabled I too have projected otherness onto the disabled.
Like most in society, I have also otherized the disabled because I
have tried to accommodate the disabled without asking them how
5009631_text.indd 26 4/29/11 9:13 AM
they want to be treated. The interviewees have told me how they feel
about themselves in society and about how they believe that society
is placing more value on them. However, I do not agree that the
disabled are being valued as they ought to be. The mere fact I am
not agreeing with what the interviewees have said I am projecting
otherness onto the disabled. The disabled have the power to be
heard, but they are not listened to. Instead, they are pitied and those
with the power in society try to fix them, however the interviewees
asserts that they do not need fixing. They need to belong.
The projection of the disabled as monstrous others is eminent
in various forms and is propagated through the media in print and
films discourses. Society in its attempts to correct the injustices that
the disabled have experience has instead valorized the disabled. The
fight is more a power struggle that propagates anger and hurt. Two
of the biggest monsters that appears when we least expect them.
Monsters are in varied forms that may be cultural, but they may
also be a natural form of embodiment (Margarit Shildrick 9). As a
natural form of embodiment, those human bodies that are deformed
from birth defects and those human bodies that Rosemarie Garland
Thomson contends are freaky because they are products of the very
same people who are visually different and who they discriminate
against. However, such discrimination is an attempt to eradicate
[the] distinctions among a wide variety of [disabled] bodies, conflating
them under the single sign of the freak-as-another (qtd. in Church
4). The disabled are not freaks and should not be categorized as such.
5009631_text.indd 27 4/29/11 9:13 AM
Works Cited
Church, David. Freakery, Cult Films, and the Problems of
Ambivalence. Journal of Film and Video, 63.1Spring (2011): 3-17.
Print.
Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1996. 3-25.
Print.
Davis, Lennard J. Visualizing the Disabled Body the Classical
Nude and the Fragmented Torso. Enforcing Normalcy: Disability,
Deafness, and the Body. London: Verso, 1995. 126-157. Print.
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring
Physical Disabilities in American Culture and Literature. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1997. Print
. Introduction. Introduction: From Wonder to ErrorA
Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity. Freakery: Cultural
Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: New York
University Press, 1996. 1-19. Print.
Kearney, Richard. Alien and Others. Strangers Gods and Monsters:
Interpreting Otherness. New York: Routledge, 2003. 65-82. Print.
Monster. Oxford English Dictionary. Online. 6 April 2011.
Morse, Janice M., Janice Penrod, and Sharon Wilson. Mothers
and Their Disabled Children: Refining the Concept of
Normalization. Health Care for Women International, 21 (2000):
657-676. Print.
Ryan, Sara. Busy Behavior in the Land of the Golden M: Going
Out with Learning Disabled Children in Public Places. Journal
of Applied and Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 18 (2005): 65-74.
Print.
Sadowski, Michael. ed. Adolescents at Schools: Perspectives on Youth
Identity, and Education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press,
2010. Print.
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Shildrick, Margrit. Embodying the Monster: Encounters with the
Vulnerable Self. London: Sage, 2002. Print.
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5009631_text.indd 30 4/29/11 9:13 AM
31
Richard Kearny states that most ideas of identity, in short, have
been constructed in relation to some notion of alterity (66). This
explains the way individuals portray themselves, by what they are
not. The psychological need for alterity appears extremely important
in defining an individual or a culture. Therefore, Sir Gawains
unconscious search for identity in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is
better understood when the Green Knight represents the monstrous
other that he must avoid: paganism. He begins his search for identity,
more specifically his Christian identity, once the Green Knight
irrupts into King Arthurs court. Gawains transformation into a
true Christian is clearly evident by virtue of his atonement for his
sins and final rejection of everything the Green Knight represents.
There are many interpretations of the character the Green
Knight. Lawrence Besserman mentions many readings of the Green
Knight: that he is a dying and rising vegetation god, an archetypal
death figure, or an allegorical representation of the Word of God
or Christ (220). He discusses Larry Bensons view of the Green
Knight as a blend of two traditional figures in romance and other
medieval narratives, the literary green man and the literary wild man
the former, representing the cheerful characteristics and the latter,
signifying the monstrous aspects (Besserman 220). Besserman
Monstrosity and the
Irruption of Reality
Becoming a True Christian in
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Jaime Griffith
5009631_text.indd 31 4/29/11 9:13 AM
explains yet another perspective of the Green Knight by J. A. Burrow,
who concludes that Bercilak can be God, priest, man and superego,
all at once and without inconsistency (221). While these arguments
are valid, they do not bring forth the most significant aspect of the
poem: that the Green Knight is a symbolic representation of the
pagan aspects that are corrupting Christianity.
Julie Hawkins portrays the Green Knight as a being of unspecified
power, and possessed of an ambiguous nature and background
who may be responsible for harming Gawains soul (Hawkins 43).
She also describes the Green Knights possible relationship with
pagan deities of the past (Hawkins 43). First, her description seems
to overlook that the Green Knights power and background are
explained through Morgan le Fay. Morgan plays a significant role
in the Green Knights representation: she creates him by using
magic, a pagan element, ultimately presenting him as a pagan
symbol. Hawkins seems correct in stating that this pagan symbol is
threatening Sir Gawains weak Christian soul. Secondly, making a
connection with paganism by saying there is a relationship between
the Green Knight and the pagan gods of the past is a stretch; but
Hawkins rightly incorporates the pagan concept. The Green Knight
becomes the embodiment of paganism in this poem in two ways:
First, his transformation through Morgan le Fay by magic, thus
rendering him a magical, pagan creation; and second, his chapel and
physical appearance resemble demonic characteristics.
Morgan le Fay is associated with paganism through her title alone:
le Fay which means fairy in French, suggests a connection with the
supernatural, thus pagan world (Darrah 77). Aside from this direct
connection, she is referred to as a goddess in Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight (Armitage 2452); it is unlikely that this idea developed
in the Middle Ages, meaning she possibly originated from a pagan
deity (Darrah 77). The factors which associate her with a pagan
goddess are her connections with water, her ability to morph into
5009631_text.indd 32 4/29/11 9:13 AM
j ai me gri ffi th 33
animals, and her magical control (Darrah 79). The Green knight
provides a description of Morgans power when he states in my
manor lives the mighty Morgan le Fay, / so adept and adroit in the
dark arts, / who learned magic from Merlin (Thurgh might of
Morgne la Faye, that in my hous lenges, / And koyntyse of clergye,
bi craftes wel lerned. / The maystres of Merlyn, mony ho has taken)
(2446-2448). Since possession of magical control links Morgan with
paganism, then anything upon which she uses her magical powers
will also represent paganism, i.e. the Green Knight. As Markman
rightly states Sir Bercilaks marvelous transformation into the Green
Knight is the direct manifestation of Morgan le Fays magical power
(580). This magical transformation establishes the Green Knights
association with the pagan world. As the central pagan symbol in
this poem irrupting Gawains reality, Gawain is unconsciously lured
into searching for his true Christian identity and overcoming these
pagan barriers.
The Green Knight is connected with Paganism not only because
of Morgan le Fay, but also because of the demonic elements
describing him and his habitat. The most sinister of these physical
characteristics are his rede eyes (304). Since this knight is entirely
emerald green (And overall enker grene), these red eyes are all
the more prominent (150). According to Hawkins, the color red can
indicate anger, strength, masculine vigor, drunkenness, debauchery,
corruption, malignancy, ill-heath in the soul, or death (50). With
these various interpretations, none fits better than the association
with the supernatural. The color red is often associated with demonic
creatures or the devil. By recognizing the eyes, the poem suggests that
fear extends from being observed by a supernatural power (Hawkins
50). The red eyes enhance the monstrosity of the Green Knight. Some
interpretations regard the Green Knight as the Devil because of the
disturbing descriptions of his environment, such as the devils lair
(Whether this be the grene chapelle) (2186). Gawain continues by
5009631_text.indd 33 4/29/11 9:13 AM
describing his fears of this place and referencing the devil: Satan
himself / has tricked me in this tryst, intending to destroy me
(the fende, in my five wyttes, / that has stoken me this steven to
strye me here) (2193-2194). Corinne Saunders states that magic is
demonic, whereas miracles occur through faith (202). Thus, the
Green Knights demonization further associates him with magic. If
this is the case, then it is not only his red eyes but also his disturbing
environment that make the Green Knight demonic. Once again he
is connected to the magical, pagan world emphasizing the concept
that to be demonic means to be pagan. It is this pagan world that
Gawain discards after his atonement for his sins.
The irruption of the textual reality begins at King Arthurs court
as a fearful form appeared, framed in the door (Ther hales in
at the halle dor an aghlich mayster) indicating the Green Knights
arrival (136). Bringing with him the pagan association, he disrupts
the lovely illusory bubble, or what they see as their perfect reality
(Weiss 4). In truth, this disruption brings to light that their reality has
some flaws since a pagan element has appeared. After experiencing
his own faults of accepting paganism, Gawain eventually establishes
that a Christian reality should eliminate these pagan imperfections.
Gawain recites what seems like heartfelt prayers: let God be my
guide (as God wyl me wysse) (549) and Let the Lord decide
(Let God worche!) (2208). However, as soon as he is tested, he
resorts to pagan methods of magic to save him: for instance, the
green girdle. Sweeney explains how Gawain compromised his faith
by choosing magic over reliance on God when he took the girdle
for immortal protection (147). He simply could not resist when he
discoverd the power knitted within the belt, which will save him
from any blow (the costes that knit ar therinne) (1849).
As Gawain tucks the girdle away, he ironically rides to the chapel
of worship. Not only does he speak empty words as he confesses
his sins, but he asks the priest to clear his mind. The priest then
5009631_text.indd 34 4/29/11 9:13 AM
declares him so clean and so pure (And of absolucioun he on the
segge calles) (1882). The priest is not able to absolve Gawain for two
important reasons. Firstly, Gawain does not have true Christian faith
because he chose to confess his sins to a priest instead of God. The
priest is not allowed to absolve people for their sins: absolution can
only be licit if it is declarative of Gods prior and quite independent
forgiveness (Aers 98). A true Christian understands that only God
can absolve a persons sinful deeds. According to Aers, this could be
a radical attack on the churchs claims for its sacrament of penance
(97). The second reason this confession is unsuccessful is because
Gawain kept the magical girdle for protection instead of relying on
God. Gawain must first reject all non-Christian, pagan elements in
order to become the Christian he claims to be.
It is not until he is confronting the Green Knight that he discovers
his mistake. There are three important moments during this
confrontation: the confession, the recognition as a sinner, and the
final rejection of Paganism. The first moment is Gawains confession
when he discovers that the Green Knight has been under Morgan le
Fays spell. He is speechless and then finally speaks with anger,
Lo! Ther the falssyng foule mot hit falle!
For care of thy knokke cowardyse me taght
To acorde me with covetyse
Now an I fawty and falce
My downfall and undoing; let the devil take it
Dread of the death blow and cowardly doubts
meant I gave in to greed
I am found to be flawed and false (2378-23820)
Gawain realizes his faults lie in taking the girdle for protection and
relying on magic instead of his Christian Lord. The second most
important moment is Gawains recognition of being permanently
5009631_text.indd 35 4/29/11 9:13 AM
stained with sin (Spearing 221). He chooses to wear the girdle until
his dying day, as a symbolic atonement and reminder of his sinful
dalliance with paganism. The third moment, and certainly the most
important, is when the Green Knight attempts to offer absolution,
which would be impossible since he represents paganism. He
tries to reconcile with Gawain by inviting him back to the castle.
According to Spearing, the Green Knight takes on Devil-like
qualities while he tempts Gawain to overlook his sins and make
myry (2468). Gawains refusal to follow the Green Knight marks
a transformation and a saving of his soul. By refusing the Green
Knight, he is ultimately refusing to accept paganism in his life, and
follow his true Christian path.
Literature often helps present a cultures attempt at establishing
an identity. Britains invasions by Angles, Saxons, Scandinavians,
Normans and more, evoked fear in the Christian culture due to
the pagan traditions these invaders followed. England seems to
reveal personal struggles with the lingering pagan and Christian
tensions in this Arthurian Romance. In the late Middle Ages,
since England became a product of diverse cultural experiences
and most European invaders brought their own religious views
and culture, paganism became a threat to Christians who viewed
them as monstrous (Hawkins 44). Bildhauer and Mills point out
that Medieval Europes non-Christians living in proximity with
Christian communities could also be depicted with monstrous
characteristics (9).
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain represents the Christian
population within this culture that needs to clarify their identity by
rejecting the monstrous paganism, i.e. The Green Knight. Through
the character Gawain, the culture appears to reject paganism in
order to follow the true path of Christianity. An Arthurian Romance
is the ideal setting to present these cultural tensions because the
essential Christian values are not sustained in King Arthurs court.
5009631_text.indd 36 4/29/11 9:13 AM
Gawain is the epitome of this so called Christian culture yet he
proves to be flawed. He summarizes it in one word: falce (2383).
Everything about Arthurs court turned out to be false because they
were corrupted by paganism. It seems that Gawain represents the
English culture that is trying to change but is repeatedly hindered by
incoming invaders.
This irruption of paganism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
reveals the cultural anxiety of England in the Middle Ages. Just as
Gawain is threatened by the intrusion of the Green Knight, England
is threatened by the many foreign invasions. This pattern of the
monstrous representing a cultural fear is a recurring theme, even
in the early English tradition. For Example, the poem Beowulf was
approximately written in the 7
th
-10
th
century and portrays similar
pagan threats. In this text, Grendel is the pagan symbol, whos eyes
stood / a light not fair glowing like fire (Luizza 726-727). These fiery
eyes are similar to the Green Knights red eyes, presenting Grendel
as a demonic being. This pagan character is also overthrown by a
Christian, named Beowulf.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight exposes the fear of paganism which
also reflects the cultural anxiety. This anxiety seems puzzling because to
be Christian means to trust in God. Therefore, fear of pagan intrusion
is unnecessary because faith in God correlated with protection from
God. Possibly, the anxiety stems from the weak Christian faith which
is clearly evident in Sir Gawain. Another possible explanation for this
fear is the worry that paganism with overthrow Christianity. Better
yet, maybe it is not so much a fear of paganism but a fear in God
and His wrath. Christians may feel they are being punished with
these many invasions. Although these are sufficient reasons, there
appears to be a more important clarification. Due to the fact that
the Christian faith is weak, Christians at this time do not seem to
understand that God controls everything. John Friedman mentions
that Christian thought held that God violated the order of nature
5009631_text.indd 37 4/29/11 9:13 AM
often and at will to show man something (119). Since God is in
control, then there would be nothing to fear. However, Christianity
depends on the choices that are executed. Sir Gawain fails because
he makes the choice to trust in the girdle. The cultural anxiety exists
because these Christians in England, just as Sir Gawain in the poem,
do not have complete faith that God is in control.
Bildhauer and Mills point out that monstrosity is not meaningless
but meaning-laden (2). Monstrosity incorporated within a society
can provide means to overcome struggles with identity. The Green
Knight is the embodiment of residual paganism, which the late 14
th

century English culture seems to want to eradicate. Although it is
Morgan le Fays magic that transforms Sir Bercilak into the Green
Knight, the monster signifies something other than itself (Cohen
4). The Green Knight represents everything that is non-Christian
from pagan magic to demonic attributes. As the irruption occurs
in King Arthurs court, Gawain is revealed as lacking the Christian
faith that the court supposedly represents. After discovering his
faults, Gawain succeeds in removing the need for pagan magic and
redefines himself as Christian. As an embodiment of a certain
cultural movement, this poem reveals how literature can represent a
cultures background and struggle with pagan remnants overlapping
Christian values (Cohen 4). Through the character Gawain, the
poem reveals the cultural tensions, Englands search for Christian
identity, and constant fear of God in the 14
th
century.
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Works Cited
Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A New Verse
Translation. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2007.
Print.
Aers, David. Christianity for Courtly Subjects: Reflections on
the Gawain-Poet. Brewer, Derek and Jonathan Gibson. eds.
A Companion to the Gawain-Poet. Cambridge: DS Brewer, 1997.
Print.
Besserman, Lawrence. The Idea of the Green Knight. The John
Hopkins University Press. 53.2 (1986): 219-239. JSTOR. Web. 24
Mar. 2011.
Bildhauer, Bettina and Robert Mills. eds. Introduction:
Conceptualizing the Monstrous. The Monstrous Middle Ages.
Toronto: Toronto UP, 2003. 1-27. Print.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Monster Culture (Seven Theses). Monster
Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1996. 3-25.
Print.
Darrah, John. The Real Camelot: Paganism and the Arthurian
Romances. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1981. Print
Friedman, John Block. The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and
Thought. New York: Harvard University Press, 1981. Print.
Hawkins, Julie. Ancient and Countless Pagan Threads in a
Courtly Tapestry: The Cas of Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight. Australian Folklore 17 (2001): 43-52. ILLIAD. Web. 14
Apr. 2011.
Kearney, Richard. Aliens and Others. Stranger Gods and Monsters:
Interpreting Otherness. New York: Rutledge, 2003. 65-82. Print.
Luizza, R. M. Trans. & Ed. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation.
Canada: Broadview Literary Text, 2000. Print
Saunders, Corinne. Religion and Magic. Arthurian Legend. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 201-217. Print.
5009631_text.indd 39 4/29/11 9:13 AM
Spearing, A. C. The Gawain Poet a Critical Study. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1970. Print.
Sweeney, Mickey. Sir Gawain & the Green Knight: Making
Meaning from Magic. Mediaevalia 23 (2002): 137-157. ILLIAD.
Web. 16 Apr. 2011.
Weiss, Victoria L. The Play World and the Real World: Chivalry
in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. 403-418. Print.
5009631_text.indd 40 4/29/11 9:13 AM
41
In the realm of monstrosity, the concept of the other is a seemingly
insurmountable peak to conquer. The process of seeking to define
that which is different or new is seen in many forms throughout
history as illustrated in myths and cultural histories from all around
the globe. One such society, that of developing Western Europe, in
seeking to answer such questions posed by alterity within human
existence, developed some of the most interesting answers, building
the foundation for an entire branch of literary study. In the earlier
days of Middle English literature in particular, sometime in between
the 12th and 14th centuries, questions of otherness are seen to be
answered with fantastic and rather poetic fables and narratives. These
attempts actually create so much of what common knowledge deems
clich aspects of the fantasy genre: trolls, knights damsels, kings,
giants, and the almighty dragon, to name a few. The proper name for
this genre of mythical proportions at the time of its cultural reign is
more appropriately Romance literature. This genre of writing has
been studied for decades for the historical perspective it offers on
Western culture.
One aspect of that study has to do with this otherness, this alterity
which is so weighty a question on the minds of Western society.
Those trolls, giants, and dragons have been conjectured by many
Whats Love Got To Do With It?
The Story of A Green Knight
Making a Difference
Andrew Bellush
5009631_text.indd 41 4/29/11 9:13 AM
acclaimed critics to be representations of categories of descent,
language, law, and customsidentified as fundamental to medieval
concepts of race and ethnicity (Huot 373), particularly when
speaking in relation to those giants mentioned earlier. It is giants
specifically that are used to characterize human differences and file
them away as other because monstrous and savage though these
giants are [they] nonetheless have clear human traits (Huot 373),
and these traits are very much similar to what was considered the
normative standard of the dominant (Western European) culture,
but with fundamental differences in terms of appearance [and]
forms of behavior coded as unacceptable to European culture
(Huot 373) and therefore otherized and exoticized.
While many Romantic texts (Geoffrey of Monmouths History of
the Kings of Britain, featuring King Arthur, for instance) give us stories
of characters, usually knights, attempting to defend themselves or
their society from such behavior that is savage, brutal, and utterly
antithetical to civilization (Huot 375). However, one literary work
in particular from the late Medieval English period, Sir Gawain and
the Green Knight, seems to give a clear alternative to assuage conflicts
of dissonance. It is this avant-garde surprise ending which brings to
life a decidedly liberal and more humanistic solution to resolving
differences and sociocultural conflicts.
A fight with a giant will most usually culminate in a decapitation
[because] giants always die in this severe manner (Cohen 74) however
in the aforementioned literary text, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a
beheading occurs and the giant lives on. In fact, the way in which the
plot concludes and the threat of the giant recedes is in the climactic
ending when the differences between Sir Gawain and Lord Bercilak,
The Green Knight, are reconciled. The conflict exists though, in how
those dissimilarities of race, creed, culture, sexuality, etc., are put
aside. Are they really forgotten? Does the protagonist (Sir Gawain)
see the Green Knight in any different of a light at the end of the
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lauren apt 43
story than as the beginning? What force could possibly render the
notions of alterity felt by Sir Gawain completely irrelevant?
The answer to these questions posed in this work of Medieval
romance is love. No pun intended. A love that removes motives of
alterity by overshadowing the superficial differences and enlightening
the deep oneness or sameness shared by all humanity. That love, and
the facets and characteristics of it which define such an intimate
relationship, is the factor which exists in the connection between
Giant and Knight in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that enables a
path to a nonviolent and mutual understanding. This kind of love
is accurately characterized as altruistic love [which is] any general
or nonerotic sense to include the other within the realm of the
perceived self (ONeill 107). This kind of inclusion which loves
its object for that object as it is to undergo a process which might
be termed ego-decentering(ONeill 107) something which takes the
opinions and socially constructed views of what should be and rather
understands something, someone really, as they are. By showing such
a harmonious resolution between two supposedly contrary figures,
that the author of this text, the identity of whom is lost to our
present knowledge that challenges cultural conventions of the time
and presents a more agreeable, open-minded, and synthesized vision
for humanity.
The negative side of this is that the anonymous author had the
chips stacked against such a beautiful optimism actually coming to
cultural fruition. The culture of Medieval England in particular
was a highly regimented and tradition-minded society, with one
convention or another delegating appropriate and inappropriate
behavior for every situation one could think of. All forms nobility,
including knights and maidens of the court, are the noteworthy
victims of such rigidity. Codes of chivalry are notorious for their
disciplined perspectives on how such experiences as love should be
experienced.
5009631_text.indd 43 4/29/11 9:13 AM
This is evidenced by the medieval text The Art of Courtly Love,
written by Andreas Capellanus. Within such a text, love is defined
as [an] inborn suffering derived from the sight ofthe opposite sex
(Capellanus 28) and something which is structured so that whatever
nature forbids, love is ashamed to accept (Capellanus 30), and here in
this latter mandate is what could be considered the first implication of
the existence of exclusivity from love, a planting ground for the seeds
of monstrosity to be sown. Additionally, it is worth noting from this
text places heavy emphasis on the superficialities of aspects of human
attraction, signified in the supposed fact that blindness is a bar
to love because a blind man cannot see anything (Capellanus 33).
Since one major indicator of love is a beautiful figure (Capellanus
33), not being able to admire such a thing would surely block love
from ever truly developing.
Love, for medieval courtiers at least, also seems to only be a feeling
that is expressed in its physical gratification, for in yet another
passage describing a situation in which love is impossible, it is said
that age is a barbecause although one can have intercourse his
passion cannot develop into love (Capellanus 32), implying that sex
is a requirement, a prerequisite to the creation of a love for another.
