Sandra Effinger
Eighth Hour
2 August 2010
Beowulf Essay

The unknown scop who wrote Beowulf sang of heroes, calling his hearers to the heroic life, but holding out no false hopes. All must go down in defeat at last: Wyrd will have its way. And though no man can win his final battle with metaphysical death itself, Beowulf shows us how to transcend the human condition by the willing battle with our own worst fears. Personified in three monstrous enemies, Beowulf faces physical, moral, and metaphysical Evil.
Grendel, a descendant of Cain, personifies an especially frightening image of physical Evil. Living "in a hell not hell but earth," he is never actually described, thus becoming the unknown, the thing in the dark all men fear (ll. 103-4). Grendel is the worst of two natures, half human, half beast, a lonely misfit, vicious and vengeful, cruel and cannibalistic. Moral choice has no bearing; the threat is a purely physical one; a man must fight Grendel in self-defense. Evil is omnipresent, stalking men, "invisibly following them from the edge of the marsh, always there, unseen" (ll. 161-2). Evil is also insatiable, and for Grendel "no crime could ever be enough" (l. 136). As the embodiment of Good, Beowulf must fight the Evil that seeks him out, one-on-one, armed with only his bare hands. He defeats Grendel by simply holding on, by standing firm. It is Grendel who pulls away from Beowulf's mighty embrace and thus destroys himself.
But Evil is never permanently defeated. Grendel's mother, attacking Heorot the next night, personifies a moral Evil. Wergeld and the Mosaic code of "an eye for an eye" represent human concepts of moral vengeance, and she behaves honorably by these standards. Taking only one victim, she flees the hall "to save her life" (l. 1292). In a perverse parody of the first battle, Beowulf now pursues her, bursting into her home, and she welcomes him in an embrace (l. 1501). Beowulf doubts his capacities and his men almost give up on him. Beowulf must turn to the monster's own weapon, a magic sword which dissolves in Grendel's blood, surely some sign of sin. This is an ignoble battle, and even though Beowulf is ultimately victorious, Grendel's mother has moral justification on her side by Beowulf's own standards. Having faced his own mortality and bearing the wounds to prove it, Beowulf has been initiated into adulthood and a world of complex moral choices.
As an old and honored king in his own country, Beowulf faces the ultimate test of his courage when he faces the dragon, a monster at once less horrible (not being humanoid) and more fearsome. The dragon, an image of the ultimate metaphysical evil, death itself, is a threat that is both physical and moral. Its physical strength is compounded by its control of flame and flight. Morally, it is an Evil men have aroused because of thievery. Though innocent of the theft, Beowulf must defend his people, even though his heart is heavy with "knowledge of old age" (ll. 2420-1). This third encounter is high tragedy, for Beowulf is no longer a naive adolescent, confident in the power of his arms, but an old man who knows this battle will be his last. Facing certain death, alone, with no heirs to carry on his name, Beowulf slays his opponent and he dies, but in dying he offers us a model to follow in the last struggle each man must face -- the unavoidable reality of his own death.
Though Beowulf dies, we persist in believing he has not really lost his greatest battle. The monsters are all dead. In each of these battles, Beowulf has faced death to deliver his fellow men from terrifying forces. These three battles present a moving contrast between youth and age, first achievement and final death, rising and setting. This is the human condition, and a man can but die on his death-day.