Every person in the world has his or her own identity. Height, weight, skin color, hair texture, emotions, and intellectual capacity all entail personal uniqueness. Humans have the pleasure of individualization, but what about monsters? Can monster possess distinctiveness? In the epic poem Beowulf, three monsters have the pleasure to show different personalities. They are Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon.
Grendels thoughts of revenge fueled his rage against Beowulf but he didn't have the courage to back it up. "Instantly that monster, hardened by crime, realized that never had he met any man in the regions of earth, in the whole world, with so strong a grip. He was seized with terror."(pg. 17) One day Grendel meets his match named Beowulf. After all the years of terrorizing the community he became over confident. He thought that he was invincible with the power to do anything but quickly found out that he was wrong. He knew that he was in trouble. His emotions especially show through when he is in danger. In Beowulf there was a quote about Grendel being " this cursed creature lived in a monster's lair for a time after the Creator had condemned him as one of the seed of Cain-the Everlasting Lord avenged Abel's murder- (pg 7) that explains why he acted the way he did. Because he was the kin of Cain, he was evil in nature as well as in heart. Cain was jealous because his brother's gift to God was accepted and his wasn't. Grendel was jealous because the humans were accepted as equals and he wasn't for being a monster. There were motivations in Grendel." with my burden, groaning out, "Mercy! Peace!" The harper broke off, the people screamed. Drunken men rushed me with battle-axes." (pg. 52) All he wanted was acceptance from the human society but they could only see him as an ugly monster. His actions later transformed into hating the Danes because Grendel thought that if he should suffer by being exiled from society, then they should suffer for being united without him.