In its final pages, The Art of Courtly Love is sure to reveal to its
reader that despite all the right ways to love which are laid out in
the preceding pages that [love] deprives youof every real friend,
and takes away all the honors of this world, as well as every breath of
praiseworthy reputation (Capellanus 210), and notice how again the
things which comprise of a happy lifestyle are such superficialities as
the opinions of others and reputation. Perhaps more troubling is the
implied destruction of friendship in the face of love. Love is never
once mentioned to be a feeling which may bond humans regardless
of sex or consummation. It is always and forever a physical emotion
which can only exist in the absence of all other mitigating factors,
these being things like God, wealth, and friendship.
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lauren apt 45
It is textual content like this that seems to imply that the Medieval
Age was anything but romantic. How, with texts like this governing
the feelings of mankind, would it ever be possible for friendships
and loves involving dissimilar parties to be allowed and to prosper?
With concepts of love so concretely grounded in the realm of sexual
pleasure, it is no wonder that any other form of relationship was
at the very least scrutinized, never mind the utter disgust shown
at relationships and attempts at friendship with a human being
considered abject from the dominant culture. The anonymous
author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight would have his/her work
cut out for he/she if they wished to shed light on what they believed
to be the true nature of love and its ability to include, rather than
exclude, any and all individuals regardless of difference.
It was therefore very important that they go about the planting of
such subversive optimistic and compassionate ideals of love in a way
which merely suggested, rather than broadcast. To state a completely
alternate reading of love, one which deviated from the normal ideas
so radically, the author would have to deceive in order to show the
true path to completely altruistic love, the kind which breaks down
barriers and builds relationships of understanding. Sren Kierkegaard
postulated upon a type of love which did just that: deceive. This sort
of deceptive love involves mystification to help the other recognize
the truth (McCreary 43) which leaves the deceived better off than
before because they can now see that love is not a being-for-itself
quality but a quality by which you are for others (McCreary 27), a
quality not ascribed to the greedy, satisfaction-based necessity of love
laid out in the framework of the courtly code.
It must be just outside of coincidence, then, that one can witness
similar behavior from Lord Bercilak, i.e. the Green Knight, who
deceives Sir Gawain into realizing what it truly means to love, that
it is a compassion for the individual in spite of obvious differences
,which can put an end to the idea of monstrosity. In Sir Gawain and
5009631_text.indd 45 4/29/11 9:13 AM
the Green Knight, Lord Bercilak must first remove the delusion of love
as expressed in the chivalric code by, using indirect communication
[because] direct communication will fail(McCreary 30) given that
the one being deceived through that method of communication
would believe themselves to be acting morally and ethically right
when it is indeed false.
Therefore, in order to gain a hearing with this person and in order
to eventually lead himtoward seeing the falsity of what is believed,
one must first begin by agreeing with this person (McCreary 31),
and Lord Bercilak does indeed do this within the text by encircling
Sir Gawain within an environment in which chivalry and its
conventions are still at the center, keeping social order, for knights
are praised thusly: What lessons we will learn in noble speech/
what marvelous words, what practiced methods/Of converse now
that we welcome this model/ Of perfect breeding!/God has been
good,/truly, to grant us a guest like Gawain(Raffel 84). Clearly, the
knight is still the morally and ethically impressive one of society,
thanks to his superior upbringing and ability to follow convention.
These qualities of being able to converse politely according to
accepted conventions, and of being of a good family and class are
those qualities which make up a good and true human being, as far
as Gawain knows, and he is therefore comfortable, unsuspecting of
his own superficial conceptions of love and reality and the potential
they have for excluding and denigrating others.
Lord Bercilak, in providing for Gawain in such a way, also begins
to teach the reader an important part of what it means to truly care
for another human being. He suspends his own beliefs for the sake
of Sir Gawain, continuing a falsified reality which he does not really
believe in and the reader learns that love is not something which
is based on a selfish sexual desire for consummation, but in fact
may require a sacrificemade out of love for the other and for
the sake of the other (McCreary 35) and this is shown repetitively
5009631_text.indd 46 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 47
through the story as the Green Knight offers up, in the guise of
Lord Bercilak, his hospitality, his food, and his wife who will keep/
You company, amuse you until I make/My way home (Raffel 89),
a suggestive passage which implies more than just games and polite
talk. The Green Knight risks his marriage and gives of himself and
his resources in order to provide for the illusion which he hopes will
eventually lead Sir Gawain to a truer form of love.
Given that Sir Gawain chooses, according to the text, not take
advantage of Lady Bercilak, as evidenced in the passage of her final
attempts to seduce him. Sir Gawain makes his last refusal of her loving
advances: He said: By Good Saint John,/ And smiled to prove/ His
claim, Ive none,/ And none will have for now (Raffel 111). The
interesting part of this passage is not so much in its portrayal of
Sir Gawain as a chivalrous and benevolent knight, but rather that
his refusal now makes him appear, by all courtly conventions, as a
failure to the code. It is stated according to courtly traditions of love
that fluency of speech will incline to love the hearts of those who
do not love (Capellanus 35), and that a man who is honorable
and prudent cannot easilycause distress to his beloved (Capellanus
35) but yet in all the seduction scenes of Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, the opposite proves to be true. Lady Bercilak becomes
quite distressed by Sir Gawains loyalty, honor, and prudence. The
pitfalls of Gawains constructed, courtly reality slowly begin to reveal
themselves. How can one, by following all the rules of a love based
on pursuing partners only possessing qualities of a beautiful figure
[and] extreme readiness of speech (Capellanus 33), still end up
not creating any sort of intimate or meaningful relationship with
their peer? Why does the Lady Bercilak feel excluded, perhaps even
outcast? It is because the courtly concept of love is more focused on
an associa[tion] with social order and loyalty [to] kingship instead of
mutuality of desire(Saunders 48-50), that desire being the natural
want to create meaningful and lasting relationships in ones life.
5009631_text.indd 47 4/29/11 9:13 AM
An adherence to social convention, as Saunders suggests Middle
English romance is mostly centered on, equates love with social
order and with larger issues of loyalty (Saunders 48), but it is this
very factor which begins to distort the perception of the lover.
Such loyalty does not define the sort of objective love[which] is
a reconciliation of seeming opposites (ONeill 108), and a form of
altruism that is a passionate affimration of an object but an active
striving and interrelatedness, the aim of which is the happiness,
growth, and freedom of its object (ONeill 107), but rather creates
boundaries defined by certain dynastic line[s]and the stability of
a nation (Saunders 50), concepts which cultivate senses of alterity
by drawing lines in humanity where there were none before. These
lines were used to assign self-identity and sameness (Kearney 65),
and this assignment of identity along imaginary lines of Good
and We define over and against the foreign Them (Kearney
65), thereby creating the fear and anger that create a monster.
While these monsters may be nothing more than men and women
who choose to be different from what is accepted by the dominant
culture, it is that same culture which deems itself superior that
chooses instead to otherize these social outliers into inferior
subdivisions of humanity.
Throughout all of these subdivisions of humanity, an otherness is
maintained. This otherness can be ethnic, religious, or physical but
in any case, it is these differences which translate into the monstrous,
and more specifically, in the Romantic era, into monstrous giants
the absolute picture of something that is antithetical to civilization
(Hout 381), and it should be clear to readers that there is only one
way to deal with such alterity present in the civilzed world, that
they are to be killed(Huot 375) and herein lies the problem of the
sense of love granted by chivalric and courtly codes. Herein, too, lies
the genesis of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a dissenting voice in
the darkness of elitism, it could be postulated, the name of one of
5009631_text.indd 48 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 49
the first advocating voices for ending discrimination and advance
altruistic and objective love as the true sources of human happiness
has been sadly rested beneath the moniker of Anonymous.
The question of how one achieves such a benevolent dissent has
been discussed earlier in this argument, in terms of deceptive love.
However the method in which that deceptive form of love creates
an enlightened view of reality is where the real emotional revelation
lies. The method of that revelation lies in the final scene of Sir
Gawain and the Green Knight at the moment of the realization of Sir
Gawain that his whole quest has been a set-up, a quest unmasked
by the Green Knight, or Lord Bercilak as one which was purposely
meant to confuse and complicate: Morgana sent me to your kings
castle/ to test your pride, to determine the truth/ Of the Round
Tables fame, and the tales that tell it./ She hoped my lopped-off
head would addle/ your brains (Raffel 131). Through revelation
of his true intent, the Green Knight begins to build a relationship
with Sir Gawain, especially as their differences melt away in the face
of reconciliation.
Here is where the process of talking things out, interpersonal
communication, becomes an important process of developing
long-lasting, positive relationships. The Green Knight discloses
his personal feelings to Sir Gawain: the green man laughed, and
courteously explained/you took/ Such plain penance at the
point of my axe/ That I hold you cleansed, as pure in heart (Raffel
130). This method of disclosing personal feelings, combined with
the small tale told of Morgana Le Fay and her intentions, give two
exceptional details of what building true, loving relationships is
all about: Communication and empathy. Communication, in the
form of self-disclosure , is one of the most effective ways to develop
and manage personal relationships and an essential requirement
for mental health (Forgas 1), which is especially interesting when
applied to the situational context, where the Green Knight is in a
5009631_text.indd 49 4/29/11 9:13 AM
happy and jovial disposition throughout the disclosure proceedings
taking place between him and Sir Gawain. It should be noted that
research shows that positive affect should promote assimilation and
thus more daring and direct disclosure styles (Forgas 3), meaning
that the very fact that the Green Knight is disclosing information
in the first place, and then that he is doing so in a friendly manner,
increases the likelihood of Sir Gawain accepting the tale and feeling
a sort of oneness with the Green Knight.
More appropriately this oneness could be termed empathy,
which is described as the attempt to understand, to experience and
to feel things as another human person might feel them(Fairbairn
192), a powerful reciprocal effect of the Green Knights information
disclosure. Now that Gawain understands the point-of-view of the
Green Knight, his more readily able to consider it. This consideration
of the other perspective, the opinions of alterity, would have never
happened if Gawain had not been at first tricked into being put into
a situation where he would have listen to the thoughts and feelings
of a monster whom he would have just as soon beheaded rather
than hearken to.
Whether talking of passionate love or companionate love, two
valid conceptualizations] of love( Kim & Hatfield 173), there is no
doubt that in either sense, given that the two emotions are related
with each otheruniversal[ly] (Kim & Hatfield 180), a strong sense
of empathy and communication must be maintained in order to
diffuse feelings of otherness and alterity. It is this sort of love, the
kind which operates in pursuit of learning about the other, that
which is strange, as it gradually casts off its veil and presents itself
as a new and indescribable beauty (Casey 371), that will effect the
world in a lasting and impressive way. It is this sort of legitimate
caring for the other, as the Green Knight shows Sir Gawain, that will
eliminate prejudices which are preconceived and socially motivated
by the mainstream culture. The Green Knight is a man who is
5009631_text.indd 50 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 51
capable of seeing things objectively, as they are [which] less[ens]
mans implicit sense of alienation and estrangement in the world
(ONeill 112) and can therefore show Gawain the world as it is, a
world with difference and dissonance, but still a real world, a true
world. This sort of love eliminates alterity because it accepts and
assimilates. It does not demarcate. It does not divide, or conquer.
It is not superficial. It is objective, understanding, and completely
impartial in nature.
Love removes alterity. The author of Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight knew that if it were continued to be accepted that those courtly
and chivalric precepts of what love is supposed to be is irrefutable
fact, that mankind would surely confound itself into oblivion and
obliteration out of sheer confusion with its very own standards.
Love is not possible without acceptance of an entire individual,
regardless of what that might consist of. Love takes the monster away
from mankinds borders and puts it into the light so that it can be
seen for what it is. Fear and hatred are the smiths of monstrosity
because they do not solve the unknown, but only demonize it into
something which it does not have to be. Love is the answer to the
questions posed by otherness. True and lasting compassion for all
of mankinds shapes, sizes, and capacities is the only way to create a
universal social freedom within our collective culture.
5009631_text.indd 51 4/29/11 9:13 AM
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Capellanus, Andr, and John Jay Parry. The Art of Courtly Love. New
York: Columbia UP, 1941. Print.
Casey, M. A. Nietzsche on Love. Society 45.4 (2008): 368-74. Web.
Fairbairn, Gavin J. Empathy, Sympathy, and the Image of the
Other. Peace Review 21.2 (2009): 188-97. Web.
Forgas, Joseph P. Affective Influences on Self-Disclosure: Mood
Effects on the Intimacy and Reciprocity of Disclosing Personal
Information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2010):
1-12. 20 Dec. 2010. Web.
Huot, S. Love, Race, and Gender in Medieval Romance: Lancelot
and the Son of the Giantess. Journal of Medieval and Early
Modern Studies 37.2 (2007): 373-91. Print.
Kearney, Richard. Strangers, Gods, and Monsters: Interpreting
Otherness. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
Kim, Jungsik, and Elaine Hatfield. Love Types And Subjective
Well-Being: A Cross- Cultural Study. Social Behavior and
Personality: an International Journal 32.2 (2004): 173-82. Print.
McCreary, Mark L. Deceptive Love: Kierkegaard on Mystification
and Deceiving into the Truth. Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc.
39.1 (2011): 25-47. Web.
ONeill, William F. Loving, Learning And Learning To Love
(AESA Presidential Address). Educational Studies: A Jrnl of the
American Educ. Studies Assoc. 16.2 (1985): 107-16. Print.
Raffel, Burton. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New York: New
American Library, 2009. Print.
Saunders, Corinne. Love and Loyalty in Middle English
Romance. Writings on Love in the English Middle Ages.
Gordonsville, VA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 46-60. Web.
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53
For thousands of years, darkness and the night time have generated
feelings of anxiety and fear within the human race. There are so many
speculations, theories, hypotheses and ideas about why this might be,
and while it is impossible to say which is correct, they all contribute to
the strange and mysterious qualities behind the darkness. The facts
say that fear of the dark is something that goes back almost as far as
human beings themselves, and it is a fear that inhabits people of all
different cultures, races, and genders. What is it about the dark that
makes it such a widespread, terrifying theme? The evidence found in
literature, studies, and theories on darkness and the night time all
suggest the same thing: humans subconsciously define darkness as
monstrous. While this is not a definitive answer, it may suggest some
of the reasons behind why this is such a determined and specific
fear. Monsters are perceived as a threat to life and well being, and
if humans turn the darkness into a living, breathing monster, then
it becomes something that must be actively feared and avoided in
order to survive. With this in mind, it is no wonder the darkness is
so feared, and it stands to reason that, even today, we demonize the
dark until it can only be seen as a thing of terror and menace.
There are many reasons, both abstract and concrete, why human
beings might turn the dark into the monstrous. Nicholas Lash
Darkness: The True Monster of
Literature and Society
Lauren Apt
5009631_text.indd 53 4/29/11 9:13 AM
observes that Fear of the Dark, Even our world of permanently
bright-lit cities, blotting out the stars, has not quite succeeded in
abolishing the animal-instinctive, body-deep association of the
darkness of the night with fear: fear of the unknown, the unexpected,
uncomprehended; fear of unseen danger, death and dissolution
(Lash 206). In medieval times, for instance, the darkness was literally
darker, with no electric cities lighting the blackness of night. People
had a very real fear of falling into unseen ditches, or being attacked by
criminals who could hide in dark corners (Bildauer 135). But if our
fears were related simply to these concrete reasons, would our dread
not have dissipated with the invention of the street lamp? This deep-
seated fear, however, is not often something we acquire consciously,
but begins in childhood. David Kipper points out, That certain fears
occur more frequently than others among children; in particular fear
ofdarknessreaches its peak at about the age of four (Kipper 24).
Still today the fear begins when we are young, before we can even
think about why we are afraid, and it does not discriminate between
gender or race either. Louise T. Higgins states that [Some] fears are
believed to have originated during evolutionary history when human
beings were biologically programmed to learn easily and efficiently
to fear objects and stimulations that threatened the survival of the
species (Higgins37-38). She concludes with this information and a
study she has conducted that Human fears, such as darkness, do
seem to be similar across cultures (Higgins 47). All of this research
indicates that our fear of darkness is something in us from birth that
we must learn to live and cope with. It is no wonder, then, that so
many have tried to understand what the reason for this fear is. Both
through scholarly discussions and a large amount of entertainment
based literature our interest is evident. As we have come into the
modern age, more and more people have attempted to define our
ideas of what is to be the monstrous. Part of this continual attempt
is our continual fascination with things of this nature, because of
5009631_text.indd 54 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 55
the way they can make us feel, but also perhaps we believe that the
rationalization of our fears will help to banish the monsters and
relieve us of our anxiety. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen posits seven theses on
Monster Culture. Cohens theses attempt to define the monstrous,
and, using his ideas, it is easy to see how darkness becomes defined
as a monster to be afraid of.
His first thesis, entitled The Monsters Body is a Cultural
Body, discusses the idea that the Monster is pure culture (Cohen
4). Cohen asserts that The monster is bornat this metaphoric
crossroads, as an embodiment of a certain cultural momentThe
monsters body quite literally incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and
fantasy, giving them life and an uncanny independence (Cohen 4).
While darkness has no physical body in itself, like the body of a
human, the time of the day it represents is indeed at a crossroads, and
its being easily incorporates fear, desire, anxiety, and fantasy. This
makes it almost seem to be a being of living, breathing physicality,
as real and touchable as another human being. When we meet the
night it is with as much belief in its danger to our well being as if we
were to meet a serial killer. Really it is no wonder, for what potentially
hides in the shadowy darkness is absolutely terrifying. Christianity
promoted thousands of years ago the nighttimes apparent ability to
shift into a time of evil, allowing for demonic and spiritual beings
to cross over and walk the earth (Bildaur 138). This might be an
originally religious idea, but it is thousands of years old and still
instills real fear and terror today. Youngs and Harris note that The
night became home to imagined horrors (Bildaur 135), and these
imagined horrors still exist for people in the modern day and of any
religion, whether the fears be demonically and spiritually connected
or other manifestations of our elaborate imaginations. The darkness
allows for this in between time, this place of crossroads, where, at
least in our minds, anything can happen. It is the Quintessential
terror of the dark and its unknowns (Bildaur 135) that leaves open
5009631_text.indd 55 4/29/11 9:13 AM
the many possibilities for things to go wrong. Dreaming is another
liminal and dangerous part of the night. This belief says that it [the
night] was a transforming agent (Bildaur 139) capable of changing
even the most pure, devout people into beings filled with sin and
desire through the uncontrollable temptation of the dream. Our
dreams, like our imaginations, are capable of creating whatever
reality we wish, and the dreams themselves had the potential to be
nightmares, and to transform the night into something even more
fearful than reality. These liminal crossroads created through dreams
and the ability to change seemingly ordinary things, these times of
darkness where the human has the potential to choose a path of evil
and sin or a path of good and purity, are cause for the fear, desire,
anxiety, and fantasy that Cohen mentions. The desire to sin, the
anxiety of potential meetings with evil beings, and the fantasy of
imagination and dream for our ancestors but also for modern folk
make the monstrous body of the night a big part of culture inherent
in human life and history.
Cohens second thesis, The Monster always Escapes, discusses
the ability of the monster to constantly shift, change, and reappear.
The monster cannot be killed, and Cohen believes that The
monsters body is both corporal and incorporeal; its threat is its
propensity to shift (Cohen 5). Again, the monster is constantly at
a crossroad, in between, liminal. The monster not only exists in a
liminal space, but is itself liminal in its ability to be always changing,
never a solid body. Darkness, of course, will always escape because one
cannot hold, control, or kill Darkness. Darkness shifts into shadow
and light, disappearing each day, only to reappear every night despite
our attempts to banish it with our electric lights. Darkness, just like
Cohens monsters, can shift, survive, and constantly reappear to
create more destruction. Nicholas Lash points out the cyclic qualities
of the night, saying The darkness of the night both falls and fades, is
never, we might say, a darkness without rhythm. Each nights darkness
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lauren apt 57
not only closes out, extinguishes, the brightness of the day before,
but also contains at least the possibility of the next days dawn (Lash
205). While day does indeed have to come at the end of each night,
night also must come at the end of each day. It is something that
cannot be avoided, and we cannot hide from the night. The monster
returns each day to haunt and terrify, despite how desperately we
attempt to avoid it. There were planetary events related to darkness
that were also especially terrifying. Especially to ancestors who had
less knowledge as to the cause of such phenomena, things such as
an eclipse of the sun Could be read as a manifestation of evil
(Bildaur 135). The darkness had the apparent ability to occasionally
assert itself even against the sunlight, and to plunge the world into
darkness in the middle of the day. If the monster darkness is capable
of such things, there cannot be much it could not do to the mere
mortal human population.
The next thesis, called The Monster is the Harbinger of Category
Crisis, further solidifies the monstrosity of the night. This section
discusses more specifically the liminality of the monster. Cohen
notices the monsters refusal to be categorized. The monster does not
inhabit one compartment but many (Cohen 6), and this creates an
even greater threat for us because we cannot say where the monster
belongs. While the night is categorized in the sense that it is not
day, it still, as was mentioned earlier, has many liminal qualities to
it that make it unable to be in one specifically defined space. This
category crisis, as Cohen terms it, is almost always a feature of the
monstrous. The darkness is no exception. While twilight is the most
literal in-between time of day, being literally between the daytime and
the nighttime, darkness is equally as liminal. Darkness allows evil-
doers and dangerous individuals to come out from wherever the day
light had banished them, and to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting
human. Night allows for almost all visitations by the dead and
devils, (Bildaur 138) creating some sort of liminal space which
5009631_text.indd 57 4/29/11 9:13 AM
permits spirits to travel between their world and ours. The darkness
creates shadows untouched by the daylight, much darker and more
sinister than the shadows created by the sun, where it is neither
completely light nor dark and where anything can happen. However,
perhaps most liminal and dangerous of all, is that the darkness allows
for dreams. Human beings have an Inability to control the body
during the dark and sleeping hours (Bildaur 140), making anything
possible, and dreams are the physical representation of potential sin
and disgrace. Dreaming also literally puts the human in the liminal
position between sleep and awake, conscious and unconscious, and
we have no control over the subjects of our dreams. It is the liminal
qualities of the night-its inability or refusal to be neither good nor
bad, neither real nor spiritual-that creates the dangers which cause it
to be monstrous.
Cohens fourth thesis, The Monster Dwells at the Gates of
Difference (Cohen7), discusses the idea that the monster embodies
difference. Whether this means gender, race, beliefs, cultural, or
other, difference is monstrous. Cohen says, The monster is an
incorporation of the Outside, the Beyond-of all those loci that are
rhetorically placed as distant and distinct but originate Within
(Cohen 7). This part of the monster is monstrous particularly
because it is recognizable; because its differences walk with and
blend in among us, parading as one of us but are in fact grotesquely
different. The night time provides the means for the blending of the
different, the ability to mask any differences with darkness. It also
allows those who are hiding to come out and show their true colors.
