Q: How is Grendel different from the Danes? How does he undermine their cultural values?
For one, Grendel is different from the Danes in that he is a ravenous creature that kills the Danes on an almost daily basis. In Beowulf, Grendel is portrayed like he does not care about his actions. IN contrast, the Danes care about what they are doing. When Beowulf was talking about his heroic adventures in the ocean with his friend, of the Danes replied with, "...both of you daring and young and proud, exploring the deepest Seas, risking your lives for no reason but the danger?" (508). This underlines that the Danes care about their actions because of the possible consequences they have.
In the story, Grendel disrupts the Danes' cultural values of community and heroism. Grendel broke down the feeling of community because he was single-handedly killing the community. The population of the Danes are decreasing and since the number is getting smaller, the feeling of a community begins to decrease. Grendel destroys the value of heroism because he is so destructive that the Danes are grateful of someone coming in from the outside to kill the monster. Heroism decreases because they are willing to be weak and let someone else kill the monster and completely degrade their people instead of them being heroic and killing it themselves. "No quarrel from the quiet Danes. Now the Geats will show him courage... that evil will be gone!" (601). This highlights the Danes letting Beowulf insult them, saying that they are quiet and meek. After Beowulf said these words, the Danes started a banquet, showing they are grateful for them coming to their rescue.
Solid work! Grendel is a lone hunter whose appetite for violence is insatiable. The scop also connects him directly to hell and Cain. Though we get little in the way of description of him, we can also assume he's hideous. So, he's pretty much an inversion of the Danes' values with the exception of Death and Fate.
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