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Zoom Office hours 10:00 to 12:00 Weekdays 3/16-3/27

[email protected] English 4 is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

Topic: [email protected] English 4's Personal Meeting Room

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Classwork while we are off recap: ( go to Zoom meetings if you need help)
EMAIL: [email protected][email protected]

3/20 AH Podcast Essay ( Google Forms)
3/20 Book Tracking Form
3/27 Applied Digital project on Google
3/27 Boys in the Boat HW #1
3/27 Los Angeles Book Report ( See attachment)
READ your LA BOOK

Grendel? What is he?

GRENDEL AND HIS MOTHER: HUMAN BEINGS OR MONSTERS?
 

"This unhappy being had long lived in the land of monsters since the Creator cast them out as kindred of Cain (103-106)."
This quote is from the story of Beowulf describing a sad creature named Grendel. Grendel is one of the monsters Beowulf, the hero, fights. Another monster, though insignificant, Beowulf fights is Grendel's mother. In this paper, both Grendel and his mother will be examined through a humanistic view. First, however, the story of Cain and Abel will be discussed to illustrate how Cain's descendants became monsters and outcasts. Similarly, monsters in the Christian and medieval world will be examined.
Cain and Abel
The story of Cain and Abel can be found in the book of Genesis of the King James Version of the Bible. Cain and Abel are the son's of Adam and Eve. As a tribute to God, Cain offered a fruit that had fallen from a tree, while Abel offered the flesh of his finest among his flock of sheep. God was pleased at Abel's offering, but held no respect for Cain's offering. Cain became jealous of his brother, and proceeded to kill Abel. When God found out about this horrendous crime of kin slaying, he became outraged. God punished Cain by marking him as a fugitive and a vagabond. Cain was to be an outcast of society. With Cain, his future descendants were to be punished for their ancestor's crimes by suffering the same punishment - an outcast of human society.
Monsters
Cain's descendants, by a medieval and Christian view, were monsters, marked by Cain's original sin, either mentally, in their violence, or physically, in a deformity. In the Christian and medieval world, monsters were human beings with an unnatural birth or a birth deformity. Monsters generally had certain characteristics. In Beowulf, Grendel had abnormal body strength, a strange dietary habit - eating flesh and living in an unusual dwelling, outside human society - the wastelands.
Grendel
"It was with pain that the powerful spirit dwelling in darkness endured that time, hearing daily the hall [Heorot] filled with loud amusement (85-88)." Grendel, by classification, is considered a monster. He was even considered demonic at one point due to his dwelling being in an underworld atmosphere. Grendel is the descendant of Cain, the kin-slayer, and "from Cain came down all kinds misbegotten - ogres and elves and evil shades (110-111)." Due to Cain's crime against humanity, Grendel is forced to live in darkness. He is "doomed to dwell in the dread waters, in the chilling currents, because of that blow whereby Cain became the killer of his brother…He stole away branded, marked for murder, from all that men delight in, to inhabit the wastelands (1259-1264)." His home lies in the "treacherous (1376)" and "uninhabitable country (1410)" "where that creature of sin (1377)" lives. As one can imagine by the poet's description of Grendel's homeland, it is not a land of joy and love, but one of misery, hate, and evil.
Grendel's physical appearance and strength are apart of his monstrosity. He is able to carry away thirty warriors at a time. He has a grotesque form and is greedy for human flesh. However, despite this, Grendel is guided by human emotions and whims. His aggression is due to jealousy and loneliness as "the Lord's … love was unknown to him (168)." The poet of Beowulf comments, "Woe to him who must in terrible trial entrust his soul to the embrace of the burning, banished from thought of change or comfort (183-186)!" Grendel is a pitiful monster "condemned to agony (721)." Grendel seems to crave human acceptance and to live within human society. He wants to experience the love and joy he sees when he finds Heorot. However, that is never going to be found, he will always be seen as a monster and an outcast to human society. One can assume that he wishes for love and joy because he grew up in a world of monsters, one of hate, violence, and evil. To Grendel, Heorot must have been something different and magnificent, something he could never have. This led to his attack on the festive hall.
"With the coming of night came Grendel…maddening with rage, he struck quickly, creature of evil, grim and greedy, he grasped on their pallets, thirty warriors, and away he was out of there, thrilled with his catch (114-124)." Grendel's attack on Heorot was after all the warriors had drank their fill and had fallen asleep. Due to Grendel's jealousy, his outrage at the unfairness of his ancestry making him an outcast "was openly seen (125)." Grendel continued his attack on Heorot for twelve years. "He [did not] let them rest…and shrank not from it: he was too set on these things (134-137). Finally, came Beowulf, set to kill the wretched creature called Grendel. The night of the ambush, Beowulf and his men pretended to lay asleep to cast an illusion of helplessness. Grendel grasped the first man he saw to kill, while Beowulf carefully "kept watch how the ravager set to work with his sudden catch (737-738)." Once Grendel finished with that warrior, he moved on. The next one to be chosen to die was Beowulf. However, Beowulf had the strength of thirty men.
