Line 169 “He was kept from approaching; he was the Lord’s outcast.”
The question this line raises to me is, Was Grendel the Lords outcast to begin with or was he just an outcast to the people? I think that Grendel was just an outcast to the people before he started killing everybody. I think that the Lord had the idea to make all of Cain’s ancestors feel pain by making them all outcasts to people. Each of Cain’s descendants had the ability to choose a better route than Cain did. Grendel did not take a better route because he let his Jealousy and rage get the better of him and started to kill people. To sum up I think that Grendel had the opportunity to be better than an outcast in the Lords eyes but failed because he couldn’t hold it together.
This is an interesting idea: does Grendel have the choice to be more than an outcast? He obvious does not have to attack the Danish people. He does that of his own free will.
ReplyDeleteIt might be possible to find the seven deadly sins in Beowulf, but jealousy could easily be attributed to Grendel.