One such example of this was the medieval (and perhaps current to
some extent) view of women as fearful others. Youngs and Harris
point out that the word night was gendered feminine in Latinate
languages; the safe, respectable day was always masculine (Bildaur
140). This negative correlation to women, however, was just the start.
The nighttime was believed to have been the agent of destruction
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lauren apt 59
and temptation, most especially for women. The fear of women
extended to the belief that some women, seemingly ordinary and
law-abiding by day, mutating into wicked women at nightthese
women would remain bodily asleep in bed, but were able to fly
through the night for nefarious ends (Bildaur 139). At the same
time this wickedness was associated with the devil, and Demons
were believed to take on the likeness of ordinary people at night in
order to discredit them by engaging in dishonorable deeds (Bildaur
139). The otherness represented by women and by the devil and his
minions came to its full-fledged menace only at night. The night,
while also different itself in its literal difference from the light and
happiness of day, is also an agent for all the others of the world to
exist among the rest of the human population. The darkness fully
personifies the idea of being different, and shows itself to be even
more monstrous in this way.
Next is a thesis titled, The Monster Polices the Borders of
the Possible (Cohen 12). In this thesis, Cohen asserts that the
monster stands as a warning against exploration of its uncertain
demesnes (Cohen 12). The darkness is almost certainly always an
uncertain demesne containing unknown things hidden behind
every dark corner. During medieval times there were strict curfews
in place in most cities to prevent the trouble making and crime
that was believed to happen mostly at night (Bildaur 142). There
are still some cities today whose officials feel that curfews are
important for the very same reason, because being out at night is
believed to be directly connected with mischief and harm. While
most people do not live under a curfew and are perfectly willing
to go out at night, there is still the modern benefit of streetlamps
and lighted buildings to help the exploration of the darker hours,
making the darkness much less dark than it could be and much less
frightening. Cohen also says that, primarily these borders are in
place to control the traffic in women, or more generally to establish
5009631_text.indd 59 4/29/11 9:13 AM
strictly homosocial bonds (Cohen 13), both of which were some of
the direct fears present in medieval society of the things that might
happen in the nighttime if people were allowed to go about as they
pleased (Bildaur). By establishing borders and creating a fear in the
people about what might happen to them if they venture beyond,
lawmakers and leaders could feel they were protecting their city and
its inhabitants from the deadly sins and harms of the dark and the
night. People genuinely believed, and may still in some ways today,
that to step outside this official geography is to risk attack by some
monstrous border patrol or (worse) to become monstrous oneself
(Cohen 12). It is exactly this that we fear: that whatever is lurking in
the darkness will either attack and physically harm us, or will take us
with it into sin and monstrosity.
Darkness continues to be a monster in definition of Cohens
sixth thesis, called Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire
(Cohen 16). In this thesis Cohen suggests that while human beings
fear the monstrous, we are also greatly attracted to it. This can be
seen frequently in modern society, with our love of horror films
and haunted attractions, but it may very well have been equally
desirable for our ancient ancestors. While the night was indeed
terrifying for the many reasons already mentioned, it was also
attractive in the variety of options it provided for those who wished
to participate in illicit or ill-advised acts. Prostitution, for example,
has been a well-known illegal (or at the very least frowned upon)
trade for thousands of years. The feminine connotations of the word
night have already been discussed, but the negative association
with women went beyond the belief in their witchery and demonic
transformations. A strong association was made between the night
and nefarious sexual practices (Bildaur 146), say Youngs and Harris,
and prostitutes were (and still are) referred to as women of the
night. In fact, according to Youngs and Harris, in medieval cities
the frequency of devious and unsanctioned sexual acts during dark
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lauren apt 61
hours led to the term night becoming a code word for sodomy
(Bildaur 147). The temptation to sin through sexual acts was great,
and people seemed more than willing to venture into the darkness
to gratify their desires. Indeed, the night provided a cover for their
disreputable actions which lent itself to a welcome change from the
light, busy daytime where all could be seen. The monster that is the
night time was very attractive in its ability to hide the sinful side
of human life, and may well have been desirable to all who wished
to participate in such acts. Dreaming as well, especially for a more
modern culture, has for many turned into a positive thing. We
detest nightmares, but the dream world can be a place where all our
fantasies and imaginings come true, hence the vernacular meaning
of the word dream. While the Church helped to apply negative
meaning to the dream because of the harmful effects of humans
inability to control the sinful subjects of dreams, dreaming today is
associated much more with its ability to take us away from whatever
undesirable reality we live in. Night time, therefore, provides the
attractive ability to let us escape from the dreary world and live in
our dream world for a few short hours. Cohen says, We distrust and
loathe the monster at the same time we envy its freedom (Cohen
17) and indeed the darkness is very attractive when it provides us
with the opportunity to experience the freedom of the monster, as
long as we can feel we are safe doing it.
Lastly is Cohens seventh thesis, entitled The Monster Stands at
the Thresholdof Becoming (Cohen 20). This last thesis says very
simply that the monster is our own creation, one of our making,
and that these monsters ask us how we perceive the world, and how
we have misrepresented what we have attempted to place (Cohen
20). The nighttime certainly shows us how we attempt to categorize
those things which we do not like or understand, and while it seems
evil and terrible to us, there are certain things about it which also
draw us in. This, in turn, should make us question our original
5009631_text.indd 61 4/29/11 9:13 AM
categorization, for our placement of women, dreaming, demons,
sex, and crime, all delegated originally to the night, does not apply
to all and is often left open to interpretation. The beliefs of our
medieval ancestors are not the beliefs we share today, and even
thousands of years ago, those beliefs would not have applied to every
single person. We all experience the night differently, and while it
still remains a widespread fear, it cannot possibly frighten everyone.
There are those who are more comfortable in then night than the
day, and not simply for evil intent. There are those who are in these
evil categories we try to place them in but who are not evil beings.
The night and the darkness are concepts we do not understand, but
our attempts to place it into a category simply serve to show our own
culture and understanding, as Cohen suggests, making it definitely a
monster child of our own.
One very important detail to notice about humanitys fear of
darkness is the way it has changed over many years. The fear has
always been there, and is still prevalent in modern culture in many
ways, but is treated very differently than it might have been long
ago. Perhaps one of the most obvious ways to look at this change
is through literature. Beowulf is one of the earliest examples of the
way monstrosity and darkness are used together, and viewed by the
people. Grendel is the monstrous character presented as Beowulfs
antithesis, and his association with darkness makes a clear point
as to how the darkness was viewed by the Anglo-Saxon people.
Grendel is called A bold demon who waited in darkness (Liuzza
55) ,and the text makes it clear that Grendel only attacks the great
hall in the cover of night. Grendel not only comes from the dark,
but when threatened by Beowulf, Grendel is described immediately
in Irvings translation as wanting To flee into sheltering darkness
(Irving 106), for nowhere is as safe for this fiend as the cover of dark
which hides and protects him. Edward B. devotes a chapter to the
representation of Grendel and his purpose within the text, noting
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lauren apt 63
specifically his relationship to darkness, arguing that The simple
association of darkness with Grendelruns consistently through
the poemGrendels darkness is to a marked degree the blindness
of intellectual and moral confusion (Irving 98). Irving points out,
however, that it is not only Grendels association with dark but
his contrast with Beowulfs light that is particularly suggestive of
the of peoples belief in the symbolism of light versus dark (Irving
98). This contrast between light and dark is parallels Christian
Theology, and Gods light versus Satans dark. Beowulf takes place
during a time when the people were at a crossroads between their
pagan religions and Christianity, starting to make the switch from
one to the other but not yet wholly immersed in either. The people
were both literally confused, as Irving suggests, and also were still
largely ignorant of the light of religion, still blinded in their dark
pagan ways, or so the Beowulf text suggests. Grendel is A fiend
from hell (Liuzza 56) who is the enemy of God. In the dark he
came creeping, the shadow-goer. It was well-known to men that
the demon foe could not drag them under the dark shadows if the
Maker did not wish it (Liuzza 74). The text is constantly showing its
readers the battle between God (represented in Beowulf, the light)
and Satan (through Grendel and the dark), or the battle between
Christianity and Paganism, between ignorance and enlightenment.
Irving rightly argues that, Grendel comes in darkness, a darkness
that stands not only for the evil he represents and the terror he
causes but also for the ignorance and delusion in which he moves
(Irving 102). These people are beginning to come out of the dark
ages of ignorance and terror and are coming into the light, which is
shown through Grendel and Beowulf and their associated symbols
of Dark and Light.
After this transition is made there is very gradual change over
thousands of years to a view that becomes much more recognizable
for modern people. The best way to observe this change in people
5009631_text.indd 63 4/29/11 9:13 AM
is to look at the same character, Grendel, and his more modern
associations with darkness, as well as how he is connected with
modern society. John Gardners Grendel (1971) represents a
character equally steeped in darkness, but the purpose of which is
quite different. Gardners Grendel describes himself as both literally
and figuratively of the dark. He lives in darkness, and he tells his
audience that he enjoys visiting the outside world, challenging the
terrible forces of night on tiptoe. However, At dawn I fled back
(Gardner 16). Grendel is just as afraid of the light of day as humans
might be of the dark of night. He is blinded by the light, Morning
nails my eyes (Gardner 13), but says In darkness, I alone see clear
as day (Gardner 12). The night is as familiar and comfortable to
him as day time would be for us. Grendel is also told, and believes,
that he is figuratively of the darkness as well. He hears from the
Shaper of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the
world between darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark
side (Gardner 51). Jennifer Kelso Farrell asserts that, Grendel is
indeed of the dark, but not so much because he is evil but because
humans need him to be evil (Farrell 942). Gardner confirms her
claim through the character of the dragon, who tells Grendel You
improve them my boy!You are, so to speak, the brute existent by
which they learn to define themselves (Gardner 73). The dragon
echoes Cohens belief as well that monsters are our children who are
essential to understanding who we are and how we define ourselves
(Cohen 20). Grendel believes he must inhabit the dark, evil parts of
history and the world, and yet from the readers perspective he is less
evil than, perhaps, he should be. What Gardner strives to achieve
is to make us more comfortable with the dark and the monstrous.
He tries to illustrate the ability of the monster to be less a terrifying
beast and more a rational, necessary part of the world. Gardner
shows modern societys attempt to integrate the monster and give
him a purpose, making him, as a result, much less scary. Gardners
5009631_text.indd 64 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 65
humanization of Grendel draws the reader into his sympathies,
making them imagine what it would be like to be Grendel, living
in the comfort and security of the dark. Through association with
Grendel, Gardner makes the dark seem a friendly place where one
is safe instead of a time to be feared. Gardners work demonstrates
the further shift in the treatment of darkness and the monstrous,
and the differences that have occurred in the belief of what might
lurk in the dark.
These two texts, one from approximately the 7
th
-10
th
century, the
other published in 1971, shows us a broad difference in thought that
has occurred with thousands of years of learning and understanding.
It stands to reason that the human population who have grown so
much and come so far during that time span would need to have
changed their thoughts, beliefs, and understandings numerous times
on topics of all nature; fear, monstrosity, and darkness included. This
shift in thoughts about darkness parallels a shift in understanding,
and, even more significant, a shift in religion. Religion is at the base
of all of these understandings, and only in recent years and specific
places, do we find an understanding and explanation of fear of
darkness not related solely to religion. During the time period when
Beowulfs was written society lived in a world where religion was
the basis for everyday actions and thoughts. As we entered medieval
times Christianity was still creating the reasoning behind many of
the supposed fears that existed in the dark, and most likely created
many of those fears as well. In more recent years we see theologians
questioning Christianitys views of darkness, and wondering if
perhaps some of the Christian views on darkness need not be quite
so negative. Nicholas Lash, for instance, makes an example through
biblical events, pointing out that It was nightwhen Jesus went to
sacrifice for our sakeThis marvelous event belongs to the nights
Night embraces the beginnings of Gods life in the worldIn the
night the child Jesus was bornin the night the man Jesus was born
5009631_text.indd 65 4/29/11 9:13 AM
again from the womb of the grave (Lash 205). He demonstrates all
the goodness that occurs at night, which Christian preachings have
neglected to mention. Our changing, questioning views of religion
have come with yet another parallel: that of the shift from ignorance
to education. We question these things because we have learned so
much over these thousands of years, and our learning prompts us to
ask questions and challenge preconceived notions that may no longer
apply. Our ancestors understanding of the world is not the same as
the understanding we share today, and our new understanding is
what leads us to new ways of thinking about the things around us.
Darkness becomes a metaphor for ignorance, according to Irving,
which suggests that perhaps our modern world is steeped more in
light, both literally, with our street lamps, and metaphorically with
our educated state, than in dark. We fear the dark less today than
did our ancestors because of our change in belief and our greater
understanding, but we have not lost that fear completely.
Today we find that we have the ability to both promote and
obliterate this fear. Our children almost all experience this fear at
some point during their childhood, and most lose it as they get
older, but there are many adults who still experience at least a mild
feeling of discomfort when confronted with the dark. This stems
from, as Higgins puts it, basic human emotional responses [which]
may be innate and universal (Higgins 39). Part of it is almost
certainly innate, but part is also promoted by the pop-culture we
immerse ourselves in. The fairy tales, including Walt Disneys, that
we read to our children, and which they view for much of their
childhood, do nothing but encourage this fear. Thomas A. Nelson
found through his research that the dark forces found specifically
in Disney and similar creations, create a hellish counter-motion,
one driving downward into darkness and pandemonium (Nelson
95). If this is what our children are watching, it is no wonder that
they form a deep seated fear of the monsters in the dark, however
5009631_text.indd 66 4/29/11 9:13 AM
lauren apt 67
subconscious the message may be. This does not even approach the
many horror movies that come out each year, and which fascinate
young audiences. At the same time, studies have shown that
through reading books to young children which contain messages
positively associated with the dark it is also possible to reduce that
fear (Klingman 237). In a society much more complicated than that
of Beowulfs it is difficult to pinpoint the exact reasoning behind
the fear, but our willingness to explore it, solve it, enjoy it, and
define it shows the major differences in the way our society thinks
about the darkness.
Darkness has been called A transforming agent (Bildaur 139),
among many other things, but this ability to transform people and
places has been an agent of good change as well as bad. It was our
fear of the dark that forced us to create things such as artificial
light. It was the dreams we had during the night that encouraged
us to live, invent, learn, and grow. While our ancestors had many
legitimate reasons to fear what lurked in the darkness, today that
fear is not quite as acute. It is, however, still conspicuously present.
To understand and be wary of the dark is built into our genes, and
is certainly important to safety and well being. But perhaps our
newfound ability to mostly overcome this fear, both through our
rational thinking un-tempered by religious prejudice and our ability
to light the dark, with our lamps and our intellectual prowess, will
only assist us in continuing to grow. We are learning to use what
good things the darkness can provide us. Unlike our ancestors, we
have more of a chance to understand the dark, and perhaps with
time our deep seated fear will give way completely to a comfortable
relationship with the night.
5009631_text.indd 67 4/29/11 9:13 AM
Works Cited
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Higgins, Louise T. Cultural Effects on the Expression of Some
Fears by Chinese and British Female Students. Journal of
Genetic Psychology. 165.1 (2004): 37-49. Web. Apr 4 2011.
Irving, Edward B. A Reading of Beowulf. New Haven and London:
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J.J. Cohen, ed. Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Minneapolis:
UP Minnesota, 1996. 3-25.
John Gardner. Grendel. New York: Vintage (Knopf/Doubleday),
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Kipper, David A. In Vivo Desensitization of Nyctophobia: Two
Case Reports. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. 17.1
(1980): 24-29. Web. Apr 6 2011.
Klingman, Avigdor. Biblioguidance with Kindergartners:
Evaluation of a Primary Prevention Program to Reduce Fear of
the Dark. Journal of Clinical Child Phsycology. 17.3 (1988): 237-
241. Web. 30 Mar 2011.
Lash, Nicholas. Fear of the Dark. Modern Theology. 16.2 (2000):
203-214. Web. 2 April, 2011.
Nelson, Thomas A. Darkness in the Disney Look. Literature Film
Quarterly. 6.2 (1978): 94-103. Web. 3 Apr 2011.
Roy Liuzza, trans. Beowulf. Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 1999.
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69
Battle not with monsters lest you become one.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A monster is a lot like a hero. They are both viewed as heroic,
idealized members of the culture and admirable. A killer of multiple
victims is not someone that is generally idolized, but the reversal
of the postmodern perception of these killers has made them
celebrities. Medieval culture viewed this paradigm of mass murderers
as demonic, brutal, and despicable. Medieval European society did
not aspire to be killers of multiple victims; rather, they wanted the
monster dead. The separation of paradigms between these two
cultures demonstrates an evolution of cultural attitude toward killers
of multiple victims. These killers have encapsulated the fascination
of society and many view these monsters as heroes. What is behind
this fascination? Besides the weird perversion of heroism, there is an
aspect of identity and coming full circle. As a society we can identify
with parts of their life or character and that fuels the fascination.
Society has come full circle in the sense that these killers of multiple
victims are acting out our forbidden wishes. In a perverse way society
lives vicariously through these killers, aspiring to be them because
they thrill us. What does this paradigm shift mean if there is no
Serial Monstrosity
Emily Mastrobattisto
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dichotomy between monster and hero? There was a clear monster
in medieval society because they saw killers of multiple victims as
demons. In post modern society there is no distinct other because
we glorify these killers. While in medieval literature there is a clear
dichotomy between monstrosity and heroism regarding killers of
multiple victims, the postmodern cultural lens reconstructs killers
as fascinating heroes.
In the 7
th
- 10
th
century Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, Beowulf is the
hero called upon to kill the murderous Grendel. Grendel was a killer
of multiple victims who took the lives of thirty men in one night
for sport. Liuzza describes Grendels multiple murders as then the
God-cursed brute was creating havoc: greedy and grim, he grabbed
thirty men from their resting places and rushed to his lair, flushed
up and inflamed from the raid, blundering back with the butchered
corpses (Liuzza, 120). Grendel is a killer who is all action and no
reflection (Farrell, 934). In reading this translation Grendel is very
clearly a despicable demon. Jennifer Farrell says, Grendel lives in
the water and drinks human blood. The taboo formation of his
name makes his ties to evil and Cain that much stronger (935). His
murders are connected with consuming his victims.
Nor did the creature keep him waiting but struck suddenly
and started in; he grabbed and mauled a man on his bench,
bit into his bone-lappings, bolted down his blood and
gorged on him in lumps, leaving the body utterly lifeless,
eaten up hand and foot (Liuzza, lines738-744).
Grendel is not the only monster in Beowulf. His mother is also
a killer of multiple victims. Wendy Hennequin describes Grendels
mother as an ogress and an evil beast (Hennequin, 503). Medieval
society did not see Grendel or his mothers character as fascinating;
rather they saw his lifeless, hanging arm fascinating. The dichotomy
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emi ly mastrobatti sto 71
is clear that they are monsters and not heroes. Farrell describes that
Grendel encompasses all the traits that Early Middle Age Christians
believed that the devil had (Farrell, 936). This line furthers the belief
that killers of multiple victims during medieval times were just that,
murderers. Jennifer Farrell makes this point when she says, in this
Christian poem the evil source cannot be complicated because the
hero/villain good/evil dichotomy must be absolute (937). Grendels
mother is even more dangerous than Grendel to the Danes because
she is a warrior on par with Beowulf himself (Hennequin, 507).
To Christians, Grendels mother is the worst kind of killer because
she crosses gender lines to participate in the masculine realm and
can actually challenge Beowulf (510). Their strength and lack of
human qualities makes them very hard to identify with and very
scary to society. In Liuzzas a clearly demonic Grendel is described
as evil who,
saw many men in the mansion, sleeping, a ranked company
of kinsmen and warriors quartered together. And his glee
was demonic, picturing the mayhem: before morning he
would rip life from limb and devour them, feed on their
flesh (Liuzza, lines 723-733).
Farrell notes that the poets intentions are to posit Grendel as the
evil predator of Hrothgars innocent people. He bears the curse of
Cain, which likens him to a brother killer (Farrell, 936). Grendels
relation to Cain only furthers his demonic nature. It is very clear
that his relation to Cain is not supposed to be a point of fascination,
but a reason to really fear him and see him as a monster. Grendels
actions and his mothers are viewed as monstrous. Their killings are
not viewed as justifiable or fascinating. Grendels mothers strength
is not looked at positively; rather it is seen as a prime reason why she
is pure evil.
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Similar to Grendel, another medieval, demonic character is
Grettir. Janice Hawes describes Grettir as an outlaw. She states,
not only does the fight with Glamr change the nature of Grettirs
relationship to society, but in one sense, he has also reached the
point of no return (Hawes 20). Similar to Grendel, Grettir is very
dangerous because he does not think before he acts. After a fight
with Glam, Grettir acted quickly. He drew his short sword, cut
off Glams head and laid it between his thighs (Byock, 56). Hawes
further makes the point that Grettir is not a hero, but only a monster
when she describes Grettir as a cannibal. The cannibal is described
as an evil spirit, so the hero assumes the role of an exorcist, a shaman,
and not only rids the people of a monster but cleanses the area of the
demon (Hawes 28). Grendel and Grettir can both be described in
that passage. They are both monsters and killers of multiple victims.
The dichotomy is clear in medieval literature. Monsters and heroes
are not one in the same.
The dichotomy becomes unclear when reading John Gardners
Grendel. The postmodern portrayal of Grendel reveals the new
paradigmatic view of killers with multiple victims. Gardner bridges
the old paradigm with the new paradigm without intending to do
so. Grendel the mass murderer becomes Grendel the victim when
Gardner gives him human characteristics that Beowulf did not. For
the first time, Grendel is given the ability to ponder and become
philosophical, as when Grendel says, I understood that the world
was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which
we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally
and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes
me, or what I push against, blindlyas blindly as all that is not myself
pushes back (Garnder,16). Grendel is capable of having revelations.
He realizes that the world is just like the bull, it is mindless and
destructive without any discernible plan or reason. Grendels
assertion changes the way he is perceived. He is no longer the brutal
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murderer that he once was. He has become a student who believes
in having an ethical code. Grendel is now modern. Farrell states
that the language spoken to Grendel from the dragon is simple,
yet the language speaks to the post modern age. Conformity must
be rebelled against. Simple portrayals of good and evil are not to be
trusted (938). Gardner plays with polar extremes and tweaks his
novel in order to create a more sympathetic Grendel (938). Gardner
is changing the paradigm and exposing truths about human culture.