Grendel, "the upholder of evils at once knew he had not met…any man of harder handgrip: his heart panicked (750-753)." Grendel started to react like a caged animal, scared and frightened at his terrible plight. He yearned to run back to all he knew, the gloomy and dank swamplands. The poet of Beowulf described Grendel's fear as he had "shrilled terror to the ears…the grisly pliant of God's enemy, his song of ill-success, the sobs of the damned one bewailing his pain (783-789)." This quote creates an image of sympathy for the reader towards Grendel and his helplessness he unknowingly came upon. As the battle waged on "a breach in the giant flesh-frame showed then, shoulder-muscles sprang apart, there was a snapping of tendons, bone-locks burst…" Grendel fled homeward "to a den where he knew there could be no relief, no refuge for a life at its very last stage (815-821)." Beowulf was victorious and as a show of triumph from the battle "the hand, the arm, and torn-off shoulder, the entire limb, Grendel's whole grip (833-835)." Meanwhile, Grendel "staggered onwards; each step evidenced his ebbing life blood (840-845)." Grendel then "humbled he went thence and sank despairing in the depths of the Mere (2098-2099)." He had "dived to his doom, he died miserable…his heathen soul (849-851)." Grendel was dead and "he lives no longer, laden with sins, to plague mankind: pain has set heavy hands on him, and hasped about him fatal fetters. He is force to await now, like a guilty criminal (973-977)."
With Grendel dead, joy arose among the people. No longer did they have to fear for their lives. Grendel is a character to be pitied due to his humanistic nature. Despite theses human emotions, Grendel is a monster, who lacked remorse and was very cruel by nature. Grendel did know of jealousy and loneliness which drove him to outrage, anger, and a spree of murder.
Grendel's Mother
However, the people discovered there was one relative still among the living to carry out vengeance against them for the mutilations and fatal wound Grendel received at their hands. "Grendel's mother, herself, a monstrous ogress, was ailing for her loss (1257-1258)." The mother is not given a name of her own; she is just referred to as a kin of Grendel, a man. This is mainly due to the fact that she is a woman, and as a woman, she is but an annoyance to Beowulf. When she commits her vengeance "the fury of her onslaught was less frightful than his [Grendel's]; as the force of a woman, her onset in a fight, is less feared by men (1280-1283)." However, she is a mother and her purpose was "to set out at last - savage in her grief - on that wrath - bearing visit of vengeance for her son (1275-1277)."
Grendel's mother killed the King's most trusted advisor, and as such, the King called Beowulf to deal with this matter. She had "in furthering her son's feud…gone far enough (1338-1339)." Beowulf and his troops traveled to her homeland "of wolf-fells, wind-picked moors, and treacherous fen paths (1356-1358)." When they arrived, Beowulf dived into the water to kill the mother. He treated her as a woman and an insignificant one at that. He grasped her hair and threw her to the ground with force. He eventually kills her with a blow to the neck with one of her own scabbards. Once he killed her, Beowulf "scoured the dwelling in single-minded anger…for he meant soon enough to settle with Grendel for those stealthy raids…he saw where Grendel lay at rest, limp…his life wasted through the wound he had got…he [Beowulf] had severed the neck (1571-1589)." Beowulf commits this hideous act as he was disappointed when Grendel fled from the battle at Heorot leaving only his arm as a symbol of triumph. Now that Beowulf gained another victory, though insignificant to kill a woman, he thought to finish his fight with Grendel by severing off Grendel's head to give to the King.
Both Grendel and his mother are monsters in the story of Beowulf. However, they are monsters with a substantial portion of humanity. Due to their exile from human society they live in a world afar from human contact and human socialization. Grendel seeks to leave his world for one that is different than his, but realizes due to his monstrosity that he would never be accepted. Monsters in Christian society came from abnormality or the unusual, those outcasts from society, feared and hated alike. Cain, as the first real Christian monster, created this pariah world of feared creatures far away from normal and moral human beings. In the end, Beowulf kills Grendel and his mother and finally; and sadly: for these creatures are still human beings with emotions, but doomed for their abnormities; "the world was rid of that invidious enemy of God and his mother also (1680-1682)."

