Only if you have read eliots silas marner

Model Close-Reading

Then as dawn brightened and the day broke Grendel’s powers of destruction were plain: their wassail was over, they wept to heaven and mourned after morning. Their mighty prince, the storied leader, sat stricken and helpless, humiliated by the loss of his guard, bewildered and stunned, staring aghast at the demon’s trail, in deep distress. He was numb with grief, but got no respite for one night later merciless Grendel struck again with more gruesome murders. Malignant by nature, he never showed remorse. It was easy then to meet with a man shifting himself to a safer distance to bed in the bothies, for who could be blind to the evidence of his eyes, the obviousness of that hall-watcher’s hate? Whoever escaped kept a weather-eye open and moved away.

I chose this passage because it describes the “destruction” wrecked upon Hrothgar’s celebrated hall. Because the hall seems to be a symbol of Hrothgar’s prestige and the respect of his people for the warrior-king, the ruin of the hall seems significant. What does this destruction symbolize? It apparently has a deep effect upon both the king and his community. Hrothgar is described as “stricken and helpless”, “bewildered and stunned”, adjectives that point to a hopelessness and deflation, as if the king himself is destroyed by the loss of his hall. Perhaps this is why the hall is so important to the king’s standing in his community. With the hall’s destruction comes the king’s fall from respect and reverence.

The fleeing of his troops also seems important. We learned prior to the destruction of the hall, that “friends and kinsmen flocked to [Hrothgar’s] ranks / young followers, a force that grew / to be a mighty army”. After Grendel’s attack, the king is “humiliated by the loss of his guard”. This humiliation seems to stem from the death or flight of those charged by Hrothgar to protect the community. Also, those “friends and kinsmen” who “flocked” to join Hrothgar are now “shifting [themselves] to a safer distance / to bed in the bothies”. What are “bothies”, anyway? I can only assume that they are some kind of hovel distant from the hall. The flight of his men is perhaps the ultimate humiliation; without men, the warrior king is without power and reverence. He is made “numb” and “powerless” with this loss of his men. I wonder how this relates to Anglo-Saxons warrior culture—is this relationship between the king and his men a representation of Anglo-Saxon Britain?

Finally, I liked the poetic nature of the language. For instance, I especially admired the line explaining that the people “mourned after morning”. Not only is this alliterative, it also powerfully expresses the poet’s craft. Similarly, I liked the reference to “the evidence of his eyes, the obviousness / of that hall watcher’s hate”. The image conjures up the vision of a pair of glowing eyes in the darkness, peering from the wilderness at the hall and planning his vicious revenge. The eyes as they are described here seem like signals of the evil that lurks in this world, no matter the defenses set up by the Christian warriors against the heathen “demon”.