The reader is seeing Grendel as a victim of a corrupt society. He
is not the predator any longer; he is the sympathetic victim. The
context in which Grendel was once viewed has been overturned,
and Grendel is now a character capable of more rational thought
than any Dane or Geat in Beowulf. The audience feels for Grendel
because his emotions make him identifiable. Gardner demonstrates
his emotions when Grendel says, why cant I have someone to talk
to? I said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the
rudeness. The Shaper has people to talk to, I said. I wrung my
fingers. Hrothgar has people to talk to (Gardner 53). This line is
important because it shows how introspective Grendels thoughts are
and it is the epitome of Gardners paradigm shift. That line breaks
the readers hearts and erases the images of Grendel the killer and
replaces them with Grendel the lonely victim. Farrell believes that
Gardner is exposing Grendel as a victim to a corrupt society when she
writes, some read Grendel as a Christian mirror reflecting the dark
side of human nature back onto the Danes (Farrell 937). Gardner
further creates a paradigm shift when Grendel questions the actions
of the Danes. Farrell describes that the Danes reveal themselves
to be murderers within their own society. I stepped on something
fleshy, and jerked away. It was a man. They cut his throat. His clothes
had been stolen. I stared up at the hall, baffled, beginning to shake.
This random violence confuses Grendel even as he is guilty of similar
violence (940). Gardners reversal of monstrosity is the beginning of
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the fascination society has with killers of multiple victims. The Danes
are not a civilized society; rather, they are liars, drunks and braggarts
who often fall into brawling over trivial matters (940). Gardners
paradigm shift is not only declassifying Grendel as the monster, but
also making him the hero. Grendel is exposing the Danes for what
they really are; a bunch of unintelligent drunks incapable of the
level of thought that Grendel is. The question becomes, if Grendel
is the real victim what does that make the people he kills? Are the
Danes just fated to die? The paradigm shift that Gardner creates is a
turnabout in sympathy for the killer.
The term serial killer is one that has been adopted by post modern
culture to describe a murderer that has killed more than three people
within a period of time. Serial murderers are people to be feared
not celebrated. This paradigm shift from viewing mass murderers as
demonic to fascinating is troubling. Why do serial killers thrill and
excite us? Mass murderers have become household names. David
Schmids book Natural Born Celebrities explores the fascination
that Americans have with serial murderers. Schmid believes that the
Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a role in the popularization
of interest in serial murder (Becker 2) because killers with multiple
victims are written about, shown through the media constantly and
talked about frequently. The FBI is not keeping a low profile on
serial killers; rather, they are sharing gruesome information which in
return thrills the culture.
One of the most notorious and famous mass murderers is Charles
Manson. Although Manson did not physically murder one person,
he is still considered a serial killer. Together Charles Manson and
Mary Brunner gathered a following of teenagers (Peterson, 3).
Over time Charles Manson created a cult and became one of the
most famous cult leaders of all time. Mansons charisma made it
possible for his cult to perform heinous murders. One of the most
famous murders was Sharon Tate. Peterson recounts the gory details
5009631_text.indd 74 4/29/11 9:13 AM
of the killing, When investigators arrived they determined that
there were 169 stab wounds and seven gunshot wounds. Blood from
the victims was used to write the phrase Death to Pigs on the walls
of the house (4). Mansons orders were always followed without
question. His followers were so devout that the murders escalated
in violence. Leno LaBianca was stabbed 26 times and his wife 41
times (4). Charles Manson is so fascinating because he was such
a powerful cult leader. He had the ability to control the minds of
his followers and convince them to murder over and over again.
Peterson writes that as one of Americas most famous criminals, he
reportedly receives more mail than any other prisoner in the country
(about 60,000 a year). Fascination with the details of the murder and
Manson continues more than thirty years later and Manson became
an anti-hero and something of an icon in some corners of popular
culture (5). Charles Manson was such an icon that the rock band
Guns N Roses recorded one of Mansons songs, titled Look at your
Game Girl, in the early 1990s (5).
Recently USA Today did an article entitled Why Do Americans
Idolize Serial Killers? The article stated that if you log onto eBay, you
will find a variety of murderabilia on sale for anywhere from five
dollars (for a lock of Charles Mansons hair) to ten thousand dollars
(for one of John Wayne Gacys clown paintings) (USA Today 11).
The article also raises the point that despite the fact that the U.S.
produces 85% of the worlds serial killers, Americans consistently
represent them as other than themselves - as loathsome, monstrous,
utterly alien creatures. At the same time, these murderers are treated
as icons, celebrity performers and fetish figures (11). This article
also goes so far to say entire industries revolve around them; they
entertain us in a variety of ways (11).
Jack Levin and James Alan Fox further outline the paradigm by
saying, becoming a popular-culture celebrity is an important part
of the motivation that inspires serial killers to continue committing
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murder. Once they are identified with a superstar moniker, their
frequency of murder increases. No longer satisfied with obscurity,
they seek to prove that they deserve the superstar status to which
they have been assigned (Fox and Levin, 1). This fame causes serial
murderers like Lawrence Bittaker and partner Roy Norris to murder
for media attention. These two murdered and tormented teenage
girls. They dumped one mutilated body on a suburban lawn to
encourage media coverage and pitched others off cliffs (1). Their
celebrity did not end there. After Bittaker was caught, he signed
autographs from his prison cell, Pliers Bittaker and Clifford Olsen
who raped and murdered 11 children, begged to be referred to as
Hannibal Lecter (1). Serial murderers respect and admire other
serial killers. It is without question that Charles Mansons fame has
caused many other murderers to want his celebrity. The murder
isnt even important; the importance is the media coverage and
instant stardom. Charles Manson will be remembered long after
any American Idol winner. What does that say about our culture?
We value murder as entertainment and we have abolished the
dichotomy between monster and hero. The paradigm has become
that the biggest monster will become the greatest hero.
Even more fascinating than a male serial killer is a female serial
killer. Dorothea Puente is a serial killer that rented out rooms to
disabled tenants in her boarding house. Police eventually found the
bodies of seven of those tenants buried on her property. Last year
her home was sold at auction for $215,000 to a married couple.
(Lindelof, 1). The couple looked up the address of the home on the
computer and saw a little bit of the past, which intrigued us even
more, said Holmes. My husband is an unpublished mystery writer.
He was totally intrigued(1). Although Dorothea Puente just passed
away last month, her fame is still evident. She is mentioned in at
least ten books, including author Shane Bugbees Cooking with
a Serial Killer, Recipes from Dorothea Puente (Stanton, 1). The
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book contains recipes from the boardinghouse killer for meals she
served her tenants, who reportedly enjoyed her tamales, stews and
soups, Bugabee said in an interview. She is also a serious force on
the Web, with appearances in a serial killer calendar and numerous
other sites devoted to such macabre topics (1).
The paradigm shift is also explored through the Columbine High
School massacre in 1999 made shooters Dylan Klebold and Eric
Harris heroes in the eyes of some disturbed teens (Fox & Levin,
2). They are heroes to those who do not fit in and wish they could
achieve what the Columbine shooters did. Fox and Levin write that
not only did they avenge the schoolyard bullies and nasty teachers,
but their also famous for it, because they got their faces all over the
news. While not quite a moniker, doing a Columbine has become
a code phrase for shooting up a school (2). The paradigm shift is
evident here because these shooters believed that they were the true
victims. They also had followers and sympathizers that also believed
they were the victims and all the bullies and teachers were the true
monsters. The question becomes if Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris
are victims, does that make their victims deserving to die? These boys
were and probably still are heroes to boys and girls that feel the same
way that they did. They have followers who see them as idols and
they have become celebrities in many disturbed peoples eyes.
Famous serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer reached celebrity status
when in 1991 he made Peoples coveted list of the 100 most
intriguing people of the 20
th
Century (Fox & Levin, 2). Television
is also a place for media to idolize the serial killer. The television
program Dexter is about a serial murderer. The creator breaks the
dichotomy between hero and monster when he says, You may think
that he is doing good, but he is a monster. Hes killing because
he is monster (Lasswell 77). He further explains that Dexter is a
character who is a responsible citizen who channels his murderous
impulses strictly in the service of removing bad people from the
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world (77). The paradigm is evident once again. Although Dexter
is clearly a monster, his actions make many believe he is a vigilante
killing the bad people. What the audience fails to really examine
is that Dexter is a serial murderer who is as bad as the people he
kills. We sympathize with Dexter, therefore we see him as a hero.
Fox and Levin explain that Americas preoccupation with making
monsters into celebrities goes far beyond placing them on the covers
of our leading publications. Their images can also be found on
serial-murder trading cards, comic books, T-shirts, calendars and
action figures for children (Fox and Levin, 2). What does all this
say about our fascination with serial murderers? We view monsters
as heroes and buy memorabilia with their pictures on it. We really
are a corrupt society.
Fascination is not the word that accurately describes the way
our culture views serial killers. The word should be obsession. We
are obsessed with our monstrous heroes and aspire to be them
in a perverse way. It is highly doubtful anyone in medieval times
aspired to be Grendel or Grendels mother. Their murders were
viewed as despicable and horrific. These killers of multiple victims
were monsters. The middle ages had a clear dichotomy between
monstrous and hero. That dichotomy began to dissolve when
John Gardner created a new paradigm for which we should view
Grendel as the victim. Today we have come full circle. Our society
lives vicariously through these serial killers whether through factual
or fictional portrayals. The A&E network, routinely airs killers
biographies, which raises the rhetorical question as to whether true
crime is considered art or entertainment (Fox and Levin, 2). Serial
murder is based on how culture charges it. In medieval time serial
killers were viewed negatively. Today, however, we view serial killers
positively because we deem them our celebrities. Charles Manson
has more marriage proposals inside prison than any other person.
He has groupies that beg to be his followers. When a groupie
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asks Charles Manson to marry her, the dichotomy has collapsed.
No longer are serial killers other. They are a part of your family.
The paradigm has shifted so much that serial killers want to outdo
one another and become a media sensation. They go on to write
books and live as idols. It is a very prosperous career today to be a
serial killer. Why is this? Why do we celebrate mass murderers? The
paradigm has shifted so that our culture views the killer as the victim
and psychologically we idolize the serial murderers. Logically, this
would mean their victims deserved to die. If this is so, their victims
are us. We are the victims that are being killed by the murderers.
Our culture must be corrupt if we almost wish that a serial killer will
murder someone. Do we self-loathe in our culture so much so that
we believe and almost wish that an innocent victim becomes the
target of a serial killer? Our culture accepts and identifies with the
murderer. Our culture must be as unstable as the serial killer if we
believe that their victims deserved to be executed.
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Works Cited
Byock, Jesse L. Grettirs Saga. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
Culture Evolution. The Journal of Popular Culture 41.6 (2008):
934-49. Print.
Fox, James Alan, and Jack Levin. Making Celebrities of Serial
Killers Elevates Threat. USA Today 23 Oct. 2002: 1-3. Print.
Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print.
Hawes, Janice. The Montrosity of Heroism: Grettir Asmundarson
as an Outsider. South Carolina State University: 19-50. Print.
Hennequin, M. Wendy. Weve Created a Monster: The Strange
Case of Grendels Mother. English Studies 89.5: 503-23. Print.
Lasswell, Mark. Such a Nice Boy Serial Killer; How the TV Series
Dexter Glorifies a Murderer. Culture and Civilization [New York
City] Apr. 2009: 77-80. Print.
Lindelof, Bill. Home of Sacramento Serial Killer Dorothea Puente
Is Sold at Auction. The Sacramento Bee [Sacramento] 30 Aug.
2010: 1-3. Print.
Liuzza, R.M..Beowulf a new verse translation. Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview Press, 2000. Print.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. Think Exist. Find the Famous Quotes You
Need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. Thinkexist.com. Web. 20 Apr.
2011. <http://thinkexist.com/>.
Peterson, Jennifer. Charles Manson. (2005): 1-6. Primary Search.
Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
Schmid, David. Natural Born Celebrities: Serial Killers in American
Culture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2006. Print.
Stanton, Sam. Dorothea Puentes Cookbook Is Still Selling.
The Sacramento Bee [Sacramento] 28 Mar. 2011: 1. Print.
Why Do Americans Idolize Serial Killers? USA Today Dec. 2006:
1. Print.
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81
Say the words monster, monstrous, or monstrosity and the first words
that come to mind for most people will be large, scary, grotesque, or
threatening. Monsters have been included and often the main theme
of literature prior to Medieval Era with stories such as Beowulf, Sir
Gawain and The Green Knight, and Grendel. Ask someone to name
some words that come to mind when s/he thinks of the word female
or woman and in most cases the words will be something flowery,
light, sweet, and sensitive. Many will not see a connection between
the ugly monster and the beautiful female.
Going back many years, the concept of the monster and the
female were not only deeply connected but one and the same.
Classic stories and poems such as The Faerie Queene, Paradise Lost,
and Beowulf depict the female as a monstrous, demonic creature.
There is no coincidence behind these monstrous creations. For
centuries, the male gender has felt deeply threatened by the females
ability to reproduce and as such, have turned a natural gift into a
monstrous burden for females to endure. The female characters
Errour from The Faerie Queene written by Edmund Spencer in 1596,
Sin from Paradise Lost written by John Milton in 1674, and Grendels
Mother from Beowulf, author unknown; are presented as physically
disgusting or psychologically damaged (Franscus) and demonized
Monstrous Mothers and
Objectified Daughters
Sara Cruz
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based solely on their reproductive threat to men. This social
construct still exists in the twenty-first century and while women are
less likely to be labeled monstrous today, there is a specific societal
role that she must fill to balance out the authority she exerts due
to her biological capabilities. In patriarchal culture today, so that
men do not lose their power, females must repress their sexuality
and are objectified by men and even objectified by themselves. This
objectification also occurs in order for men to cope with the females
closeness to nature or her ability to reproduce. Due to the biological
nature that women posses, she has evolved from being considered a
monster by patriarchal society to being objectified and sexualized by
patriarchal society.
Females were not always labeled as dangerous and evil. Elinor
Gadon writes that in the Neolithic agricultural age in Europe and
the Indian subcontinent, the female was revered and considered the
Goddess of her people. Called the Great Mother, she was honored
as the generative, pulsating, primal energy of people (Gadon). It
was not until Western civilizations influence came to refer to the
females power as dangerous, evil, and in opposition to God, that
ideas changed and the patriarchal culture began. These ideas were
carried by the monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and
Islam. These religions began between the eleventh and thirteenth
centuries for the most part Palestine, Greece, and Rome (religion).
Gadon writes that Christian Theology demonized the female body
and female sexuality, splitting the Goddess into the asexual, virtuous
Virgin Mary and the carnal prostitute Mary Magdalene (Gadon). The
female went from Goddess of her people to evil demon woman based
on the religious beliefs created by men most certainly to keep the
female down as she threatened males manhood and authority. This
is how misogyny and the patriarchal society began. Ruth Evans writes
about the legend of Albina, which originated sometime between the
fourteenth and sixteenth century in Greece. In this legend Albina
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sara cruz 83
and her sisters plot to kill their husbands if they are not able to rule
them. Betrayed, they are sent away to die. They find an uninhabited
island where they overindulge in food making them inflamed with
desire. Demon-incubi visit them while they sleep and these sisters
give birth to monstrous giants who incestuously reproduce and rule
the land for hundreds of years (Evans 184). This story was told and
retold as a way for colonies to rule and expand. The Albina legend
details another reason that viewing women as other was a way for
men to hold all of the authority. Misogynistic views that began as
legends have changed over time but exist nonetheless and today
are seen through a psychological and sociological lens, which is the
objectification of women by the misogynistic beliefs of men.
Other misogynistic ideas in literature view virgins as innocent
and not yet monstrous and post-menopausal women as safe as
well. Franscus refers to a virgin as someone whose sexuality can
be controlled or prevented (Franscus). A virgin has no means
to reproduce and is still viewed as a child, not yet a woman. Post-
menopausal women can no longer conceive and this alone makes
them less threatening in a patriarchal society. Lorna Jowett observes
that the child vampire Claudia is not strong enough to make
another vampire; thus, she is impotent and powerless (Jowett). This
is the opposite scenario of a woman being monstrous due to her
reproductive capacity. The vampire in this situation is innocent
because she cannot reproduce thus she does not pose a threat to
men, once again showing that the qualification to be monstrous in
early society was simply being able to produce offspring. Roberts
writes that, again, many of these assumptions began and were passed
on by Judeo-Christianity, and there were many religious writings on
the topic of menstruation; If a woman have issue, and her issue in
her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever
toucheth her shall be unclean until the even (Leviticus, 15:19/
Roberts 132). A natural, biological occurrence takes the form of
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uncleanliness, and it is easy to see how the label of monstrous stayed
with women, considering that this verse from the Bible clearly states
that a woman, who is menstruating, should be sent away like a leper.
The Bible was considered the Word and every Christian, including
women, believed that what it said was absolute truth.
Menstruation is necessary in order for reproduction and Aviva
Breifel writes that menstruation is a precursor or even prerequisite
to females committing acts of violence. She also argues that
menstruation is central to films dealing with womens monstrous
re-productions (Briefel). The films discussed in this article are
Carrie and The Exorcist in which both characters upon reaching
puberty, become possessed. This belief suggests that menstruation
takes away a young womans innocence and brings evil and other.
The capability of conceiving a child comes with menstruation, and
this threat is evident to men. Turning both events into something
monstrous is a way for men to cope with their lack of a womb.
Why do men resent the female reproductive ability? With this
ability, females gain authority and in a long - standing patriarchal
society, the only authoritative figure a man wants to see is one
with a phallus. Not having a womb to carry a child, led men in
the eighteenth century to desecrate the source of power. Felicity
Nussbaum labels this the inevitable rhyme womb-tomb. This
womb-tomb allegation suggests that by giving birth, the mother also
produces death (Franscus). This belief, created by men, is an actual
theory and Paul Acker also discusses it. Here he comments on Julia
Kristevas theories about the abject and the maternal. Referring to the
abject here simply means something that both repulses and attracts
at the same time. Kristeva argues that this paradoxical maternal
image is seen in the work of Louis-Ferdinand Celine: the mother
gives us life, but since she does not give us immortality, she also
gives us death (Acker). Men wanted to ascertain the idea that females
were in fact monstrous. In order to do this, they added multiple
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sara cruz 85
reasons for otherness. On top of the notion that she is monstrous
for being able to reproduce is that she is monstrous because she
cannot guarantee her child immortality. This is a theory created by
men to make the womb and reproduction into something negative
and horrific. These theories were not created suddenly and without
premise. Literature has been depicting the female as monstrous since
as early as the eleventh century.
Though Errour, Sin, and Grendels Mother all are viewed as
monstrous, there are slightly different reasons why. Franscus writes
that Errour and Sin are monstrous because they reproduce often and
because they refuse to be sexually and socially passive, which violates
the codes of proper female behavior (Franscus). This code is still
very much intact today and can be seen through the objectification
of women as well and will be discussed later. Grendels mother, also
perceived as monstrous, is labeled as such one, since she has also
reproduced but she is even more monstrous as she takes matters
into her own hands by seeking revenge on Heorot due to the
murder of her son at the hands of the hero Beowulf. After Grendels
death, Grendels mother is introduced to the story. He went away
wretched, deprived of joy, to find his place of death, mankinds
foe. But his mother still greedy, grim-minded, wanted to go on her
sorrowful journey to avenge her sons death (Liuzza 92). Would not
any mother wish to seek revenge on the person who has taken her
only sons life? According to Acker, in Old Norse literature, women
taking vengeance into their own hands are considered distinctly
deviant. He writes that because these aggressive acts are reserved
for men, Grendels mother is highlighted as monstrous (Acker
705). This same story depicts a similar situation of men seeking
vengeance, but is seen through the mens eyes as a true warrior
deed. Wise sir, do not grieve. It is always better to avenge dear ones
than to indulge in mourning/When a warrior is gone, that will be
his best and only bulwark(1384-1389). The hypocrisy prevalent in
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these men is comical. A mother seeking revenge on the murderer
is evil and monstrous, however, these men who go to find this one
woman to seek their revenge, are considered the ultimate warriors.
These ideas are patriarchal and misogynistic. Along with her deviant
behavior, Grendels mother has also produced offspring. This is
her first step into monstrosity, her deviance only adds to her evil.
She also lives within nature and it is made quite clear in Beowulf
that nature is considered other by the people of Heorot. Where
Grendel and she reside is a place that not many wish to go. Her
underwater home is a cave and deeply symbolic of a uterus as is
Errours place of residence in The Faerie Queene. The description
of Errours home seems threatening and like Grendels mothers,
is also in a cave. This is not a coincidence. That houses forme
within was rude and strong, Lyke an huge cave hewne out of rocky
clifte/And with rich metal loaded every rifte, That heavy ruine
they did seeme to threat/Her cunning web, and spred her subtile
nett (Spens 123). Errour and Grendels mothers abodes represent
nature, the uterus, and the abject just as childbirth represents the
abject in a patriarchal society.
Childbirth is considered abject because it is unfamiliar to men
and they envy the authority that comes to a woman after bearing a
child. Any being that can carry a living being in their womb for nine
months and go through the agony of birthing that child, gives that
being higher authority than a being which has not gone through the
same experience. Defiling, deforming, and objectifying woman and
her natural ability is a coping mechanism for men. The reproductive
ability is raw and close to nature. Today females bear the label of
other by being objectified by men and even themselves. Nick
Heflick states that most literally, objectification refers to making
a person into an object, and consequently, less than fully human
(Heflick). Today the female is still perceived as other but instead
of being monstrous, now she is something less than fully human.
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sara cruz 87
The original ideas are still intact; they have only evolved over time.
Women are devalued by society because she possesses the innate
capability to conceive, carry, and birth another human life form.
In a patriarchal society, this is alarmingly connected to nature and
greatly distresses men, just as the men of Beowulf consider nature
abject. Grendel and his mother live on the boarders in the core of
nature and these areas are considered other by the men of Heorot.
As Beowulf and Hrothgars soldiers prepare for their journey to
kill Grendels mother the, monster-woman and she-wolf, (Liuzza
92, 99) Beowulf gives a speech to inspire but also warn his men.
He warns of the dangers they will encounter when going to find
Grendels Mother because she lives in the very essence of nature, a
nature that they find grim. Arise, kingdoms guard, let us quickly
go and inspect the path of Grendels kin. I promise you this: he will
find no protection not in the belly of the earth nor the bottom of
the sea, not the mountain groves let him go where he will! (Liuzza
96) From this speech, it is apparent that the raw nature of Grendels
mothers dwelling makes them uncomfortable and they will only go
to this place to kill her and the threat that she presents. This aversion
to nature directly correlates to the female body. As the reproductive
organs are biological, they link the female to nature. Toni Roberts
argues that objectifying women is a way for men to cope with their
fear of womens biological capabilities.
Objectification in a sense strips the body of its
corporeal qualities by sanitizing it and transforming
it into an idealized cultural symbol. This objectification
may serve the existential function of separating women
from their earthly nature (Roberts 131).
Because men no longer oppress women by turning them into evil,
demonic monsters, they have found a new way to keep women
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from exerting their natural power. Today, this is seen through the
objectification and beautifying of females and gender roles. These
practices have been prevalent for sometime and have even impacted
womens self-perception. Ingrid Johnston-Robledo writes that the
objectification theory postulates that, in a culture that objectifies
womens bodies, women themselves are socialized to view and evaluate
their own bodies through the perspective of a critical gaze(Johnston
28). This is seen in mass media today. Females of all ages are striving
for the perfect body, based on the standards of men. Women want to
wear the best clothes and attempt to beautify themselves so that they
are judged based only on their outside appearance. This allows them
to feel better about themselves, as it also allows men to feel better
about the females biological competencies. This self-objectification
affects women and their need to feel any sort of value in a patriarchal
society. Value under this theory has shown that women begin to
become ashamed of her own reproductive ability. Roberts argues
that womens negative attitudes toward reproductive events may
arise from their need to view and present themselves as objects of
desire (Roberts 29).
