Afternoon of Alterity - Nazareth College

specifically his relationship to darkness, arguing that “The simpleassociation of darkness with Grendel…runs consistently throughthe poem…Grendel’s darkness is to a marked degree the blindnessof intellectual and moral confusion” (Irving 98). Irving points out,however, that it is not only Grendel’s association with dark buthis contrast with Beowulf’s light that is particularly suggestive ofthe of people’s belief in the symbolism of light versus dark (Irving98). This contrast between light and dark is parallels ChristianTheology, and God’s light versus Satan’s dark. Beowulf takes placeduring a time when the people were at a crossroads between theirpagan religions and Christianity, starting to make the switch fromone to the other but not yet wholly immersed in either. The peoplewere both literally confused, as Irving suggests, and also were stilllargely ignorant of the light of religion, still blinded in their darkpagan ways, or so the Beowulf text suggests. Grendel is “A fiendfrom hell” (Liuzza 56) who is the enemy of God. “In the dark hecame creeping, the shadow-goer. It was well-known to men thatthe demon foe could not drag them under the dark shadows if theMaker did not wish it” (Liuzza 74). The text is constantly showing itsreaders the battle between God (represented in Beowulf, the light)and Satan (through Grendel and the dark), or the battle betweenChristianity and Paganism, between ignorance and enlightenment.Irving rightly argues that, “Grendel comes in darkness, a darknessthat stands not only for the evil he represents and the terror hecauses but also for the ignorance and delusion in which he moves”(Irving 102). These people are beginning to come out of the darkages of ignorance and terror and are coming into the light, which isshown through Grendel and Beowulf and their associated symbolsof Dark and Light.After this transition is made there is very gradual change overthousands of years to a view that becomes much more recognizablefor modern people. The best way to observe this change in peoplelauren apt 63