Beowulf: Monster Essay

Beowulf: Monster

A monster is something or someone who takes a terrifying form and shape that means harm to humans. It holds magical powers, is indescribably large and powerful, and its hideousness frightens the humans. The modern society view monsters as something that is found mostly in horror fiction. They bring violence, destruction, and eventually death. Usually their goals are to destroy something, particularly the world; or dictate them. Their biggest obstacle from reaching their goals is their counter against the good, or the hero, who is brave, strong, and justice.

I believe the purposes of monsters in the past are to interest the oral-stories by bringing thrill to its readers and listeners, to explain the difference in literature and culture, and to show how creative the imaginations of the past lived humans. I believe that adding more characteristics to the story is unnecessary because filling what is needed is a way of changing, thus the efforts of the people who recorded the history and old folk stories will become pointless.

My monster is called the flying one eyeball. It was born on October 18, 2011 in room F7. It was created by an ugly, wicked inventor named Bomeister who plans to destroy the world. She made the eye blue, and its beauty attracted the humans closer to it. Then the flying, loose red veins would suck the blood out of the humans, causing a slow, painful death. The creation of the flying one-eyeball fits the description of my personal definition of monster because its goal was to destroy the world, and the eyeball is gross and ugly, which it would frighten the humans.

Reading of Beowulf is important because it embodies that work of the Anglo-Saxon national literature, which describes the stages of the Anglo-Saxon civilization. We can also see what they thought a monster should be, what is considered as an epic hero, and what characteristics they admired of a hero. The battle between Beowulf and the monster Grendel teaches the readers the famous archetypal tales of the good and evil. It shows that the people in the past had the same thought as the people in todays society, and that the tradition is passed down even to this day. The conflict between the good and evil is still used in every story based on early folk legends. And this is important because it preserves the history of civilization.