Feeling ashamed of being able to bring another human life
onto this earth is only something that a misogynistic society
could impress upon the female race. The American Psychological
Association tested these ideas in an experiment. The experiment
tested the hypothesis that a womens menstrual status will have
negative reactions and will increase her objectification (Roberts
131). In this experiment, a woman accidentally dropped either a
hair clip or a tampon. Views of the female menstrual cycle proved
that the women who dropped the tampon from her handbag
was considered less competent, decreased her likeability, and
increased the objectification of the female (Roberts 131). This
experiment maintains the cultural assumptions that the female
body is threatening and that menstruation turns women into the
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sara cruz 89
objectified creature. Cultures objectify some features of the female
body and conceal others as a way of coping with the reminder
of their animal nature provided by childbirth and other female
biological functions(Roberts 137). Readers have witnessed the
making of the monstrous woman with characters such as Grendels
mother, Errour, and Sin. This evolution from early literature of the
fourteenth century to now, show that women went from a monstrous
being due to her reproductive capabilities, to being objectified in
the twenty-first century. Literature and media will change and so
perhaps may the monstrous objectification of the female.
The implications of the objectification of women are negative for
any female living in the world today. Growing up as a young adolescent
female is a difficult time of questioning and experimentation. A
young female who is already vulnerable due to her specific age and
the pressures of society will be quite susceptible to this objectification
and self-objectification. According to Johnston-Robledo, women
who internalize the sexual objectification of their bodies will
also behave in ways that minimize the salience of reproductive
functioning but accentuate sexual availability (Johnston-Robledo
29). This means that young females will associate their biological
ability with negative ideas and will believe their outer sexuality is
what gives them worth. These patriarchal views were established as
early as the development of Christianity and have evolved over time.
The female is viewed as monstrous, as early literature clearly depicts,
as other, as something less than human, and as the objectified
being. Patriarchal society has made it evident that the female will not
assert the control and authority that comes with her being able to
reproduce. In todays American society, the objectification of females
can be seen by young females attempting to act older than their age,
by older females grasping for eternal youth, and by media pushing
the idea that a beautiful women is a good women. Minimizing or
erasing their biological ability, allows women to be viewed as good
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through the eyes of men and in this way men will not feel threatened
by her power.
Were men to have this ability; thought of as power, there would
be a completely different view of it. If man was the sex that was
able to reproduce, this ability would be revered, as it used to be
for women so long ago. Men would be considered masculine and
strong not other or inferior. The biological differences between
men and women have been evident for many years and have led
men to view womens biological characteristics as negative. Feminist
Gloria Steinem once said that if men were able to menstruate,
it would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event
men would brag about how long and how much (Roberts 137).
In societies that perceive women to be the stronger sex, the beauty
of reproduction is evident. Most other cultures are patriarchal and
view this natural wonder with envy which then turns into disdain.
These ideas have been seen in literature, films, and society at large
creating what is now seen as the objectification of women. Perhaps
gender roles will continue to evolve and once again the female will
be revered in society, instead of made monstrous because of her
sexual and biological abilities. Until then, societal gender roles will
continue to exist.
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sara cruz 91
Works Cited
Acker, P. Horror and the Maternal in Beowulf. The Modern Language
Association of America. (2006):702-216. Web. 23 March 2011.
Briefel, A. Monster Pains: Masochism, Menstruation, and Identification
in the Horror Film. Film Quarterly, Vol 58, No. 3. (2005): 16-27.
JSTOR. Web.30 March 2011.
Evans, R. The Devil in Disguise: Female Origins of the Nation.
Consuming Narratives: Gender and Monstrous Appetite in the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (2002): 182-195. Print.
Franscus, M. The Monstrous Mother: Reproductive Anxiety in Swift
and Pope. ELH. Vol. 62, No. 4. (1994): 829. Literature Resource
Center. Web. 28 March 2011.
Gadon, E. Revisioning the Female Demon. ReVision. Vol. 20, No. 3.
(1998): Academic Search Elite. Web. 23 March 2011.
Heflick, N. From Women to Objects: Appearance Focus, Target Gender,
and Perceptions of Warmth, Morality, and Competence. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology. (2010): ScienceDirect. Web. 23
2011.
Johnston-Robledo, I. Reproductive Shame: Self Objectification
and Young Womens Attitudes Toward Their Reproductive
Functioning. Women & Health. Vol. 41, No. 1. (2007): 25-36.
Web. 23 March 2011.
Jowett, L. Mute and Beautiful: The Representation of the Female in Anne
Rices Interview with the Vampire. Femspec. Vol 4, No. 1. (2002):
59. GenderWatch.Web. 30 March 2011.
Liuzza, R.M. Beowulf. Trans. Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press,
Ltd. 2000. Print.
Roberts, T. Feminine Protection: The Effects of Menstruation on
Attitudes Towards Women. Psychology of Women Quarterly.
(2002): 131-139. American Psychological Association. Web. 20
March 2011.
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Spens, J. Spensers Faerie Queene: An Interpretation. Russel &
Russel: New York. (1967) Print.
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93
Many of humanitys most basic fears transcend culture, time,
and geographic location; fear of death, abandonment, and pain
permeate mans psyche regardless of his location temporally or
spatially. However, there are certain fears which plagued medieval
societies that have either dissipated with time or have changed over
the centuries. The manifestations of these fears have also changed,
indicating a shift in what individual societies saw as threatening.
In the medieval epic Beowulf, the monstrous Grendel can therefore
be seen as the physical embodiment and culmination of specific
medieval fears. He is physically other, is believed to be hated and
abandoned by God, engages in ruthless displays of cannibalism,
cannot be slain by normal weaponry, and dwells on the borders of
the civilized Danish world.
Jeffrey Jerome Cohen posits that monsters are our children
(Cohen, Monster Culture 20). Mankind forms and molds
monsters in its likeness, and they in turn represent what is most
feared, hated, or abjectly desired. Therefore, in this context, Grendel
is not entirely created out of the ether. While he is presented in
the text as a literal monster, ravenous and abhorrent, he is also
the manifestation of medieval fears. Grendel lives in opposition
to a culture that emphasizes order, loyalty, and a willingness to
Grendel: A Manifestation of
Medieval Fears
Deanna Briscoe
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fight until death. The Danes value the safety of their bodies, their
gold, and their way of life. Grendel threatens all of this with his
chaos, lack of respect for the bodies of the Danes as he consumes
them, and his use of magic to dispel the Danes iron weaponry.
Grendel represents their fears because he literally is their collective
sense of fear and what is wrong with the world outside of their
community. What lurks in the fens and moors on the darkened
rim of the earth is not for them to know, nor do they wish to.
Grendel threatens their safety and isolation, and annihilates the
bulwarks of their society.
The fear of the others image and its physical alterity is almost
always an integral component of the creation of the monster.
Bildhauer and Mills declare that, they might be too big or small,
possess too many or too few body parts, have parts relocated, or
combine characteristics of more than one species (Bildhauer and
Mills 14). The hybridity of the monsterand its incorporation of
multiple forms into oneis frightening. Pluskowski writes that
[monsters] features were predominantly bestial and, with their
physical exaggeration, represented a terrifying transgression of the
cosmological order (Pluskowski 155).
The physical otherness of Grendel is demonstrated in the original
text not only by the syntax of the poem but also in the descriptions
of how the Danes react to his appearance. Liuzza translates Grendel
as a grim spirit (Beowulf 102) and fearsome, (Beowulf 164) and
describes that upon his arrival in Heorot for the last time: in his
eyes stood / a light not fair, glowing like fire (Beowulf 735-736).
Grendels massive size, brute strength, and physical alterity make him
a frightening specter to behold. Curiously, when Beowulf proudly
displays the arm and hand he has ripped from Grendels shoulder
joint, Liuzza writes that Grendel possessed a claw (Beowulf 836).
Until that point in the text, Grendel was simply described as a
humanoid figure that was large in size and ferocious in appetite,
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deanna bri scoe 95
but never was his physicality hinted as being more than that of a
grotesquely exaggerated man.
John Phillips argues that, the claws, tusks, fangs, etc. of monsters
are accretions on an initial humanity, the consequences of a refusal
to comply with the practical definition of the human (Phillips 43).
This would seem to coincide with Liuzzas reading that Grendel
is a malformed human being, cursed in his hideousness. Grendel
therefore also defies the natural order of the world, breaking free of
the binary categorizations of monster and normal human and
inhabiting a wasteland somewhere in between.
This wasteland, metaphorically and literally within the text, is
where Grendel lives, existing on the fringes of society and therefore
on the edge of what is normal and secure. Grendel dwells far from
mankind, and inhabits the windswept, cold, and dark marshlands
and forests (Beowulf 110). Jeremy Harte writes that, monsters, in a
general sense, are liminal creatures, policing the borderland between
normality and the Other (Harte 190). Beowulfs thanes encounter
this borderland when they ride out to challenge Grendels mother,
and find her swampland with its lake of fire and beastly animals.
The scene is unpleasant; the dam lives in a joyless wood, (Beowulf
1416) where:
The flood boiled with bloodthe folk gazed on
And hot gore. At times a horn sang
In eager war-song. The foot soldiers sat down.
They saw in the water many kinds of serpents,
Strange sea-creatures testing the currents,
And on the sloping shores lay such monsters
As often attend in early morning(Beowulf 1422-1428)
The landscape is horrifying in itself, but the fact that Grendel actually
dwelt there, took the mangled and half-eaten bodies of loyal thanes
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there, and plotted and brooded upon his nightly feasts along the
wicked shoreline, is what frightens the soldiers as well. They always
knew Grendel lived beyond their borders, but upon seeing the grim
reality of his abode he seems even more monstrous. His dwelling-
place is cold and forlorn, and it is from this place that he ventures
forth to commit his gruesome murders; a shadowy figure stalking
out of the darkness, away from the misty moors, and up to the hall
(Orchard 35).
Grendels movement away from his solitary existence into the
warm light of the hall and the Danish community is a transgression
of comfort and order. He is from the frightening wilderness, the
beckoning dark that threatens with unknown terrors. His very
presence contaminates the revered and almost sacred mead hall
of Heorot. In the medieval mindset, the mead hall is the seat of
camaraderie, boasting, entertainment, and establishing loyalty to
ones king. To have this space desecrated with Grendels fiendish
murders and the blood of Danes is a catastrophic breach of safety
and psychological security.
Grendels presence is also a constant reminder of his abandonment
by God, and strikes fear into the hearts of newly-converted Danes
who are still struggling to comprehend what Christianity and God
command of them. Grendel is of the doomed kin of Cain, the
biblical murderer of his own brother (Orchard 44). Thus he is forever
out of Gods grace, for the Creator had condemned him / among
Cains race (Beowulf 106-107). This abandonment by a merciful
and loving God is terrifying to a community of people who are only
just learning about their prospects for an afterlife. The Danes are
struggling with paganism and the religion of old versus the newer
Christian religion.
The fact that Grendel was cast out, with his humanoid similarities,
reinforces the fear that anyone could be cast out from Gods love,
and made to linger on the edges of the community. To be forsaken,
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to wander in the darkness and the cold, would be a fate worse than
death. Exacerbating the problem further, the life of a Christian
was a life of conflict with unseen, malevolent spirits (Kieckhefer
817). Thus, to battle Grendel was to live a Christian life and purify
ones soul. Conversely, to fall into darkness like Grendel was a loss
of ones faith, and a condemnation to Hell.
Life in medieval Denmark would have entailed a struggle for
survival not just as a Christian against pagan worship, but also
against many other factions: weather, availability of food, and
warring bands of other thanes. To complicate matters further,
Grendel strikes the fear of being devoured while alive into the
hearts of the Danish people. His cannibalistic tendencies and
thirst for human flesh make his monstrosity all the more ghastly
and appalling. This is a very real fear for the Danes, who have
seen loved ones and noble men torn limb from limb and eaten in
gobbets (Beowulf 743).
Bildhauer and Mills argue that, stories of cannibalism
are related to medieval preoccupations with bodily integrity
(Bildhauer and Mills 11). The inherent fear of cannibalism also
lies in the incorporation of one body into another for sustenance
(Cohen, Ruins of Identity 2), wherein one becomes part of
the other without being distinguishable from the outside of the
body. This image is quite the opposite of the fear of the birthing
process, wherein a whole body is extracted from another whole
body, but the principle remains the same. Two bodies existing
simultaneously within one another via ingestion or impregnation
are fearful prospects.
The actual process of being devoured is also made horrifyingly
real, and preys upon the very concrete human fear of being injured
or fatally wounded. The fear of still being alive while being ingested is
one which is disconcerting to contemplate, but it is a very real threat.
Ironically, Grendel experiences this fear of prolonged death after
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dismemberment after Beowulf grips his arm so tightly that a gaping
wound opened / in his shoulder-joint, his sinews sprang apart, /
his joints burst asunder (Beowulf 816-818). Grendel flees, bleeding
profusely and howling in pain, until his lethal wound causes him to
collapse and die.
In addition, Grendels mother leaves behind Aescheres head as a
taunt to the warriors who pursue her. It causes the men great distress:
To all the Danes,
The men of the Scyldings, many a thane,
It was a sore pain to every earl, when on the seacliff
They came upon the head of Aeschere. (Beowulf 1417-1421)
They had just seen Aeschere alive and well, speaking with the head
that is now dismembered, and is gazing at them lifelessly. The head
is now an object, not a part of a person who was once whole. Cohen
elaborates that, The head is the seat of the soul, the biological
and allegorical ruler of the lower limbs. In its absence, the body
(social or personal) is acephalic, undifferentiated (Cohen, Body in
Pieces 85). Without a head, a body is nothing, and vice versa. Upon
his decapitation, Aeschere was transformed from a person into a
corporeal segment of a previous concrete entity. Although Grendel
himself does not perform this act, his mother does so in an attempt
to avenge her son. She extends his reign of terror through her own
murderous means.
When Beowulf decapitates the corpse of Grendel in the sea-cave,
he is banishing the fear that the monster imposes upon the Danes.
It is possible for Grendel, through magic or some other device, to
return to life and continue to plague Heorot. But without a head,
Grendel can do nothing. He cannot devour or function, and
therefore by decapitation his death becomes permanent. Likewise,
Beowulfs victory becomes indelibly imprinted onto Danish history.
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Magic could not resurrect Grendel to haunt the Danes further,
but he still employed magic while alive to defend him from the effects
of weaponry. In Beowulf, the narrator explains that:
no sword,
Not the best iron anywhere in the world,
Could even touch that evil sinner,
For he had worked a curse on weapons,
Every sort of blade. (Beowulf 801-805)
Grendel uses magic, a sorcery that is not found in Christian theology
or practice, in order to protect him from the onslaught of man-made
weaponry. He twists the rules of fair combat to his own advantage,
allowing his enemy to attack him while knowing full well that the
weaponry will do him no harm.
This magical resistance would have frightened the Danes
incredibly, for what use would they be against a monster that could
not be struck down with the best weapons they had, wielded by
the strongest and most capable warriors? Kieckhefer writes that
magic is a cluster of countercultural rituals worked privately for
the magicians personal ends (Kieckhefer 815). While Grendel is
not a conventional magician, he is using the elements of magic
for his own benefit and denying the Danes access to a fair fight, as
demanded by their culture.
In the context of Grendel using his magic for the powers of
darkness and ill will, Kieckhefer elaborates that, In a medieval
contextdemonic magic is itself essentially religious (or perhaps
irreligious but at least not nonreligious), while natural magic could be
easily combined with devotional practice (Kieckhefer 821). Grendel
is clearly not implementing natural magic, for his malicious
intentions do not coincide with proper, peaceful devotion. Instead,
he is employing demonic magic, which threatens the concept of
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what the proper religion is or can do. If Grendels magic is religious
in a medieval concept, then is the Danes Christianity magical? Or,
worse yet, is their faith somehow enjoined with Grendels, at a single
origin point of religion?
Grendels ability to remain impervious to weapons (Orchard 47)
presents another fearful dimension to his monstrosity. He cannot be
killed in a normal fashion, and therefore cannot exist in a normal
fashion. He is completely other, and so divided from how the world
should function that ending his scourge would seem impossible.
Luckily, Beowulf does not require the enhancements of magic for his
own prowess and strength, and can best Grendel without weaponry.
Grendel is fearsome in his visage, superficially, but his fearsome
qualities which make him monstrous are extensions of medieval
trepidations; the fear of the other on the borderlands, abandonment
by God, cannibalism, and dark magic. His existence is an ironic taunt
to the Danes who dwell in his shadow, trembling. He is a monstrous
figure bent on death and destruction, but is also a creation of the
Danes themselves. He is a metaconglomerate of their deepest fears
and darkest nightmares, given true form and a body. Therefore,
they must kill what they have given life, and must destroy their own
creation. They are in turn destroying a part of themselves. Thus, an
outsider such as Beowulf must step in to destroy the monster and
reset the balance of life, for he is not slaying his own identity.
Grendel is the embodiment of distinctly medieval fears, although
his malicious acts are still seen as abhorrent today. The concept of
monstrosity stays essentially the same, as well as what is feared, but the
monster dons a new cloak and emerges from a new set of shadows.
His visage will be different, and his execution of his dark intentions
will not be identical, but his eyes will still burn with the same fire,
and the same desire to strike fear into the hearts of mortals.
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Works Cited
Beowulf. Trans. RM Liuzza. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview
Press, 2000. Print.
Bildhauer, Bettina and Robert Mills. Introduction:
Conceptualizing the Monstrous. The Monstrous Middle Ages.
Toronto: Toronto UP, 2003. Introduction, 1-27. Print.
Butts, Richard. The Analogical Mere: Landscape and Terror in
Beowulf. English Studies 68.2 (1987): 113. Web.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. The Body in Pieces: Identity and the
Monstrous in Romance. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle
Ages. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1999. 62-95. Print.
. Monster Culture: Seven Theses. Monster Theory: Reading
Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota,
1996. 3-25. Print.
. The Ruins of Identity. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the
Middle Ages. Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1999. 1-28. Print.
Fajardo-Acosta, Fidel. Intemperance, Fratricide, and the
Elusiveness of Grendel. English Studies 73.3 (1992): 205. Web.
Harte, Jeremy. Hell on Earth: Encountering Devils in the
Medieval Landscape. The Monstrous Middle Ages. Toronto:
Toronto UP, 2003. 177-195. Print.
Higgs Strickland, Debra. Monsters and Christian Enemies.
History Today 50.2 (2000): 45. Web.
Kearney, Richard. Aliens and Others. Strangers, Gods, and
Monsters: Interpreting Otherness. New York: Routledge, 2003. 65-
82. Print.
Kieckhefer, Richard. The Specific Rationality of Medieval Magic.
American Historical Review 99.3 (1994): 813. Web.
Orchard, Andy. Psychology and Physicality: The Monsters of
Beowulf. Pride and Prodigies. Cambridge: Brewer, 1985. 28-57.
Print.
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Phillips, James. In the Company of Predators: Beowulf and
the Monstrous Descendants of Cain. Angelaki: Journal of the
Theoretical Humanities 13.3 (2008): 41-52. Web.
Pluskowski, Aleks. Apocalyptic Monsters: Animal Inspirations for
the Iconography of Medieval North European Devourers. The
Monstrous Middle Ages. Toronto: Toronto UP, 2003. 155-176.
Print.
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103
The story of good and evil, humanity versus the monstrous, is one
that has existed in society since the beginning of storytelling. Within
the epic poem Beowulf, the hero, Beowulf defeats three separate
monsters, although the final battle with the Dragon takes his life as
well, during three separate battles. Literary scholars generally focus
on the fight between Grendel and Beowulf analyzing what makes
Beowulf capable of defeating Grendel. This essay, instead, will focus
on Grendels Mother and Beowulf in an effort to discover the reason
for her monstrosity.
Medieval society defines its social structures through clearly
outlined gender roles; gender roles delineated solely by anatomical
sex. The monstrous feminine is created through agency. Agency
manifests when the female intentionally defies gender roles and
crosses the line between anatomical sex and the societally determined
functions of gender. Grendels Mother, through her act of vengeance,
exhibits the social personalities of her male counterparts. She
optimizes the monstrous female for three reasons: the abandonment
of her anatomical sex, her lineage and her residence.
According to Ruth Mazo Karras, in her book Sexuality in Medieval
Europe: Doing Unto Others, issues of sexual monstrosity occur in part
because sex is a particularly complicated issue it involves questions
The Monster Under the Bed
The Creation of the Medieval
Monstrous Feminine in Beowulf
Anna Iuppa
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of religious morality, public order, and gender relations(Karras
2-3). Understanding acceptable sex starts with understanding how
morality, gender roles, and public order function in society. Through
medieval literature the modern reader is shown a glimpse of the key
things that create Anglo-Saxon society. Beowulf portrays Anglo-
Saxon society as rigid, especially in relation to gender roles and social
hierarchy. Men and women are expected to act in certain ways just as
social hierarchy is dependent upon lineage. Yet, knowing this, sex is
still hard to define. The acceptance of deviation from gender norms
in Beowulf depends on the authors original intended audience.
Sexuality, in medieval society can be broken down into two distinct,
although differing, images: repression and freedom (Karras 2-3).
Repression is sex based upon the views of celibate males writing
from within the confines of dedicated Christianity. The priesthood,
in this case, is the class that defined the lines of right and wrong
in relation to sexuality regardless of popular, secular belief. Sex was
sin because sexuality threaten[ed] human salvation; sex even for
procreation bordered upon sin (Karras 1). According to Karras, the
opposite of repression is freedom. This is an earthy, lustful, [and]
playful approach to sex. Sin is not an issue and therefore sex isnt
sin (Karras 2-3). The act of sex in this second image isnt defined by
its sin but by the capability for enjoyment for both men and women.
These opposing viewpoints present the idea that what is encouraged
to be sexually normative, by the church and its devoted followers,
is not always the normative form of sex accepted by the common
person. Gender, class, anatomical sex, and age, according to Robert
Azzarello, make up the dynamic components of society. These four
components manifest in medieval literature through the questions
of human sexuality [as it is] entwined with the question of
the other-than-human world (Azzarello 139). Sexuality exists then
in two separate realms: that of the human world and that which is
considered to be other. Sexuality exists in medieval human culture
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anna i uppa 105
to procreate but the accepted manifestation of sexuality is dependent
upon anatomical sex.
