Beowulf is an epic about a man named Beowulf. The epic explores Beowulf as a Goatish hero who fights the monsters, Grendel, Grendels mother, and a fire breathing dragon. Beowulf defeats all three of the monsters, which possess him with honor, loyalty, courtesy, pride and fame. In the epic the monsters are the difficult conflicts that Beowulf encounters.
The three monsters can be understood to have a symbolic meaning, and those will be discussed. Grendel is one of the three monsters Beowulf battles. Grendel lives in the swampland and is exiled from the rest of society. This brings up the point why he made an attack on the Danes. He attacked the Danes because he was alienated, therefore he illustrates bitterness, loneliness and jealousy. Symbolically the poet gives me the impression Grendel represents evil in the theoretical sense, that is to say, he is the evil force lurking within the Danish society itself.
Grendels mother is the second of the three monsters Beowulf battles. Grendels mother stays in swampland within a desolate lake. Because Beowulf killed her son, she shows revenge to the Danes. The poet gives me a sense that she possesses fewer human qualities than Grendel and that she represents a more essential evil. Symbolically I got the impression from the poet that she is the strong parent figure of mother, rather that his father. The last battle that Beowulf encounters is with the dragon.
The dragon is an ancient powerful serpent that guards an immense sized treasure hidden in the mountain. The great dragon lurks beneath the earth, guarding its treasure, until one day a thief manages to gain access to the treasure. Waking up to see that a chalice had been taken, he becomes outraged and burst up onto earth to look for the thief. Upset that he can’t find the thief he goes on a rampage breathing his fiery breath upon innocent people.
The Essay on Beowulf Grendel Monster King
... to the King of Geatland. Once Grendel has been wounded and chased away, Beowulf agrees to fight Grendel's mother, who wants vengeance for her ... As a result, when he hears how the Danes are being plagued by a monster, he volunteers to go and help his ... wounded by the dragon, he continues to fight until the monster is dead. During the course of the poem, Beowulf matures from a ...
The dragon came into the throne-hall and attacked. Beowulf was in the hall; and the battle begins. The poet gives me the impression symbolically the dragon represent death. This is because Beowulf knows that the dragon is his match up and knows that he could be conquered. Therefore the dragon represents grief, fear and pain. Although Beowulf died in this battle he did slay the dragon.
To conclude, the three monsters that Beowulf slays all have a symbolic meaning. Grendel symbolized evil in the abstract, Grendels mother symbolized the strong parent a figure of a mother, rather than his father and Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon has a symbolic representation of the expected encounter with death itself. Beowulf, the great warrior and hero personifies all the best values of the heroic culture and was remembered by many.
