10/31/12

Halloween Blog:
    In class we have just finished discussing the hero unit. We read Beowulf and Grendel. Even though these novels are about the same thing, we get two different vantage points and overall a more complete view of what happened. From Beowulfs side, our perfect hero, we see a terrible demon tormenting the human race and trying to snuff out every last human being, tribe by tribe. Then the heroic beowulf  comes and destroys the foul beast in one day. However from Grendels view, we see a much different story. Grendel is an underling who is barely squeezing by. He sees the humans ravaging each others towns and leaving the dead to rot. This is absurd to Grendel who is a carnivore. All of the food he scrapes up is devoured immediately. He sees the humans as wasteful beasts. His attacks on the mead hall are not unwarranted, but rather as punishment for the humans stupidity. This is extremely relevant to our society today. Whenever we hear a story that shocks us, we normally assume it to bo true. Most of us done question the other half of action. The story of Grendel is all about his side and is mostly in his defense. So i think that but us reading this book, it will hopefully open people up their eyes when it comes to truth. Another thing these stories bring up is how easy it is to take sides in a battle. Because we read Beowulf first, we were all TOLD that Grendel was an evil demon that killed for fun. It would be interesting how our minds would have accepted Grendel differently if we had read Grendel first. Maybe some people would have seen Beowulf as the villan destroying a mere creature of habit?