Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

The vagina’s ability to function as the breeding ground for new lifeis threatening to the male population of medieval Europe. Womenare inhabitants of the periphery because men “locate that whichthey are not, and [that] into which they make forays” as outside ofthemselves (Yamamoto 204). Men do not have the capability to bearchildren and therefore deem it ‘other’. The fear resides in the believedpotential that specific traits, traits the signify the negative aspectsof the female’s personality, from the mother may be passed to theoffspring and thereby cancel out the possibility of the child bearingany resemblance the father. The child then becomes the “animalwithin an animal” capable of transgressing the borders of masculineand feminine like the mother that conceived it (Yamamoto 205).Abjection is “our reaction to a threatened breakdown in meaningcaused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object orbetween self and other” (Felluga). The masculine population findsfear in Grendel’s Mother’s form because she has the capability to useher body in ways men cannot. Her body is abject.Medieval society’s understanding of gender roles is created byanatomical sex. Beowulf showcases both the conventional actionsand beliefs of the sexes, and the monstrous feminine that, whileanatomically female, acts in the nature of the male. Grendel’s Motheris a female who, by defying the expected actions of her gender andsexuality, exhibits the social personalities of her male counterparts.This is the creation of the monstrous feminine. Grendel’s Motherinhabits her inherited male persona therefore becoming ‘other’according to the rigid gender and sexual structures of medievalsociety.anna iuppa 111