Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

ut never was his physicality hinted as being more than that of agrotesquely exaggerated man.John Phillips argues that, “the claws, tusks, fangs, etc. of monstersare accretions on an initial humanity, the consequences of a refusalto comply with the practical definition of the human” (Phillips 43).This would seem to coincide with Liuzza’s reading that Grendelis a malformed human being, cursed in his hideousness. Grendeltherefore also defies the natural order of the world, breaking free ofthe binary categorizations of “monster” and “normal human” andinhabiting a wasteland somewhere in between.This wasteland, metaphorically and literally within the text, iswhere Grendel lives, existing on the fringes of society and thereforeon the edge of what is normal and secure. Grendel dwells “far frommankind,” and inhabits the windswept, cold, and dark marshlandsand forests (Beowulf 110). Jeremy Harte writes that, “monsters, in ageneral sense, are liminal creatures, policing the borderland betweennormality and the Other” (Harte 190). Beowulf’s thanes encounterthis “borderland” when they ride out to challenge Grendel’s mother,and find her swampland with its lake of fire and beastly animals.The scene is unpleasant; the dam lives in “a joyless wood,” (Beowulf1416) where:The flood boiled with blood—the folk gazed on—And hot gore. At times a horn sangIn eager war-song. The foot soldiers sat down.They saw in the water many kinds of serpents,Strange sea-creatures testing the currents,And on the sloping shores lay such monstersAs often attend in early morning…(Beowulf 1422-1428)The landscape is horrifying in itself, but the fact that Grendel actuallydwelt there, took the mangled and half-eaten bodies of loyal thanesdeanna briscoe 95