“It is better for a adult male to revenge his friend than much mourn” ( 45 ) . Christian and heathen ideals are the motive for retribution in “Grendel’s Mother’s Attack. ” It is difficult to disregard the Christian and heathen elements of Beowulf. These elements. that have been so unambiguously combined in the verse form. specify the heroic warrior. Beowulf. and the evil threat. Grendel’s female parent. The reader is introduced to Grendel’s female parent through her line of descent. “From [ Cain ] sprang many a devil sent by fate” ( 43 ) . From this citation entirely we can see the merger of Christian and heathen elements.
The Old Testament character Cain and the heathen thought of destiny have been merged to qualify Grendel’s female parent. Beowulf himself is defined in footings of Wyrd. Beowulf says “fate frequently saves the undoomed adult male when his bravery is good” ( 34 ) merely after a “signal of God. the sea became still” ( 34 ) salvaging the warrior from sea-monsters. The Christian God has given adult male free will ; therefore what will go on to adult male is non controlled by destiny. but it is controlled by God.
To further understand the Christian and heathen elements that exist in Beowulf. we must foremost bring out why the writer has merged Christian and heathen thoughts. Once we discover why the two have been combined. so we may see how they work to bring on Grendel’s female parent to take retaliation on her son’s decease. and how they work to carry Beowulf to take retribution for Aeschere’s decease.
The poem’s merger of Christian and heathen ideals is a contemplation of the clip in which it was written. It was “a period in which the virtuousnesss of the pagan ‘Heroic Age’ were tempered by the gradualness of the new belief ; an age warlike. yet Christian. As a good Christian. the poet found himself faced with the undertaking of handling this origanally heathen stuff in a mode acceptable to a Christian audience” ( Brodeur. 183 ) ( Brodeur 219 ) .
The verse form is “a Christian perceptual experience of the insane futility of the crude Germanic thirst for retribution ; and the facts that Beowulf’s main antagonists are non work forces but monsters and that … [ the ] male monarch of the Geats did non seek wars with their adjacent folks may reflect a Christian grasp for peace among humans” ( 22 ) . It was besides a period in which people such as “Hrothgar and his Danes…were punished for their idolatry” ( Brodeur 207 ) .
