When one considers the criticism of Beowulf, from the beginnings to more recent writings the
early lack of interest in Grendel’s mother is very apparent. In 1936 J. R. R. Tolkien dismissed her
as a secondary figure to her son. Major feminist criticism also seemed to avoid her until the
1980s when Jane Chance focused on the female monster, discussing the structural unity of
Beowulf. Though the episode concerning Grendel’s mother is shorter than that of her son, the
issues that the poet raises in these lines seems infinitely more complicated and encompassing
than the obvious sense of good and evil communicated in the struggle between Beowulf and
Grendel.
Grendel, the blood thirsty, murderous progeny of Cain commits crimes unprovoked and
indiscriminately. He is undeniably evil, and the poet certainly goes to great lengths to describe
him as a grotesque and fearsome being. Grendel is the ‘feond on helle’ (Beowulf 101), ‘grimma’
(102) and ‘wonsala’ (105). The poet is never at a loss for new words to describe Grendel’s
wickedness and his ugly visage. The situation is straightforward; the beast is evil and deserves to
die. Murder must be avenged, swiftly and without mercy. The simplicity of this judgment and the
killing of evil Grendel resides fresh in the reader's mind as they are confronted with the next
monster, a being without a name, referred to through a connection of kinship, Grendel's mother
(1282). Jane Chance points out in her essay that; Grendel’s Mother is…described in human and
social terms. She is specifically called a wife unsure ‘a monstrous woman’ and an idea aglae
with ‘ a lady monster-woman’.
Ides elsewhere in Beowulf denotes ‘lady’ and connotes either a queen or a woman of high social
rank…In addition, as if the poet wished to stress her maternal role, she is characterized usually as
Grendel’s modor or kinswoman, the former a word almost exclusively reserved for her, although
other mothers appear in the poem. It seems clear from these epithets that Grendel’s Mother
inverts the Germanic roles of mother and queen, or lady (Chance 249).
Already contradictory, the poet gives her an element of status, but also makes her out to be an
inversion of the ideal. As such, a woman acting in a manner unsuitable for her sex, in an active
rather than a passive role, ought to be forced back into her rightful place. A woman should not
avenge her sons and enact blood-revenge. Beowulf’s adventure into the lady-monster’s abode
should thus be a simple one, he must kill her and in doing so restore the Germanic social ideal.
Yet the Beowulf poet refuses to make Beowulf’s triumph easy. It is not gained without
considerable effort, and it does not sit easy in the minds of readers. Grendel’s Mother, is of
course not acting unprovoked, as her son did. She is seeking out vengeance for her son’s death.
The only reason she is not justified in doing so is that she is a woman. As a woman, she is meant
to passively accept her son’s death and leave the matter of revenge to her male kin. Yet, how can
she possibly do this when Beowulf has killed her only male relative? The poet never mentions
brothers or a father or a husband on whom she may rely upon to uphold her safety and honor.
Thus, she has no choice but to assume male responsibility (Chance 252).
Here, Grendel’s Mother is a mixture of many things, she is a grieving mother, a monster and a
retainer. It cannot be denied that she, in at least two of these faces, is entitled to an allotment of
sympathy. She does, as Chance points out, resemble a human mother; Like Hildeburh she is
guiltless and gloomy-minded; her journey to Heorot must be sorrowful for she ‘remembered her
misery’. However, a woman’s primary loyalty as peace-pledge was served for her husband, not
her son, according to the Danish history of Saxo Grammaticus. Perhaps for this reason Grendel’s
mother is presented as husbandless and son-obsessed- to suggest to an Anglo-Saxon audience the
dangers inherent in woman’s function as fridusibb ‘pledge of peace’ (Chance 252). If this is
indeed the case, the poet is certainly guilty of using Grendel’s mother to disconcert his audience,
rather than to represent an embodiment of evil. A grieving woman may be very dangerous in this
sense, but she cannot easily be regarded as evil. In her aggressive masculine attempt at blood
revenge, the poet makes her out to be more pathetic than terrifying. Highlighting her feminine
attributes more than anything else, he has her seize a single man, not directly involved in the
killing of her son, who she hastily carries back to her lair in fear of being confronted by others;
‘he was on ofsted wolde út þanin/ feore beorgan’ (Beowulf 1292:93).