Grendel's Mother In Beowulf

Ultio
It’s late evening, and an aged pirate has an overflowing mug of beer in his one working hand, while his hook gestures wildly as a visual accompaniment to the stories he doesn’t even need to tell anymore since his crew has heard them too many times to count. The wrinkles around his eyes are stories enough. But despite being an otherwise candid and nearly jolly fellow, all it takes is one word for his mood to darken out of spite and blinding hatred. “Revenge,” he says, his voice deep and gravelly. And suddenly, the swell around his right eye begins to appear again, the dark bruise on his upper thigh starts to return and his stories turn to realistic tales of dismay and trepidation. This goes to show that revenge, as a concept, isn’t something
Regardless, she still has monstrous qualities that point her out as an antagonist in Beowulf. But before continuing, because I believe that Grendel’s mother should have a name, she will be referred to as Ultio, the Latin equivalent of revenge (which is fitting, since the abstract idea she symbolizes is vengeance). Lines 1276 to 1278 say, “But now [Grendel’s] mother had sallied forth on a savage journey, grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge.” It’s made blatant very early on in the introduction of Ultio that she stands for revenge. However, the word choice made by Seamus Heaney who wrote the 2007 translation of Beowulf from its original Old English text makes Grendel’s mother much less of a monster than Grendel is said to be. For example, Grendel is called “a fiend out of hell” (100), a “grim demon” (102) and “anathema” (110) among others. Grendel is clearly labeled as an antagonist in Beowulf. But Ultio, as aforementioned, is “grief-racked”. She’s portrayed as if she’s to be pitied because her son died, which is understandable in today’s sense but not in the context of the story. She’s the only monster out of the major three who isn’t really much of one. The dragon is called “the burning one who hunts out barrows” (2273), which also paints him in the same light as Grendel - a main antagonist. To show two out of the three monsters as true monsters is
Bush shows him at the remains of the World Trade Centers, a bullhorn in hand amongst a rowdy crowd. “The people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon,” he said. That was Bush’s promise of revenge against the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks. His thirst for revenge paralleled the want of others to avenge the deaths of the nearly three thousand people on that day. A letter published in the Chicago Tribune on 9/11 was short but impactful. The writer, Scott Plapp, said, "It's time for revenge, not justice. Terrorists do not deserve the justice of a civilized society. An eye for an eye might be appropriate. Better yet, let's make it two eyes for an eye.” Plapp makes it very clear that he wants revenge, even going so far as to say that he wants to overcompensate (for lack of a better word) for the people who died in the attack. But other public responses defended the attacks, mainly within militant groups saying that the attacks were deserved after the elitism that the U.S. had displayed and overdone. To them, 9/11 was an act of revenge. The war on terrorism that ensued was an act of revenge on an act of revenge. Saying that, revenge isn’t always a negative thing. For example, some people see being overtly kind and generous in response to the hatred that surrounded 9/11 as the strongest sense of revenge due to the idea of love overpowering hate. Artist Manju Shandler made a painting for each victim of the attacks over