So often I have read Beowulf (more often than I ever thought I would, honestly) and absolutely hated the monster Grendel, displayed to the audience in the first few pages of the epic. Grendel's escapades and deeds are absolutely gruesome and evil. Grendel is "malignant by nature, [showing] no remorse." In reading that line (137), I wonder, "How often is man similar to Grendel?"
I know personally I can attest that I have, even recently, done or said something, knowing it was wrong but still feeling no guilt whatsoever over the act. Granted, my faith eventually convicts me, but there are moments of complete and utter desire for evil. I think Grendel is a morbid and devastating picture of what man would be with no conscience--taking from another, malevolent, truly evil. If the glimpses of being Grendel I have felt in my life are not unique to me, I think man is closer to being Grendel than we would like to believe. We may even perhaps, be closer to the monster of this story than to the hero.
I commented on Dallas and Wendy's posts.
It is rather terrifying how much of ourselves we might find in Grendel, and I do agree we our often closer to being Grendel, than we are like Beowulf, like we might think we appear to be.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you. We oftentimes find it to be so much easier to just give in to our sin and to be evil than to be good and act justly.
ReplyDeleteCloser to the monster than the hero? I think in a sense, definitely. We have sinful natures, that without God's grace, we would be counted just as horrific.
ReplyDeleteWithout Christ, we are definitely terrible monsters like Grendel. Thankfully God's grace is enough to redeem us and we can be clean in God's eyes when we repent and trust in Christ.
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