Sexuality in medieval culture was gendered, therefore acceptable
forms of sex in literature was gendered as well. More often than
not, the object of the sexual action, the character being acted
upon is female, while the subject, the character doing the act, is
male (Karras 3). Simply put, the capability of agency is based
upon gender. Womens sexuality was threatening because women,
operating as the aggressors, became the subjects of the sexual
action. This was considered to be unnatural and therefore other
and scary. Interestingly, societal gender is established for the
female by juxtaposing womens natures with that of mens (Robin
166). Querelle des femmes, a debate from the Renaissance period,
discussed the natures of the genders (Robin 167). Gender nature,
in a text, is established by a stock of stereotypical characters. This
was a homogenization of historical women that explained gifted
and intelligent women as men trapped in womens bodies (Robin
167). For the female in question to act outside of societys accepted
gender roles create fear. Grendels Mother by becoming an avenger
and seeking revenge for the death of her son, acts as a male would
in the Anglo-Saxon familial revenge system causing medieval readers
to question her character (Beowulf 1257).
Jeffery Jerome Cohen, in Monster Culture (Seven Theses), says
that the whole of society is monstrous, meaning that monsters do not
and cannot exist without the us, and the us cannot exist without
the them (Cohen 4). The monster is created by the cumulative body
of culture as a way to explain and rationalize events uncontrolled
by humanity (Cohen 4). Since culture defines and is defined by the
other, the monsters body is both corporal and incorporeal; its
threat is its propensity to shift (Cohen 5). The monster is never
dead. It can never die because the fears of the cumulative culture
always shift. There continuously is the introduction of a new idea,
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whether that is new religion, as in Beowulf with the introduction
of Christianity into society, or the redefinition of gender roles, as
with Grendels Mother shifting to inhabit the male realm of revenge
and/ or seduction respectively, that creates fear. As new fears are
created old fears are forgotten. Society is constantly shifting creating
different definitions of other. Because of this:
Monster theory must therefore concern itself with strings
of cultural moments, connected by a logic that always
threatens to shift; invigorated by change and escape, by
achieving the desired fall or death, the stopping of its
gigantic subject [it must be content with the] signifiers of
monstrous passing that stand in for the monstrous body
itself. (Cohen 6)
To apply monster theory to the interpretation of medieval
literature means to be content with references to the monstrous as
any deviation of action from the norm or as any bodily difference.
Traditionally, medieval characters that took the label of monstrous
or of the other were those that inhabited the rims of society. These
rim-walkers did not fit into the predetermined guidelines of society.
Characteristically, these people were women engaging in acts of
men, therefore redefining gender through sexuality, or men too far
removed, by either patrilineage or action, from accepted society.
Beowulf is an epic poem that places its monsters at the center
of the narrative. Throughout the text, Beowulf encounters three
fiends: Grendel, Grendels Mother and the Dragon. Although the
confrontation between Beowulf and Grendels Mother lasts a mere
ten pages, the fight can be interpreted as the most fierce in the
text because of the underlying anxiety based in Grendels Mothers
challenge of the male system of vengeance. Grendels Mother, a
creature forced down into fearful waters, /the cold depths, after
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anna i uppa 107
Cain had/killed his fathers son resides on the outskirts of society
(Beowulf 1260-62). Her lineage, her ties to the biblical Cain, exiles
her from society and therefore declares her to be other, yet, she does
nothing to interact with society until Grendel is killed at the hands
of Beowulf, and cannot therefore be deemed truly monstrous till
then. Paul Acker, in his essay Horror and the Maternal in Beowulf,
claims the appearance of Grendels mother is the more marked for
the fact that she is introduced in the narrative action only after she
already intruded upon it (Acker 705). The fact that she has not
been introduced into the text until after her violent action against
Heorot can be interpreted as the cultures ignorance to the power of
women. Grendels mother is not considered a threat till she acts out
in violence against the people of Heorot. This illustrates how the
power of culture lies in its ability to construct a national identity and
more importantly upon this national identitys ability to establish
cultural anxieties and phobias (Clark 169). In this case, national
identitys established anxiety is a woman capable of straddling the
border between the genders.
Grendels Mother is, of course, female. Dorothy Yamamoto
suggests that her years in the wilderness have not unsexed her: she
is still, unmistakably, a women (Yamamoto 198). Her femininity,
although warped by her bodily difference from humanity, is
grounded in her ability to produce a child. Traditionally, Females are
relegated to certain roles that consist of being either a peacemaker or
a hostess. Jane Chance claims, in her essay The Structural Unity of
Beowulf: The Problem of Grendels Mother, that:
the role of woman in Beowulf primarily depends upon
peace-making, either biologically through her marital
ties with foreign kings, as a peace-pledge or mother of sons,
or socially and psychologically as a cup-passing and peace-
weaving queen within a hall. (Chance 249)
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Characters such as Wealtheow and Hildeburh fulfill these roles
existing in perfect harmony with the discourses of society, exhibited
by Wealtheows decision to not openly speak against Hrothulf in
relation to the inheritance of her sons Hrethric and Hrothmund
(Beowulf 1179-1190).

Grendels Mother does not act as the peace-
making, cup-passing queen (Chance 248). She, through pregnancy,
perpetuates the race of Cain and therefore evil. Grendels Mother is
a monstrous being because she functions in masculine ways. Even
through pregnancy Grendels Mother is still acting as male. The act
of providing an heir to Cains legacy can be interpreted as revenge.
Throughout the text she is referred to as hell-bride, she, and
his mother yet her actions prove her to be the feminine antitype
(Beowulf 1259, 1276, 1282, Acker 705). Grendels Mothers ability
to act aggressively using violence in a way typically reserved for men,
and to operate in the revenge killing system of Anglo-Saxon society
creates a character that bends the traditional gender roles.
The location of the battle, between Grendels Mother and
Beowulf furthers the interpretation of female as monstrous. The
distance between the warmth of society and Grendels Mothers
inhabitance was short but terrain and weather created the optimum
fear in connection with her. Her home is described as desolate
fens dismal woods bloodshot water infested with all kinds of
reptiles (Beowulf 104, 1414, 1416, 1424). While this is not typical
nature imagery, it describes the Anglo-Saxon view of that which
is not us. Nature or society becomes the question and Grendels
Mother resides outside of the walls of society. She inhabits a world
where growth (both plant and animal) is not normal. Monsters and
magic, the dark, resides in the world that surrounds humanity, the
light. As a creature that resides in the villainous nature Grendels
Mother is dangerous and therefore monstrous.
After Grendels death, Grendels Mother feels sorrow and anger.
These emotions are typically reserved in literature for those who
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anna i uppa 109
can, without a doubt, be placed into the realm of humanity not
for the supposed villains. The ability that Grendels Mother has
to react emotionally to the death of her son creates another string
that binds her to the ways of humanity. Monsters are not supposed
to mourn yet this very maternal and human response is the way in
which she reacts to the violent death of Grendel at the hands of
Beowulf. However, the manner in which Grendels Mother reacts
to these human emotions is what dissolves the strings of similarity
that she holds with her appropriate, societal dictated, gender role.
Ultimately, this severing of anatomical sex from societal sex is
what creates the monster. Her sexual otherness is emphasized
to de-emphasize her cultural otherness (Clark 169). As a female,
Grendels Mother should not have the motivation or strength
to operate in the masculine gender-ruled system of revenge. She
irrupts into the male realm, and through this irruption, projects
the anxieties [of Anglo-Saxon Society that it cannot] otherwise
adequately voice concerning the inherent weakness in the system
of feuding and revenge (Acker 705). Simply put, she is presenting
the members of Heorot, including Beowulf, with the downfall of
their well-loved revenge system. Yet this system does not actually
fail. Rather her attempt at revenge fails, which may be an indication
of the implicit judgment on the impropriety of her actions (Acker
706). Grendels Mother fails in her attack against Heorot because
of the inherent error or unseemliness that the act of a female
inhabiting the role of a male has, regardless of whether the female
in question is human.
Grendels Mothers revenge is enacted because of the attachment
between mother and offspring. The ability that Grendels Mother
has to bear children, and more importantly the fact that she did bear
a child, irrevocable makes her something to fear, regardless of any
action she may have taken against Heorot. There are two methods
of belief regarding pregnancy in medieval culture. The first is called
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the one-seed theory, which stated only the male produces real
seed or sperma from his blood, and only the male seed is required
for conception. The womens seed is not properly seed at all, but
a substance formed from menstrual blood. [] The womens role is
entirely passive (Bugge 206-7). The second theory was aptly named
the two-seed theory. This theory was the older and more widely
accepted version stating that both spouses contributed seminal fluids
and that without doubt the embryo [came] from the union of [the]
two seeds (Bugge 207). Pragmatically this theory meant that both
male and female had to be active during sex. Orgasm needed to be
experienced by both parties to result in conception. The issue is that
orgasm, or the experience of any type of bodily pleasure, was inherently
male. According to the two-seed theory, Grendels Mother had to
experience orgasm to conceive Grendel yet the possibility that such
a creature could experience a sensation belonging to the realm of
men was vile. The simple action of pleasure then becomes monstrous
because once again Grendels Mother invaded the masculine world
by engaging in the sexual pleasure that enabled her to conceive and
then birth Grendel. Here Grendels Mother is monstrous because
she is a female, at least a type of female, who is expected by normative
Anglo-Saxon society to be empowered chiefly through her son yet
she enacts revenge for her sons death exhibiting self- empowerment
(Acker 707). In the instance Grendels Mother intrudes upon the text
in an act of revenge she has become animalistic. The ferocity with
which she acts out revenge is threatening because, while Grendels
Mothers visage has no signs of the feminine, she lacks the smooth
skin, rosy complexion, delicate fingers, and demure silence. Her eyes
[] speak hostility, she showcases the power of men (Yamamoto
200). Grendels Mother is far more dangerous then the figure of the
girl-child and that of the virgin because she has entered and then
left the male realm with the knowledge that male power is rooted in
physical pleasure.
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anna i uppa 111
The vaginas ability to function as the breeding ground for new life
is threatening to the male population of medieval Europe. Women
are inhabitants of the periphery because men locate that which
they are not, and [that] into which they make forays as outside of
themselves (Yamamoto 204). Men do not have the capability to bear
children and therefore deem it other. The fear resides in the believed
potential that specific traits, traits the signify the negative aspects
of the females personality, from the mother may be passed to the
offspring and thereby cancel out the possibility of the child bearing
any resemblance the father. The child then becomes the animal
within an animal capable of transgressing the borders of masculine
and feminine like the mother that conceived it (Yamamoto 205).
Abjection is our reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaning
caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or
between self and other (Felluga). The masculine population finds
fear in Grendels Mothers form because she has the capability to use
her body in ways men cannot. Her body is abject.
Medieval societys understanding of gender roles is created by
anatomical sex. Beowulf showcases both the conventional actions
and beliefs of the sexes, and the monstrous feminine that, while
anatomically female, acts in the nature of the male. Grendels Mother
is a female who, by defying the expected actions of her gender and
sexuality, exhibits the social personalities of her male counterparts.
This is the creation of the monstrous feminine. Grendels Mother
inhabits her inherited male persona therefore becoming other
according to the rigid gender and sexual structures of medieval
society.
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Works Citied
Acker, Paul. Horror and the Maternal in Beowulf. PMLA. 121.3
(May 2006): 702-716. Print.
Azzarello, Robert. Unnatural Predators: Queer Theory Meets
Environmental Studies in Bram Stokers Dracula. Queering the
Non/Human. Ed. Noreen Giffey and Myra J. Hird. Burlington,
VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008. 137-152. Print.
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Trans. R.M. Lizzua. Peterborough,
ON: Broadview, 2000. L. 1257. Print.
Bugge, John. Fertility Myth and Female Sovereignty in the
Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell. Chaucer Review.
39.2 (2004): 199-218. Print.
Chance, Jane. The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem
of Grendels Mother. New Readings of Women in Old English
Literature. Ed. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessy Olsen.
Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1990. 248-261. Print.
Clark, Damion. Preying on the Pervert: The Uses of Homosexual
Panic in Bram Stokers Dracula. Horrifying Sex: Essays on Sexual
Difference in Gothic Literature. Ed. Ruth Bienstock Anolik.
Jeffereson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company Inc.,
2007. 167 175. Print.
Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. J.J. Cohen. Minneapolis : UP
Minnesota, 1996. 3-25. Print.
Felluga, Dino. Definition: The Abject. Introductory Guide to
Critical Theory. 31 January 2011. Purdue University. Web. 16
April 2011.
Karras, Ruth Mazo. Sexuality in Medieval Europe: Doing Unto Others.
New York: Routledge, 2005. 1-27, 116-119. Print.
Robin, Diana. Women, Space, and Renaissance Discourse. Sex
and Gender in Medieval and Renaissance Texts: The Latin Tradition.
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anna i uppa 113
Ed. Barbara K. Gold, et all. Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1997. 165-187. Print.
Yamamoto, Dorothy. The Boundaries of the Human in Medieval
English Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. 197-224. Print.
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115
Human beings have a natural need to identify who and what
they are; typically, this is done by distinguishing between the self
and the other, leading to the exclusion of the other because of a
lack of conformity to the group norms established in any given
society. Monsters, a manifestation of this otherness, are then a
cultural creation residing at the borders of humanity, functioning
as a reminder of what should not be. Governments recognize the
importance of this shared identification, believing that as a unified
nation, they increase their ability to preserve, protect, and assert
their dominance in the world. They see the presence of monsters
as a means of preservation of the status quo, essentially utilizing
them as the protection against the monstrous, otherwise defined as
acts against common law and cultural norms. Essentially, the state
hopes to comprise itself of an entire safe race of people, eliminating
the threats from the inside out; while this may seem a very modern
initiative, medieval literature suggests that this has been a focus
of societies from their early construction. Specifically, this idea is
evident in the hierarchy of salvation in The Wonders of the East, the
acceptance of Sir Gawain at the end of Sir Gawain and the Green
Knight, and lastly, in the idolization in death of Grettir the Outlaw
in Grettirs Saga.
Monsters: A Surprising Tool of
Governments Past and Present
Caitlin Garvey
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To understand precisely how states have utilized monsters as
a form of social control, one should first explore the underlying
relationship between humans and monsters. In Strangers, Gods, and
Monsters: Interpreting Otherness, Richard Kearney discusses how early
Western thought equated the Good with notions of self-identity
and sameness and evil with notions of exteriority (Kearney 65).
In order to clearly differentiate good from evil, human beings then
needed to create an other, and thus, the monster was born. As a
cultural creation, this monster functions as an identification system
for human beings; it is difference made flesh, an explanation for
the malicious, immoral, and unusual (Cohen, Monster Culture
7). Additionally, the monster is a coping mechanism that allows
for the transfer[ence] of responsibility onto itself, removing any
negative implications from humanity (Cashman, and Cronin 408).
Thus, the monster adopts the negativity that surrounds its body
for its own self; it comes to police the borders of the possible,
a warning against exploration of these boundaries (Cohen,
Monster Culture 12). As Cohen states, to step outside this official
geographyor the borders defined by the monsters presenceis to
risk attack by some monstrous border patrol or (worse) to become
monstrous oneself (12). Therefore, the monster is not only created
by humanitys need to identify by exclusion, but given life, a physical
body, and strict purpose through societys fears.
Governments throughout the world, past and present, recognize
the opportunity to achieve conformity through the monster. Here,
I use the term governments to mean representatives of the declared
common good of society, establishers of the laws, and upholders of
the social, political, religious, and economic interests of a nation.
Additionally, it is important to recognize that these governments also
function as the basic form of a belief system; while humans often
supplement their understandings of the world with further spiritual
and religious beliefs, the foundation of a nation greatly affects
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cai tli n garvey 117
how inhabitants identify themselves, their surroundings, and their
boundaries. Recognizing their essential role in the development of
a nation, institutional bodies, on the whole, believe that they must
preserve and protect their land and peoples; here is where monsters
begin to play a significant role in the maintenance of the status quo,
protecting the nation from threats of destruction from the inside
out. As Bildhauer and Mills assert, monsterscan become subject
to linguistic and cultural resignification (22). Thus, governments
can redefine how monsters function; rather than simply intimidating
the human race, monsters can be reminders of the status quo within
a given society. As most nation-states [are] bent on preserving their
body politic from alien viruses[,] [governments] [seek] to pathologize
their adversaries, the adversaries being the monsters (Kearney 65).
If they can assume control over the fear of society, governments
suddenly have a means of preserving, protecting, and asserting their
dominance in the world. An actual and specific example of this can
be seen in the origins of the term Anglo-Saxon England; it is a
blanket term that hides more than it reveals (Cohen, Of Giants 4).
At the time of the words origin, England was comprised of scattered
groups of varied ancestry (4). To avoid becoming a monstrous land
with conflicting ideologies, it was decided that these peoples should
all reside under a collective term, eliminating the possibility of
harboring monsters on the inside by simply giving an identifying
label to all inhabitants. Thus, governments and institutional bodies
recognize the need for cultural uniformity and relative social calm,
believing that the easiest way to achieve conformity is through the
monster, the embodiment of human fears (4).
In each of the three medieval texts, Wonders of the East, Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight, and Grettirs Saga, there is clear functioning
governmental body that purposefully utilizes the monster as a means
of social control. Focusing first on Wonders of the East, it seems that
the hierarchy of salvation is the institutional framework, providing
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a strict delineation between each grade of human. While some of
these beings are more acceptable to society than others, they all
have an opportunity to obtain salvation by modifying to fit the
communal standards, or the status quo. Likewise, in Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight, the governmental body is Arthurs court and
the code of chivalry; both have clear expectations for how men and
women within society should act. While the court and the code
can ostracize those who do not represent cultural norms, they are
also flexible enough to adapt and make exceptions when deemed
appropriate. Paradoxically, in Grettirs Saga, the governmental body
is the institution of outlawry. It is the deeming of lesser outlawry and
full outlawry that sends non-conformists away from society; these
individuals can only be reaccepted when society has found some way
to reconcile them with the good of humanity. Essentially, it seems
that all of these state institutions, while clearly delineating who the
monster is and where the monster resides, want nothing more than
conformity for their populous; they do not want to be capable of
harboring the monstrous, so they provide means through which the
other can adapt.
To focus more closely on The Wonders of the East and the
governmental preservation of the status quo, one should explore:
the outlined hierarchy of humanity, how the government functions
as a belief system in this text, and the ability of the other to obtain
salvation. Beginning with the hierarchy, Wonders, as theorized by
Greta Austin, is arranged to show the hierarchical spectrum of
those people to whom God offers grace (28). One can see the
progression by looking at the text at the beginning, middle, and
end; in paragraph eight, the people are described with monstrous
qualities: In one land people are born who are six feet tall. They
have beards to their knees and hair to their heels. They are called
Homodubii, that is doubtful ones and they eat raw fish and live
on them (Wonders 189). A few paragraphs later, the description
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becomes more humanistic in nature: Then there is an island in
the Red Sea where there is a race of people who know all human
speech. When they see someone from a foreign country, they name
him and his kinsmen with the names of acquaintances (Wonders
197). By the end of the text, the description seems to capture a holy
man declaring his sins: I am dead not unjustly, but rightly Gods
judgment stands against me For that reason am I dead, and for this
am I brought to the midst of the kingdom of hell (Wonders 203).
There is an obvious progression from the early text to the latter. At
the beginning, the focus is on the oddities in appearance and manner
of these peoples, while towards the middle, the text moves to a group
capable of human speech. By the end, there is a clear belief system
present, justifying the actions against, and the treatment of, a sinner
against God. Essentially, as Austin asserts, this hierarchy shows a
gradual movement up the scale of humans towards groups with
increased social and linguistic organization (Austin 31). Specifically,
this can be seen through the gradual change in food, manners, social
groupings, and religious associations. As Bildhauer and Mills discuss
in The Monstrous Middle Ages:
Monsters [ ] also defined the right choice of food and table
manners, which had an important function in demarcating
social groups and decorous behaviour. Similarly monsters
showed deficiencies and oddities in other areas important
to the definition of conduct, such as clothing, speech, and
weapons. Here, the monstrous other helped to identify the
very concept of courtliness (11).
It would then seem that Wonders is built upon the notion of
salvation, an institutional body, meant to protect, preserve, and
further the peoples of the East by offering them a path away from
the monstrous. There are clear descriptions of what are more or less
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monstrous and societal rules to follow in order to ensure salvation.
As Austin continues, Wonders desired to represent the order and
diversity of those to whom God offers his salvific grace, the text as
a whole reflect[ing] a grand scheme of salvation (43, 48). Thus, the
cultural abnormalities defined within this text, combined with the
hierarchy of humanity, create salvation as a means of preservation
of the status quo. By convincing readers of the time that God
would allow all beings a chance at forgiveness, salvation functioned
to maintain order and conformity; it was a guideline to behavior,
and ultimately suggested that a threatening being was not forced
to remain a monster. They, instead, could use salvation as a means
of overcoming their otherness. Salvation, therefore, championed
conformity by demarcating the good from the evil, providing a means
through which the East could easily label, and essentially, destroy the
monsters who threatened their cultural normality.
Like Wonders, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight also has a clear
functioning governmental body: Arthurs court and their code of
chivalry. At the beginning of the poem, it is clear that Arthurs
court and peoples are sophisticated in comparison to other world
inhabitants, the text describing them as the most chivalrous and
courteous knights known to Christendom; / the most wonderful
women to have walked in this world; / the handsomest king to be
crowned at court (The most kyd knyghtes under Krystes selven,
/ And the lovelokkest ladies that ever lif haden, / And he the
comlokest kyng that the court haldes) (lines 51-53). The court and
its guidelines of chivalry provide the members of the society very
apparent expectations for their actions. The state institutions, or
the court and the code, are, therefore, able to strive for conformity,
and ultimately, preserve, protect, and assert their reputation in the
medieval world. The ability of this court and code to succeed is seen
within the poem, specifically at the end when it becomes apparent
that Gawain has accidently violated his societal expectations. The
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Green Knight explains specifically how Gawain was faulty in his
actions (taking the girdle from Lady Bertilak and yet never revealing
the gift as he promised), saying: it was loyalty that you lacked: / not
because youre wicked, or a womanizer, or worse, / but you loved
your own life (and lewte yow wonted; / Bot that was for no wylyde
werke, ne wowing nauther, / Bot for ye lufed your lyf) (lines 2366-
2368). For this, Gawain receives a blow from the Green Knights axe,
but it skewed to one side, just skimming the skin (Bot snyrt hym
on that on side, that severed the hyde), leaving Gawain a mark to
remind him of his misdeeds (line 2312). After the Green Knight and
the guilty Gawain amend their pact, Gawain thanks this hybrid man
for exposing his true nature:
Bot your gordel, God yow
foryelde!
That wyl I welde with guod
wylle, not for the wynne
golde
Bot in syngne of my surfet
remorde to myselven
The faut and the fayntyse of the
fleshe crabbed.
But the girdle, God bless you
for this gift,
Not for all its ore will I own it
with honor
but as a sign of my sin
a sad reminder
that the frailty of his flesh is
mans biggest fault
(lines 2429-2435).
