Grendel. Grendel symbolizes evil and jealousy. He is a descendant of Cain, the biblical character who jealously murdered his brother Abel—a crime for which his descendants (including Grendel) were banished.

Beowulf uses neither weapon nor armour in this fight. He also places no reliance on his companions and had no need of them. He trusts that God has given him strength to defeat Grendel, whom he believes is God’s adversary. Finally Beowulf tears off Grendel’s arm, mortally wounding the creature.

Beowulf is waiting to take care of him. Grendel will not survive. He had earlier sworn to kill Grendel with his bare hands” Beowulf’s hands are harder, Beowulf crushes Grendel’s claws.

The violent battle ends when Beowulf rips Grendel’s arm from his body, and Grendel slinks off to his den to die. Beowulf fatally wounds Grendel and keeps his detached arm as a victory trophy. Following the battle, the Geat warriors and Danes celebrate Beowulf’s victory, and Grendel’s mother begins plotting her revenge.

Why did Beowulf go to Heorot? Beowulf wants the glory of killing Grendel to rid the Danes of the monster. Why was it harder for beowulf to kill grendel’s mother than grendel himself? Grendel’s mother was an underwater swamp sort of monster.

Grendel is envious, resentful, and angry toward mankind, possibly because he feels that God blessed them but that the ogre himself never can be blessed. Grendel especially resents the light, joy, and music he observes in Hrothgar’s beautiful mead-hall, Heorot.

The dead body represents the burden of the curse that both man and Grendel must bear. However, though Grendel thinks as much about the corpse, he also feels overcome by the beauty of the Shaper’s elegant, unambiguous moral system. Grendel stumbles into Hart with the corpse in his hands, yelling “Mercy!

The hall is also symbolic in that it is the setting of Beowulf’s first great battle, the defeat of Grendel. The cave where Grendel and his mother hide from the world is symbolic of their lives as outcasts.

When Beowulf and Grendel fight, Grendel is said to “bewail his wound” and the other warriors hear “weeping” (line 785) – though given the context and multiple adjectives describing the sounds, it seems Grendel is screaming in anger and pain, rather than crying in the sense of an emotional outpouring.

Hover for more information. Obviously, Grendel is the foe and therefore represents death and evil to the Danes in the poem Beowulf.