1. Beowulf: Grendel's Mother

I think it's very appropriate to kick off this semester's discussion of "monstrous mothers" with Grendel's mother from Beowulf, so I think it's only fair to start my blog off the same way.

What really stuck with me from the passages of Beowulf and the writing about it that we read was the idea that Grendel's mother is unable to be identified in the context of the poem as anything other than a monster. Heaney's afterword notes, "As for Grendel's mother, there is no clear way to visualize her on the basis of either the text of Beowulf or the illustrated manuscripts of the early Middle Ages. Even more than Grendel, she remains shrouded in mystery as a 'swamp-thing from hell' (1518) that is part beast, part human being, and part she-devil."¹ I was really intrigued by the idea that Grendel's mother was unable to be represented, and decided to quickly look into how she is represented by my go-to "let me see what the public/the media/'my good friends at Google'" think this might look like source: Google images. Imagine my surprise when I remembered that Grendel's mother was recently portrayed by none other than our very intriguing mod-mom Angelina Jolie!

I suppose I just picture Grendel's mother looking a little bit more like this, since the story lends itself to characterizing her as a monster, both figuratively and very literally:



However, who knows? Who's to say that Grendel's mother in the story wasn't just as misunderstood as some other mothers we might jump to labeling "monstrous?" Maybe her true inner self did look a little more like Angelina...



I suppose what I find most interesting about this is just the immediate and stark contrast in the way Grendel's mother is portrayed through the very first images that come up on a .186 second Google Image search. Not only does it really concretely capture Heaney's point that there is no concrete way to portray the monster-woman from the story, but it also illustrates the fine line between which women we might want to label as monsters and the perhaps sometimes out of control images of them we have in our heads. If we can sometimes employ someone who is thought to be so beautiful as Angelina Jolie as Grendel's mother, and in other instances draw a grotesque picture labeling it with the same name, it seems no surprise that we also have trouble labeling Angelina herself as either "good" or "bad" mom. Since we will spend the rest of the semester looking at that fine line, it seems now is the perfect time to really strongly grasp that most "Monstrous Mother's of Literature" will probably make their mark in some uncomfortably close proximity to that line.




¹Heaney, Seamus. "Selections from Beowulf: An Illustrated Translation." Beowulf: An Illustrated Translation. W.W. Norton &, 2008. Vii-xxiv, 87-107, 138-145, 211, 238-239. Web.