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Gawain is willing to accept his misdeeds and understands that
his actions have threatened his societys code of chivalry and the
expectations of the court, and is thus prepared to deal with the
monstrosity that lies ahead of him. Yet, institutional body within this
text is unwilling to deem themselves capable of producing a monster
or harboring the monstrous, therefore leading the court to reconcile
themselves with Gawains actions. To maintain the Green Knight
as the monster, and Gawain as a respectable citizen, King Arthur
declares that every knight in the brotherhoodshould bear such a
beltor the green girdlea bright green belt worn obliquely to the
body, / crosswise, like a sash, for the sake of this man (Uche burne
of the brotherhede, a bauderyk schulde have, / A bende abelef hym
aboute, of a bryght grene, / And that, for sake of the segge, in swete
to were) (lines 2516-2518). The governmental body is, therefore,
able to adapt their societal expectations by clearly identifying good
and evil; they turn Gawains sin into a mark of honor, and maintain
the Green Knight as evil in flesh.
Like Wonders and Sir Gawain, Grettirs Saga also embodies the notion
of the governmental body striving to maintain the status quo. The
government in this case, is the institution of outlawry. As described in
the Appendix of the saga, outlawry served as a legalized step towards
blood-taking and replaced a legal judgment of execution (Byock 239).
Additionally, outlawry provided Icelandic society with an efficient
and cost effective means of dispensing with troublemakers (239).
One can then see that outlawry functions as the institutional body
within the saga, for it is through this institution that the monster is
pushed to the borders, helping to define societys identity, while also
providing a means for the preservation and protection of the status
quo. With such conformity in place, the Icelanders have the ability
to eliminate otherness from the inside out and assert, through unity,
their dominance in the world. Interestingly, the saga uses Grettirs
existence to explore both the monster and the borderlands, while
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also using his death to explore heroism and uniformity. First, Grettir
is consistently used to define the monster, particularly through the
system of outlawry. He is consistently viewed as the other, far in
advance of other men with an exceptional physical appearance,
Thornstein saying: I have never seen a mans arm like this (88,
115). He is even cursed, Glam punishing him: most of what you
do will now turn against you, bringing bad luck and no joy. You
will be made an outlaw (102). Despite Grettirs nature, his physical
appearance and cursed existence render him a monster regardless.
The institution of outlawry confines him multiple times to a life as
an outlaw, as exampled when text states, Thorir made Grettir an
outlaw in every part of the country (123). No matter how Grettir
reacted, the system of outlawry confined him to a life as a monster,
never allowing him to overcome the perceptions because he was
needed as an outlaw to clearly identify the boundaries of society. Yet,
because Grettirs presence as an outlaw made his name renowned
throughout Iceland, in his death, the governmental body was forced
to not only acknowledge this man, but praise his life; this is done to
ensure that Grettir was not remembered for his misdeeds, but for
his twisted conformity. Sturla the Lawman, at the end of the saga,
declares that:
Grettir was the cleverest, as witnessed by the fact that he
lived in outlawry longest of all men and was never overcome
while he had his health. Second, he was the strongest man
in the land among those of the same age, and he was better
than others at removing the walking dead and monsters.
The third was that Grettir, unlike any other Icelander, was
avenged out in Constantinople (238).
Suddenly, the threat that Grettir posed to the values of society are
eliminated in his death. Instead, he is prized for his abilities to
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survive, challenge, and defeat. Especially interesting, is that hes seen
as a slayer of monsters. A man, so demonized throughout the text, is
suddenly accepted as securer of the status quo. Thus, the institution
of outlawry is able to use Grettir as a multi-facet: he functions as a
monster in life, a reminder of what humans should not be, and a hero
in death, a man preserving and protecting the state. It appears then,
that the governmental body is fully aware of Grettir as a monster and
a hero, and is able to use him two-fold to reinstate societal normality.
As these medieval texts reveal, governments in the past were
conscious of societys monsters, using them to protect borders
and reinstate the status quo. This concept continues today, while
the means of reminding society of their place has changed. Today,
media, colored by a nations culture and motivated by profit, are
utilized as an extension of the state. They project and remind
society of the monsters so valued by the government, providing
human beings a clear other from which to disassociate from. A
prime example of the monster control we experience today is often
witnessed in the news with the depiction of the terrorist. The
negativity and the language the surrounds the depiction of the the
terrorist is universally negative (Brennan 2). This being is often
considered freedom-hating, a direct opposition to everything
that American values uphold (Brennan 2). Thus, this monster, the
terrorist, is created for Americans to compare themselves against.
If we are consistently forced oppose ourselves to the otherthis
extreme harmer of nationswe naturally maintain the status quo,
for we directly disassociate the terrorist, or a threat to American
uniformity. The news is not the only utilized form of media by
the government; many of todays most popular television shows
subconsciously remind us of who and what humanity and society
are and should remain. The television affords us the comfort of
being able to view the monster and the monstrous qualities that it
observes, while still being able to maintain a significant distance.
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As Stephen T. Asma writes in Monsters and Moral Imagination, this
vacation to where the wild things are ultimately helps us return to
our lives of quiet repression (2). We can identify ourselves by what
we are not, and then shut off the television before the discomfort
sets in. Essentially, the world we live in today, while it may appear
different and have specific advancements, is no more unlike in the
way that we identify monsters and experience government use of
such. As long as human beings exist, there will always be others,
there will always be monsters, and governments will always recognize
these alterior figures.
In essence, human beings have a natural need to identify by
exclusion, and it is through this oppositional recognition that the
monster is born; governments and governmental bodies, as social
constructions themselves, recognize these monsters, and use them as
border patrols, maintaining the status quo from the inside out. This
concept is not a new one; as explored, both medieval literature and
media today include elements of monstrosity for the sake of social
control. It seems only a natural reaction, as nations have felt and
always will feel a need to preserve and protect their cultural norms
for the sake of asserting their dominance in the world. To succeed,
a safe race is a necessity; with little to no upheaval on the interior, a
nation projects itself as a stronger force. Yet, this natural desire for
governments to want to control the status quo through monstrosity
raises some interesting possibilities. What they are attempting to
control could potentially be our own internal strangeness, projected
onto a body deemed other (Kearney 73). As Cohen states in,
monsters are our children (20). Monsters are, therefore, a creation
of our own fears, insecurities, and apprehensions. Interestingly,
governments too have their origins in this same fear; they are created
to function as the monster does, as a reminder of social boundaries.
Are governments then monsters? And, if we as a society internalize
our government and are socially controlled and conformed to fit with
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governmental standards, then are we not also monsters, marking
the boundaries of humanity? Thus, it seems that humanity and the
monster are one in the same, possibly explaining why the state, both
past and present, utilize monsters to maintain the status quo.
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Works Cited
Orchard, Andy. The Wonders of the East. Pride and Prodigies.
Toronto: UP Toronto, 1995. 185-203. Print.
Asma, Stephen T. Monsters and the Moral Imagination. Chronicle
of Higher Education 56.10 (2009): B11-B12. Academic Search Elite.
EBSCO. Web. 10 Apr. 2011.
Austin, Greta. Marvels and Miracles: Studies in the Medieval and Early
Modern Imaginations. Eds. Timothy Jones and David Sprunger.
Kalamazoo: Western Michigan University, 2002. 25-51. Print.
Bildhauer, Bettina and Robert Mills, eds. The Monstrous Middle
Ages. Toronto: Toronto UP, 2003. 1-27. Print.
Brennan, Robert. Monster Culture in Post 9/11 America. Journal
of the Undergraduate Writing Program, Columbia University. Google
Scholar. Web. 10 Apr. 2011.
Cashman, V. Katharine and Shane J. Cronin. Welcoming a
Monster to the World: Myths, Oral Tradition, and Modern
Societal Response to Volcanic Disasters. Journal of Volcanology
and Geothermal Research 176 (2008). Google Scholar. Web. 10
Apr. 2011.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome, ed. Monster Theory: Reading Culture.
Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1996. 3-25. Print.
Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters, and the Middle Ages.
Minneapolis: UP Minnesota, 1999. 1-28. Print.
Byock, Jesse, ed. & trans. Grettirs Saga: A New Translation. Oxford,
NY: Oxford UP, 2009. 9-239. Print.
Kearney, Richard. Strangers, Gods, and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness.
New York: Roultedge, 2003. 65-82. Print.
Armitage, Simon, ed. & trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2007. 21-189. Print.
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129
The combination of violence and civilization has given birth to a
unique paradox. On one hand we deplore the use of violence and
much of our legal systems are dedicated to eradicating it. On the
other hand, it is our very legal system that embodies and embraces
violence. It is a volatile mix that leaves us asking many questions about
the very nature of our violence. The perceived truth surrounding
violence all has to do with our own cultural perceptions.
The cultural perception of violence in the epic poem, Beowulf
swims in a sea of gray. The poem accounts for the fictional tale
of a kingdom that is besieged by a monster that comes from the
rim of civilization on a nightly basis to wreck havoc and chaos
through extreme violence. The actions are so unforgiveable that
the only possible conclusion to restore peace and order is to destroy
the monster, Grendel, with extreme prejudice. The name of that
extreme prejudice is Beowulf, who wields uncompromising violence
as his tool.
Before it can be assumed that Beowulf is just a man playing
judge, jury and executioner, it is appropriate to put his situation
into context. In the epic poem, the actions of Grendel are described
as being beyond atonement. In Heorot, No one/ waited for
reparations from his plundering claws: (Beowulf, 156-157). It
They Walk Among Us
Occupational Violence in Beowulf
and The Modern Era
David Buisch
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is obvious that some type of system of criminal correction was in
place, but Grendel wanted no part in it. He was beyond the scope
of the law and removed from consequence. Grendels tyranny in the
poem was strengthened after each raid and was, seeking no peace,
offering/ No truce, accepting no settlement, no price in gold or
land (Raffel, 155-156). Grendels only motive is to exterminate the
people of Heorot. He cannot be reasoned with, bullied, or bribed.
The situation Grendel created is kill or be killed and much to his
chagrin, killers like Beowulf walk the earth to do just that: to kill that
which needs to be killed.
As stated above, it is the common belief that all violence is
deplorable. It is what makes us fearful and in many instances it is
what threatens the very foundation of civilization. Violence is the
heart of the old saying might makes right, where order and the
spoils of war come to whoever can most effectively use violence.
There is no room for democracy or justice in such situations. But
where democracy and justice do thrive, violence can be used as a
tool of defense. Violence in several cultures is not only used but
celebrated as a tool to smite those that would bring havoc and harm
to anything that is the cultural norm. It happens at all levels, be it the
national level that uses grand forces and armies to defend its borders
or right down to the cherished notion of a man defending his house
from an intruder.
It all depends on the context. In Eviatar Zerubavels book, The
Fine Line: Making Decisions in Everyday Life, he claims that decisions
made in life are based on evidence that has been creatively filed in
our minds. These creative files are what he calls islands of meaning
(Zerubavel, 6). He claims that a single idea can have two meanings and
that both meanings are equally valid. To apply his theory to violence,
it is no wonder that we are able to love and hate it simultaneously.
On one of these figurative islands we hate violence and the threat
that follows it; on another island, it explains why we love violent
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davi d bui sch 131
sports and regard our members of the armed forces as heroes.
In terms of occupation, Beowulf was a member of the military.
In American culture, we have split the military into the same islands
of meaning. Members of the Armed Forces are culturally regarded
as the heroes that preserve our freedom and way of life, yet we hate
war. The goal of the solider is to win wars and solve problems with
violence yet we cringe at the idea. To give an example, Marine Corp
Recruit Depot: Parris Island, is nothing more than a little swamp
built on blood, sweat and sand fleas. It is an engine that turns young
men and women into ultra efficient killing machines with hearts
of stone. The idea is barbaric but at the same time people (namely
Americans) sleep very well at night knowing that those same engines
of death are standing watch. Beowulf is no different and neither
is the context of his service. The book, Medieval Callings, edited by
Jaques Le Golf speaks heavily of the paradox in which the warrior
lives in. He describes the medieval world as exceptionally cruel, where
violence was very normal (Le Goff, 75-79). Beowulf, as a warrior had
a place in that world. He was a wall separating peaceful existence
from the jungle of tyranny.
How Beowulf perceives his job as a warrior is a clue to his place in
the world. Beowulf views Grendel as an adversary or rival. The poet
of the original text used a handful of creative binaries to help the
reader make this connection. The two binaries present are the points
of view of Grendel and Beowulf. To Grendel, the people of Heorot
are game. We see this when he makes his famous journey from
the fen to the doors of Heorot for the first time. He seizes people
and kills them and more importantly, eats them. The imagery used
makes Grendel seem as monstrous as possible. Beowulfs perception
is a little different. He treats the encounter with Grendel almost as a
game, but definitely a job to be done (Parks).The poem states that he
does his job for a variety of reasons, namely for God, fame and glory,
but any of these reasons could be replaced. He could have done it
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because he liked the idea of killing or because he was a medieval
adrenaline junkie. Any reason could have sufficed because the act
of destroying those that would destroy the innocent without mercy
is justified.
To speak again of the society that Beowulf lived in, it is clear that
he lived in a very martial, warrior controlled society. This system of
government relied on a kings ability to control the use of violent
potential (Le Goff, 75). Violent potential is nothing more than this
warrior societys ability to commit to war and the motives surrounding
it. In the epic, Hrothgar is a Danish King that is described as a ring
giver. His purpose for giving said rings is to invite (or at least bribe)
the warriors of his region to unite under his colors. Normally, the
creation of an army for the sole purpose of uniting a group of people
could be seen as a bit fascist. The nature of this fascism and unified
military pride is not without precedent, nor is it something that has
been abandoned as an ideal of the Dark Ages. Case in point: the flag
of Fascist Italy, flown by the Italian Dictator, Benito Mussolini. The
flag depicts an image of a bundle of sticks, lashed together with an
axe in the middle of them. The bundle of sticks is a representation of
strength through unity and the axe represents that this unity is made
possible by the military. Beowulfs culture is no different. To not be
violent would cause everything to fall apart.
The actions of Beowulf, although a bit misunderstood to this
day, are justified on a cultural level. Richard Kaeupers Chivalry and
Violence in Medieval Europe speaks volumes of the mindset of people
like Beowulf. The fringe benefits of Beowulfs job appear to be more
than just fame and a ticket on the fast track to heaven. According to
Kaeuper, the literature of the time, declare it a great honor to die
from the blows of a man of great prowess (Kaeuper, 153). It is not
suggested that Beowulf was on a suicide mission or that Grendel was
a man. But one could easily see the honor in either victory or defeat
with Grendel. To us, this is a bizarre instance, but only because
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davi d bui sch 133
modern readers are not part of the culture, and therefore cannot
construct the proper islands of meaning to fully appreciate all of
Beowulfs notions.
In our evolution and construction of a modern society, it is
possible that we have taken two ideas and made synonyms of them.
The two ideas worth examining are violence and crime. The link that
we have placed in our modern minds has given both ideas a strange
pretext. We view crime and violence as synonyms because both of
them share space on an island of meaning. The issue is, crime and
violence also appear on several of the minds islands of meanings,
in several different categories. Crime and violence even sit together
on an island that we cheer for. Take the story of Robin Hood. He
robs from the rich and gives to the poor. Its a story most of us grow
to appreciate as children and have a nostalgia for when we reach
adulthood. But nostalgia aside, we also have a growing fear that one
day, we might be the rich being robbed. Feelings of nostalgia vanish
as we think about being confronted by a man in a ski mask at an
ATM. For all we know, he is going to donate that money to charity,
or maybe even give it to a medical institution as a grant. Regardless
of his intentions, once we are the rich (or at least the ones being
robbed) any happy notion of armed robbery as good gets packed
up and sent to the mental island of meaning labeled bad.
From a modern perspective, it is very easy to conceptualize
Beowulf as a warmonger and a brute. This happens due to the
binary created between Beowulf and Grendel. Maybe it is because
of our legal system or our distancing from violence as a societal tool.
Nonetheless, we see violence as an irrational other. To show this
transformation of the idea, we can look at the 1971 novel: Grendel,
by John Gardner. The novel is set as a prequel describing Grendels
childhood and eventual coming of age. It also describes Grendel as
an anxiety ridden teenager that is the victim of lateral violence and
banishment to the edge of society. The reader feels pity for Grendel
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and even cheers him on when he makes his weekly trips to Heorot to
slaughter the people. In a sense, Gardners mission was to place the
Holden Caulfield like character on the island of meaning labeled
victim. This comes naturally due to our distancing from violence.
Gardner wrote his novel during a unique time. The novel was written
in the midst of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. It was
published in the midst of one of the most controversial presidencies
in American history, the Nixon Administration. Its safe to say that
Gardner wrote in a time when the traditional thought of American
life was being revisited. But one must understand that the author of
Beowulf did not have this live in a time where rights were debated
or peacefully rallies were tolerated. To revisit Kaeuper, violence was
the ideology of the political atmosphere at the time of the epics
composition (Kaeuper, 91).
Beowulfs job as a war fighter and soldier is nothing new to
civilization. In fact, organized violence is so old that archeological
evidence places the act of war as an entity that predates historical
record (Whitehead). It is entirely possible that violence is intrinsic to
who we are as people. It was believed that warfare was the result of
a moral breakdown and the corruption of the governing body. The
problem with this ideology lies in the act of killing. Not all killing is
politically connected. If one were to look at serial killers, lynchings,
pogroms, witch trials, and ritual killings it is clear that violence is
nothing more than a part of the culture (Whitehead). If one were to
look at the culture in which Beowulf resided, it is no wonder that he
embraced violence so much.
The author of Beowulf highlighted the destruction and reclaiming
of civilization with violence simply by using a mead hall as the vast
majority of the setting. According to Jerome Cohen, In early northern
European culture, the mead hall (meduheall) was the center of
community, the materialization into concrete public space of heroic
identity (Cohen,6). The devastation Grendel causes, highlights his
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otherness and disdain for humanity. But it also highlights Beowulfs
place as a defender of civilization. It is logical to believe that Beowulf
would wait for Grendel in a place in which he knew he would
come but it is also interesting that in all of the possible places in
Denmark, that he could have killed Grendel, it happened in the
place that is a symbol for the heart of civilization. It is also worth
noting how he killed him. Beowulf was without weapons or clothing
and defeated his opponent in the most animalistic way possible.
Ultra-violence and primal aggression are what helped Beowulf defeat
Grendel. Ironically, Grendel used these two qualities in an attempt
to tear down civilization. This bizarre coincidence places Beowulf
in the same category of his enemy, Grendel. But because the reader
sympathizes with Beowulf, it is justified.
To further reinforce the mental lumping and splitting of Beowulf
and Grendel it is important to analyze just how similar they are.
Both are of immense size and strength and both live to kill. It would
not be fair to say that the difference between them is why they kill.
Beowulf, as a warrior, utilizes violence for political purposes as well as
a way to gain fame. Grendel commits violence because he is spiteful
and hungry. The only ideological difference is the effect caused by
the violence they loved to create. Grendel is attempting to destroy
the established order while Beowulf is trying to restore it.
Although Beowulf is just a man and therefore a member of society,
it is his size and indifferent attitude on the subject of killing that
classifies him as other. We as a society try to look at members of
our military as one of us, but sometimes doing so is not so simple. In
fact, it could be said that members of the military look at themselves
as other. Its safe to say that Beowulf was probably groomed to be
a soldier but it is also entirely plausible that he could have retired
or quit the life whenever he wanted. To revisit his perspective, it
is plausible that he not only looked at his coming to Denmark to
kill Grendel as an opportunity to enhance his career, but as a sense
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of duty to defend those that cannot defend themselves. Richard
Kearney quotes Jacque Derrida when he defines other as, host or as
enemy (Kearney, 69). On a literal level, Beowulf could have viewed
Hrothgar and the people as the host of a tyrannical monster and
therefore, other. Given Beowulfs nature it is likely that the island
of meaning he places the people of Heorot on is labeled as weak
or pitiful. In a roundabout way, this makes him a monster, but a
monster the people need.
In all, it could be said that the deeds of a person is what defines
them. Beowulf, although born into the military lifestyle with a
powerful man as a father, did not rise to kingship by chance. It was
not a gift or a bestowing that made him powerful, it was what he did.
The medieval era may have been a time of beautiful words and prose
but it was a world that had been pulled into a dark pit of violence
and cruelty. It was not the boasts or words that Beowulf spoke but it
was the actions that he had taken that made him the legend he was.
Five day swimming marathons and the slaughtering of sea monsters
were among these actions. His life was wrought with danger, mostly
of his own making but most of it was necessary. His size and stature
made him physically equipped for the job and on a few occasions
the only thing that saved him was luck, such as the fact that his
willingness to fight Grendel unarmed was only a coincidence. How
could he have known that Grendel was immune to weapons.
The military is not the only occupation that seems to blend
violence and labor. Butchers, executioners, exterminators, scientists
and exorcists are also members of our society that seem to walk
the line between what should be done and what needs to be done.
Butchers in particular are some of the most despised and beloved of
the occupations on the list. Every day they wade in blood and stench
to do the job the popular culture deems unbearable and barbaric.
Yet, the eating of meat is a large part of the human diet. The job
itself is back-breaking, violent and not for the light of heart. They
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are underpaid and for the most part are stereotypically perceived
by the public as monstrous. Much of this publicity is thanks to the
organization known as PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of
Animals). PETA bombards the media and the nations young with
words like cruelty and abuse when it speaks of slaughter (PETA).
The members of this organization do not realize that the act of
butchering is part of our cultural history. In a sense, Beowulf and
butchers are in the same business and stand hand in hand on an
island of meaning. Both provide a service much needed by humanity
and that service seems to entail violent means. Of course it could be
said that one involves considerably less risk and the slaughtered are
far more helpless, but it is a dangerous job nonetheless.
Violence and killing is not a lesser evil: it is a necessary evil. The
merchants of death that walk among us, the men that pity the weak
but defend them, live on the rim of our civilization. They are the
gatekeepers of order and justice and the destroyers of all who would
threaten either. It is clear that this ideal existed in medieval culture,
and thrives in a modern world that pretends which it doesnt exist.
We feel safe around men like Beowulf, but we shun their work. There
is nothing the world would like more than to place men like Beowulf
in the unemployment line, but deep in our hearts we know that
the manifestation of this dream is as close to us as the stars. They
walk the fine line between primal power and enlightened power.
There are forces in this world that go bump in the night and it is the
merchants of death that bump back, despite our need to look away.
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Work Cited
Cohen, J.J. Of Giants: Sex, Monsters and The Middle Ages.
Minneapolis: UP Minnesota. 1999. Pp 1-28. Print.
Gardner, John. Grendel . 1st ed. New York: Knopf, 1971. Print.
Kaeuper, Richard W.. Chivalry and Violence in Medieval Europe.
Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999. Print.
Kearney, Richard. Stranger Gods and Monsters: Interpreting Otherness.
New York:
Rouhedge, 2003. Pp 65-82. Print.
Le Goff, Jacques. Medieval Callings. Chicago: University Of Chicago
Press, 1990. Print.