Works Cited
Anonymous. Beowulf. Trans. Michael Alexander. New York: Penguin Classics. 2003.

Comitatus= posse or squad...

Comitatus was a Germanic friendship structure that compelled kings to rule in consultation with their warriors, forming awarband. The comitatus, as described in the Roman historian Tacitus's treatise Germania (98.AD), is the bond existing between a Germanic warrior and his Lord, ensuring that neither leaves the field of battle before the other. The translation is as follows:

Moreover, to survive the leader and retreat from the battlefield is a lifelong disgrace and infamy

Comitatus, being the agreement between a Germanic lord and his subservients (his Gefolge or host of followers), is a special case of clientage and the direct source of the practice of feudalism. Partly influenced by the Roman practice, exemplified in the Marian Reforms initiated by Gaius Marius, of a general distributing land to his officers after their retirement, the Germanic comitatus eventually evolved into a wholesale exchange between a social superior and inferior. Comitatus is an Indo-European concept that predates Roman times and was practiced from Western Europe to China, especially among Eur-Asian Steppe tribes. [1] The social inferior (in Feudalism, the Vassal) would pledge military service and protection to the superior (Lord). In return, the superior would reward the inferior with land, compensation, or privileges.[2]

The Germanic term for the comitatus is reconstructed as *druhtiz, with Old English forms dryht and druht, and Scandinaviandrótt.[3]

Getting to Know Me
 
My full name is Lisa Claire Dohren.
 
I live in Redondo Beach, California.
 
I have two brothers and a sister in law. I am single but I have a boyfriend.
 
I was born on December 13 th. I am 79 years old! (:
 
This summer my nephew was born his name is James.
 
My favorite part of the semester is Halloween and Homecoming. I love Fall and candy corn.
 
3 things you should know about me:
I have two puppies
I am a cancer survivor
I love basketball
 
My ambition is to start my own business and write a novel
 
My favorite pastimes are paddling, swimming and watching horror movies.
 
My pet peeve is wasting time and smoking of any kind.
 
I have visited, Greece, Ireland, Turkey, Mexico, New York, Italy, Hawaii, Spain, England, Colorado, Phipadelphia and Sicily.
 
Sicily is my favorite.
 
I love music.

Topic for your first Media Journal on 9/2/16

August 30, 2016
Roles of Support
Doing Our Best Work

by Madisyn Taylor

Each one of us is very much needed and we all have our role to play adding to the success of the whole.

In the great symphony of life, we all have important parts to play. While some people are best suited to be conductors or soloists, their contributions would be diminished considerably without the individual musicians that lend their artistry to the fullness of an orchestra. The magical accents of the percussion section might sound random and out of place without the music they accompany. But any one member of an orchestra, doing less than their best at their particular part, can destroy the harmony of the whole piece, such is their importance. So although we may not receive the same amount or quality of attention as another, all of our contributions are valuable and integral to the success of the whole.

When we do our tasks well, we infuse them with our unique energy, making each act a gift. Each of our personalities and talents are suited to different roles of support. Even leaders and star performers support others in their own way. We can look around us at any moment to see that while we nurture some people with our work, others are supporting us with their gifts. Doing any job from this place within us allows us to do our part with humility and gratitude, while also learning lessons that move us steadily toward our goals.

When we can be fully present in every job that we do, we bring the fullness of our bodies, minds and spirits to the moment. Our contribution is enhanced by the infusion of our talents and abilities, and when we give them willingly, they attract the right people and circumstances into our experience. Anything we do begrudgingly limits the flow of our energy and closes us off from the good that is available to us in every situation. But by giving the best in us to make the world around us better, we open ourselves to receive the best from the universe in return.

What do you think?
Discuss this article and share your opinion

Another ORB recommendation...

English 4:
 
Slade House, David Mitchell
The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell