Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

and even cheers him on when he makes his weekly trips to Heorot toslaughter the people. In a sense, Gardner’s mission was to place theHolden Caulfield like character on the island of meaning labeled“victim.” This comes naturally due to our distancing from violence.Gardner wrote his novel during a unique time. The novel was writtenin the midst of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement. It waspublished in the midst of one of the most controversial presidenciesin American history, the Nixon Administration. It’s safe to say thatGardner wrote in a time when the traditional thought of Americanlife was being revisited. But one must understand that the author ofBeowulf did not have this live in a time where rights were debatedor peacefully rallies were tolerated. To revisit Kaeuper, violence wasthe ideology of the political atmosphere at the time of the epic’scomposition (Kaeuper, 91).Beowulf’s job as a war fighter and soldier is nothing new tocivilization. In fact, organized violence is so old that archeologicalevidence places the act of war as an entity that predates historicalrecord (Whitehead). It is entirely possible that violence is intrinsic towho we are as people. It was believed that warfare was the result ofa moral breakdown and the corruption of the governing body. Theproblem with this ideology lies in the act of killing. Not all killing ispolitically connected. If one were to look at serial killers, lynchings,pogroms, witch trials, and ritual killings it is clear that violence isnothing more than a part of the culture (Whitehead). If one were tolook at the culture in which Beowulf resided, it is no wonder that heembraced violence so much.The author of Beowulf highlighted the destruction and reclaimingof civilization with violence simply by using a mead hall as the vastmajority of the setting. According to Jerome Cohen, “In early northernEuropean culture, the mead hall (meduheall) was the center ofcommunity, the materialization into concrete public space of heroicidentity” (Cohen,6). The devastation Grendel causes, highlights his134 afternoons of alterity