Parks, Ward. Pray Tell: How Heroes Perceive Monsters in
Beowulf. Journal of English and Germanic Philology. (Jan
1993): Vol. 22. Web.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The animal
rights organization | PETA.org. People for the Ethical Treatment
of Animals (PETA): The Animal Rights Organization | PETA.org.
PETA, 1 Jan. 2011. 15 Apr. 2011. Web.
Raffel, Burton. Beowulf: A new Translation with an Introd. by Burton
Raffel.. New York: New American Library, 1963. Print.
Whitehead, Neil. Violence & the Cultural Order. Daedalus, Volume
136, No 1. (winter 2007) pp. 40-50. Web.
Zerubavel, Eviatar. The Fine Line: Making Distinctions In Everyday
Life. New York: Free Press, 1991. Print.
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139
All human beings from the beginning of their creation have an innate
need to have a home. The idea of home has evolved from a physical
space to an abstract plane within the mind. Within medieval literature,
the home was a physical establishment, defining ones identity
through a connection with space, objects, and obligations essential to
the standard lifestyle. To be homeless at this time was to lack identity,
essentially making one monstrous. In contrast, the concept of home
has been greatly revolutionized since the 20
th
century, leading to a
shift in the idea of home as an abstract place within oneself; this
movement has impacted the monsters of societies, for no longer is
identity attached to objects and space, but to the relationships and the
experiences that one has within their life. No longer is homelessness
associated with the monstrous, for societies have come to recognize
the existence of an internal home. This has significantly impacted
the way in which the homeless identify themselves. Technically, they
reside within the boundaries of society, and yet have no physical home.
The shift is, therefore, evident in the comparison of the 20
th
century
views of home to the physical home so valued in the medieval texts of
Grettirs Saga, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
People have an innate need to belong and to be able to identify
who they are, home is an essential component of this identification
Home and Spatial Identity
Physical to Psychological Space
Laura Lucyshyn
5009631_text.indd 139 4/29/11 9:13 AM
among humanity; the home is how people define who they are
within society. There are two ways in which the home has been
viewed throughout history, as both a physical and an abstract
space. The physical space is defined as the actual home and the
area surrounding it. The definition of abstract space incorporates
the emotional attachments and relationships that exist within a
contained area, ultimately creating the psychological home. These
two vastly different concepts of home suggest a shift in the way
human beings perceive their identity.
The home, as a physical structure, was the dominant perspective
of identity for the people who lived during the medieval period.
The actual physical space of the living quarters was home; it defined
who the people were at the time. If a person was wealthy, it became
apparent through the size of the structure, contents held within,
and the size of the feasts. The people who made up the medieval
society placed much emphasis on the home. If a person did not have
a physical home then they were considered to be exiled, monstrous,
or other. The clear consensus of the people during the medieval
time was that without a physical home, a person was left without an
identity. The person was thought to have no connection to people,
land, or structure. This idea becomes questionable as a shift occurs
between the physical and abstract space of home, as represented in
the contrast of medieval literature to the views of today.
The idea of an abstract space is the present day perspective on
what a home is and how people identify themselves in relation to a
home. The relationships among the people often recreate an essence
of the home. People define themselves through the emotional and
physical relationships that they develop with other people. These
relationships and feelings are internalized; they are not something
that can be seen as part of the physical structure of the home, but they
are very much a real and significant component of the home. People
get the sense of being at home when they are able to experience a
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laura lucyshyn 141
closeness among the people that they cohabitate with. This feeling
of security does not manifest from the actual structure of the home
but rather from the relationships with other people. The idea of
home becomes an internalized structure. A person is able to feel at
home wherever they are in the world because home is not a physical
structure but rather an abstract place that exists within a person.
A person can create their own version of their reality without the
need of materialistic items or a physical structure. The idea of home
is beginning to shift into a psychological realm. The home of the
people in todays society resides within the mind.
Upon examining a physical versus abstract space, one can now
explore how medieval literature embraced the physical home,
beginning with Grettirs Saga. Grettir is outlawed to the outside of
society, a physical space because of his otherness. The society keeps
Grettir on the outside because he cannot identify with anybody.
Grettir is pushed around, forced to travel from place to place, in
search of a physical home. The text displays Grettir and his actions
as being out of control because he does not have a home, which
ultimately states that he does not have an identity. Grettir is seen
as an irreconcilable man because he is transient in nature; he does
not have a permanent physical space in which to live. As home
was defined during the medieval time, if a person did not have a
permanent physical residence, then they did not belong within the
society. Grettirs banishment from society becomes apparent when
Glam states that Grettir will be made an outlaw, forced always to
live in the wilds and to live alone (Byock 102). Grettirs identity
becomes questionable because he does not have a physical place to
which he can permanently connect himself. Who is he if he does
not have a permanent physical home? Throughout the text, Grettir
searches for a physical home in a desperate attempt at reclaiming
an identity. The places that Grettir comes to temporarily inhabit
become physical structures of home.
5009631_text.indd 141 4/29/11 9:13 AM
Grettir inhabits many different places within Grettirs Saga in
search of home and identity. Without a permanent physical home
Grettir is homeless, forced to seek shelter wherever it may be
available. Barbara Wand James and Patrick D. Lopez argue that, no
one residential situation is definitive or long term (129). Here, they
seem to suggest that a homeless person is always on the move trying to
locate a physical place to stay. This situation can be seen throughout
Grettirs journey. Three major places that Grettir temporarily resides
at are Thorhallsstead, the farm of Sandhaugar in Bardardal, and
Drangey Island. These places allow Grettir a temporary place to live
but they were never a home. These dwellings offer Grettir a false
hope at reclaiming his identity. Grettirs stay at these places is never
permanent, which keeps him on a constant quest of identity. Grettirs
stay at Thorhallsstead brings his identity into question. Grettir sets out
for Thorhallsstead in an attempt to destroy a ghost that is haunting the
physical space of a farmer. Grettir believes that evil will only beget evil
where Glam is concerned, and it is far better to grapple with humans
than with monsters like this (Byock 98). The text is suggesting that
Grettir is cognizant of his lack of identity. Grettir believes that he may
be able to reclaim his identity through the destruction of the monster.
If he destroys Glam, then Grettir believes that he will be obtaining
an identity through the act of protecting the haunted farmhouse.
Grettir fighting the monster is symbolic of his quest for an identity
through a physical space. Through the destruction, of the monster
Grettir is able to open up a physical space in which he may be able to
find a home. By freeing the house of the monstrous presence, Grettir
believes that he will be clearing a physical space in which for himself
to reside. Sadly, Thorhallsstead proves to be a false home for Grettir.
The farm of Sandhaugar in Bardardal also becomes a temporary
physical home for Grettir. Grettir travels to Bardardal because it is
believed to be haunted. This is another attempt for Grettir to gain
an identity through the destruction of another who is monstrous.
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laura lucyshyn 143
Into the dark gorge I ventured; the waterfall, tumbling rocks,
gaped with its chill spouting mouth at me and my sword.
Against my chest the air-borne torrent surged in the chasm,
A haunt for trolls; the giant came down hard on my shoulders.
(Byock 179)
Grettir is venturing into the dark physical space of the she-troll in an
attempt to gain an identity. Grettir also battled the she-troll earlier
in the text in an attempt to claim a physical space: She managed to
pull him out through the inner door and into the outer entrance
hallway, yet he stood his ground (Byock 176). Grettir is fighting to
claim the physical space of the home while the she-troll is trying
to cause a separation between Grettir and the physical space of the
structure. Separating Grettir from the physical home leaves him
vulnerable without an identity. Grettir needs the home to solidify
who he his as a person, so he will stand to protect it: She wanted
to drag him out of the house, but she was unable to do this until
the two had ripped loose the whole outer-door frame, carrying it
outside on their shoulders (Byock 176). The she-troll is symbolic of
the society in which Grettir used to reside. The society does not want
Grettir to have an identity and neither does the she troll because
they believe that he belongs in exile. Therefore, the she-troll controls
Grettirs ability to have an identity by trying to remove him from the
physical space of a home. Grettir fights the she-troll the whole way,
this suggests the strong need of identity that exists. Thus, the farm of
Sandhaugar in Bardardal also proves to be a false home for Grettir.
Drangey Island also becomes a temporary physical home for
Grettir, a last attempt at claiming a home and an identity.
The sword-blade carved mens fates time after time
when, hacking at thugs run amok, I staunchly defended
that birchwood house. And that cost Hjarrandi, your man,
5009631_text.indd 143 4/29/11 9:13 AM
his arm. As for Bjorn and Gunnar, they forsook both their
lair and their life in short order. (Byock 207)
Grettir makes one last fatal attempt to claim an identity through
physical space, yet society will not let Grettir gain an identity. The
old lady becomes symbolic of the society preventing Grettir from
reclaiming an identity. Grettir begins to realize the transparency
of his connection to Drangey Island after the old woman put the
spell on the tree (Byock 205). This enchantment prevents Grettir
from being able to make a connection between Drangey Island and
the idea of home. The spell ultimately leads to the destruction of
Grettir. The spell takes away any chance that Grettir had at gaining
an identity through death. Grettir dies without a true physical home
and without a true identity.
In the medieval text, Beowulf, the idea of space is clearly
differentiated between the human physical space and the monstrous
physical space. The physical space separates the men from the
monstrous. The separation of space allows the men to give themselves
identity. The men place much importance on physical space,
because they believe that it clearly defines who they are as men. The
physical space allows the men to be able to clearly label themselves
as not the monstrous. The physical space allows the men to create
borders and boundaries to protect their home and identity. Yet, this
life of comfort experiences an irruption. The men experience an
interruption of their physical space through the monster, Grendel.
The invasion of the monstrous space into the physical human space
causes a confusion of identity. Thus, the men experience an identity
crisis from the presence of a monster within their physical territory.
In the text, Beowulf, a clear separation exists between human
physical space and monstrous physical space. The humans reside in
a physical space, the mead hall. The men build, hunt, fight, and
feast as part of their identity as humans. They pride themselves on
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laura lucyshyn 145
the treasures that fill up their home. The men identify themselves as
humans through their daily activities and treasures.
At times the kings thane, full of grand stories, mindful of
songs, who remembered much, a great many of the old tales,
found other words truly bound together; he began again to
recite with skill the adventure of Beowulf adeptly tell an apt
tale, and weave his words. (Liuzza 74)
Here, the men begin to display their significant attachment to the
physical space through the strategy of story telling. The men sing of
their identity and the importance of being clearly differentiated as
a human. The men need to be able to define who they are so they
can solidify the fact that they are not different or monstrous but that
they make up what it is considered to be the norm of their time.
The monstrous physical space exists on the border of the human
world. The monstrous space is dark and scary. Grendel lives in the
moors, which the humans consider to be separate from their physical
space. The humans believe that Grendel does not have a human
identity because of his otherness. Grendel is different from the men,
which they solidify through song. They are not able to identify with
his physical appearance or actions. Therefore, it is essential to the
existence of the human identity to reside in a separate physical space
than the monsters.
The clear distinction between human physical space and
monstrous physical space becomes blurred when Grendel irrupts
into the reality of the mens physical space and their identity. Grendel
irrupts into the physical space of the human men by invading the
mead hall, Heorot. Grendel creates confusion among the men.
How can someone who is so utterly different come to be within
their physical space? The men knew exactly who they were and had
a clear definition of their destinies; Thus this lordly people lived in
5009631_text.indd 145 4/29/11 9:13 AM
joy, / blessedly, until one began / to work his foul crimes- a fiend
from hell (Liuzza 99-101.) Grendel forces the men to question their
existence and identity as humans. Someone who is other, a monster,
has destroyed the physical comfort of home.
Thus the foe of mankind, fearsome and solitary, often
committed his many crimes, cruel humiliations; he occupied
Heorot, the jewel-adorned hall, in the dark nights- he saw
no need to salute the throne, he scorned the reassures; he did
not know their love. (Luizza 164-169)
Here, Grendel reveals his need for an identity. He cannot identify
himself within the humans physical home. He recognizes that he
does not belong in the humans physical space; he knows that he is
different. Grendel decides to invade the humans physical space in
an attempt to take away the humans identity. If Grendel does not
have a worthy identity then why should the humans? The quote also
suggests the manner in which the humans separate their identity
from Grendels existence. The humans view Grendel as an enemy of
the humans, which suggests his otherness. Grendel is not considered
or invited to become a part of the human existence. This causes
animosity to build up inside Grendel because all he truly wants is to
belong. Both the men and Grendel experience a confusion and loss
of identity through the separation and irruption of physical space.
The humans ultimately view Grendel as being physically homeless
because they do not consider him to be a part of their physical space.
Jo Phelan and others bring up a very interesting question, does the
presence of homelessness similarly affect the attitudes of various
demographic groups and of those who have varying amounts of
contact with homeless people? (327). Liuzzas text, Beowulf, does
suggest the influence that Grendels presence has on Hrothgar
and his men. The men feel that their physical space and identity is
5009631_text.indd 146 4/29/11 9:13 AM
laura lucyshyn 147
threatened by the very existence of Grendel. The attitudes and songs
of the humans are what cause Grendel to question his existence. The
humans convince Grendel into believing that he is not worthy of an
identity. Grendel retaliates against the men as retribution for the way
that they treated him.
When night descended he went to seek out the high
house, to see how the Ring-Danes has bedded down
after their beer-drinking. He found therein a troop of
nobles asleep after the feast; they knew no sorrow or
human misery. The unholy creature, grim and
ravenous, was ready at once, ruthless and cruel, and
he took from their rest thirty thanes; thence he went
rejoicing in his booty, back to his home, to seek out
his abode with his fill of slaughter. (Luizza115-125)
Grendel tries to gain an identity through committing violent acts
against the humans. Through murderous acts, Grendel is able to
strip the humans of their identity. He is not welcomed within their
physical space; the men have left Grendel with no other choice but
to destroy Heorot.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is another medieval text that
examines the existence of physical space. Space dictates the rules
of the game. The rules constantly change which suggests an identity
crisis. Sir Gawain experiences confusion from the constant changing
of the rules; he is not sure who he is supposed to be. In the physical
space of the castle Sir Gawains identity is clear. He knows where
he belongs and what makes up his existence as a member of King
Arthurs court.
This was kynges countenaunce where he in court were,
At uch farand fest among his fre meny in halle. Therefore
5009631_text.indd 147 4/29/11 9:13 AM
of face so fere He stightles stif in stalle; Ful yep in that Nw
Yere, Much mirthe he mas with alle. (Armitage 100-106)
Within Camelots castle this was the custom, and at feasts
and festivals when the fellowship would meet. With features
proud and fine he stood there tall and straight, a king at
Chrismastime amid great merriment. (Armitage 100-106)
Here, a clear idea of identity becomes apparent from within the
physical space of the castle. The castle, the feasts, and the festivals
establish Gawains identity. Gawain is defined by his place within
King Arthurs court. His identity is based upon the chivalric code
that a knight must abide by. Gawains identity comes into question
when he is forced to leave the physical space of the castle. The game
of the Green Knight takes Gawain out of his comfortable existence
into an uncertain space and reality.
Gawain becomes physically homeless when he enters into the
woods in search of the Green Knight. He experiences a feeling of
displacement as he travels into the unknown.
Bi a mounte on the morne meryly he rydes Into a forest ful
dep, that ferly was wylde, Highe hills on uche a halve, and
holtwodes under Of hore okes ful hoge a hundreth togeder.
The hasel and the hawthorne were harled al samen, With
roghe raged mosse rayled aywhere, With mony bryddes
unblythe upon bare twyges, That pitosly ther piped for
pyne of the cold. (Armitage 740-747)
Next morning he moves on, skirts the mountainside,
descends a deep forest, densely overgrown, with ancient
oaks in huddles of hundreds and vaulting hills above each
half of the valley. Hazel and hawthorn interwoven, decked
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laura lucyshyn 149
and draped in damp, shaggy moss, and bedraggled birds on
bare, black branches pipe pitifully into the piercing cold.
(Armitage 740-747)
The woods are dark, unfamiliar, and wild. This leaves Gawain
unable to reconcile his identify. Gawains identifies himself within
relation to the castle. Gawain has never envisioned his life on the
outside of the castle. Without the castle Gawain is in a constant state
of confusion. He begins to question his existence and the chivalric
code. Gawains detachment from the castle leaves him without a true
sense of self. Gawain does not know where he is in the woods. He
becomes reckless because his physical space has been disturbed and
his identity has led him into a state of confusion.
Gawain has created his identity through the existence of the
chivalric code. According to Jeanne Moore: Amidst the comfort,
home has also been represented as a place full of obligations and
prison (209). Gawain looses his identity when he leaves the castle
because of his obligation to the king and the court. Without duty
Gawain does not know who he is. The physical space of the castle
dictates the role that Gawain plays within the court, which also
defines who he is in life. Paul Lichterman states that, people use
words and gestures collectively and individually to articulate who
they are and are not (85). This argument parallels Gawains existence
through the firm belief he holds of the chivalric code, which closely
ties him to the physical space of the castle. Gawain tries to hold onto
his identity through the practice of the chivalric code. He cannot
bring the physical space of the castle with him, but he can still
participate in acts that he associates with the physical space. Lord
Bertilak questions Gawains identity as a chivalric knight.
Thenne he carped to thy knight, criande loude: Ye han
demed to do the dede that I bidde. Wyl ye halde this hes
5009631_text.indd 149 4/29/11 9:13 AM
here at thys ones? Ye, sir, for sothe, sayd the segge trwe,
Whyl I byde in yowre borghe, be bayn to yowre hest.
(Armitage 1088-1992)
Then speaking to Gawain, he suddenly shouted: You
have sworn to serve me, whatever I instruct. Will you
hold to that oath right here and now? You may trust my
tongue, said Gawain, in truth, for within these walls I
am servant to your will. (Armitage 1088-1092).
Gawain swears on his allegiance to the code of chivalry in a desperate
attempt to maintain a connection with the physical space of King
Arthurs court. Gawain constantly tries to uphold the chivalric code
throughout the game, attempting to hold onto his identity. Without
the chivalric code Gawin will lose his identity and his connection to
the physical space completely.
Throughout the medieval texts confusion exists. Grettir, Grendel,
and Sir Gawain are all in search of an identity through a connection
with a physical space. This presents the idea that home was the
medium of how one gained an identity during the medieval time
period. Each character experiences an identity crisis because of
the lack of a physical space to connect with. Grettir is constantly
wandering in search of a home. Grendel desperately wants to become
apart of the physical space where the humans live, and because
they do not embrace him, he acts out in violence. Sir Gawain tries
desperately to hold onto the chivalric code because he believes that
it connects him to the castle, his physical home, which shapes his
identity. Each of these characters uses the physical structure of a
home to obtain or to hold on to an identity.
The modern-day view of the home is vastly different than it was
during the medieval time period. Home is no longer the physical
structure in which one resides, but rather, home is within the
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laura lucyshyn 151
individual. Home resides within the psyche. Identity has shifted
from a connection between a person and the physical home to the
person and the home that exists within them. A person is at home
within their mind. A physical structure is no longer necessary to
give a person an identity. A person is able to identify themselves
through their own thoughts and emotional connections they make
with other people. This becomes apparent when the homeless in
todays society is taken into consideration.
The homeless population today gains their identity through an
abstract plane that exists in the mind. The homeless do not have
a permanent physical home, but they do have a permanent home
that exists within them. While the homeless population today,
does reside on the border of society, they are no longer labeled as
monstrous. The homeless population is no longer seen as a threat to
societal norms because of the existence of an abstract home within
them. Society views the homeless as being a population of people
with an identity and place within society. The homeless population
is made up of living human beings and as long as they are breathing
and alive they have an identity.
Homeless people today have a better sense of their own identity
than the society of the medieval period. According to Catherine
Corrigall-Brown, the homeless population should not be associated
with participation, as all homeless individuals are fairly biographically
available in terms of free time (311). The homeless population in the
world today has an abundance of free time. This abundance of free
time allows a homeless person to spend more time contemplating
and figuring out exactly who they are. The identity of the homeless
is not based on the existence of a physical home but rather the time
that they have to dedicate to finding out exactly who they are in
terms of their own psychological identity. Homeless people do not
have all of the materialistic goods to interfere with their journey of
self-discovery. Rather, the homeless population exists in a world
5009631_text.indd 151 4/29/11 9:13 AM
without anything but the barest essentials. The homeless are able
to truly understand what is of importance in this life due to their
lack of distractions and irruptions. The homeless hold what they
believe to be meaningful inside of them. The homeless population
does not have a physical place to hold an attachment to. Therefore,
an attachment appears between the psyche and the self. A homeless
person creates their own reality within their mind.
The transition of the definition of home from a physical space
to a psychological space clearly demonstrates a clear shift in what is
considered to be of value to the people. The modern-day homeless
recognize the need to be able to find a place for themselves among
society within themselves. Home is not something that can be
purchased with money but rather it is a sense of self-awareness that
is created within the mind. A strong sense of self allows a person to
be able to exist without a permanent physical space. The ultimate
freedom of self-identification is to be able to recognize the presence
of the self from within, without a direct relation to a physical space.
The shift in the definition of home raises a further implication:
how has the family structure evolved? Possibly family structures are
experiencing a shift from the family unit to the individual. As a
result, this could lead to a society that values the individual and
disregards the community.
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laura lucyshyn 153
Works Cited
Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a new verse
translation. W. W. Norton Company: New York, 2007. Print.
Byock, Jesse. Grettirs Saga: A New Translation. Oxford, NY: Oxford
University Press, 2009. Print.
Corrigall-Brown, Catherine, Snow, David A., and Kelly Smith.
Explaining the Puzzle of Homeless Mobilization: An
Examination of Different Participation. Sociological Perspectives.
Vol. 52.3 (Fall 2009): 309-335. JSTOR. Lorette Wilmont Lib.,
Nazareth College. 18 March 2011. Print.
James, Barbara W., and Patrick D. Lopez. Transporting Homeless
Students to Increase Stability: A Case Study of Two Texas
Districts. The Journal of Negro Education. Vol. 72.1 (Winter
2003): 126-140. JSTOR. Lorette Wilmont Lib., Nazareth College.
18 March 2011. Print.
Lichterman, Paul. Religion and the Construction of Civic
Identity. American Sociological Review. Vol. 73.1 (Winter 2008):
83-104. JSTOR. Lorette Wilmont Lib., Nazareth College. 18
March 2011. Print.
Liuzza, R. M. Beowulf a new verse translation. Peterborough, Ont.:
Broadview Press, 2000. Print.
Moore, Jeanne. Placing Home in Context. Journal of
Environmental Psychology. Vol. 20 (2000): 207-217. JSTOR. Lorette
Wilmont Lib., Nazareth College. 18 March 2011. Print.
Phelan, Jo, Link, Bruce G., Moore, Robert E., and Ann Stueve.
The Stigma of Homelessness: The Impact of the Label
Homeless on Attitudes Toward Poor Persons. Social Psychology
Quarterly. Vol. 60.4 (Winter 1997): 323-337. JSTOR. Lorette
Wilmont Lib., Nazareth College. 18 March 2011. Print.
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Afternoons of Alterity

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