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kleenexwoman) wrote2006-10-23 07:44 pm
kleenexwoman) wrote2006-10-23 07:44 pm
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Beowulf paper finally done!
Warning: Contains explicit symbols, heaps of Freudian theory, moderate scoops of Jungian symbolism, liberal sprinklings of the words "phallic" and "castration," and just a teaspoon of BS. But only a teaspoon.
This was really fun to write and I worked very hard on it.
Rachel Weissserman
Prof.Allegra Blake
English 234
October 24th, 2006
Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?:
Beowulf, Grendel, and the Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex
The epic of Beowulf, one of the most influential and archetypical stories in human history, can be seen not only as a gripping story of human victory over the supernatural forces of darkness, but as an allegory for the journey taken by a developing psyche in its dissolution of its adolescent Oedipal complex. The character of Grendel stands out most strongly in an archetypical light as the Freudian id or the Jungian shadow, the primal energies and desires that are so strong, they are “transformed into demons when they are repressed” (Jung 83). Grendel is a literal shadow, sneaking into Heorot under cover of night and performing acts that horrify both the characters in the poem and the listeners of the poem. He is barely seen or described in the poem, except for his arm. He does not need to be, for he is more viscerally frightening as an unseen shadow, a blank template for fear, than any carefully-described monster could be. The specter of Grendel is another face of the universal monster within, of the antisocial desires that a member of a civilized society must repress and project onto a mysterious “other” as a safety valve. His actions are purely selfish, intended only to satisfy his hunger and bloodlust, without thought for the lives of others. He cannot function within the moral constraints of society, but, like the id, is “lawless, social, amoral” (Dobie 51).
According to Freudian theory, the superego is developed by a child’s fear of being punished (usually castrated) by the father (Erwin, 545). Grendel, the id incarnate, lacks this paternal influence; he and his mother are “fatherless creatures” (Heaney, 95), wild and selfish without a dominating male presence. For reasons that are never fully explained in the poem, Grendel attacks not only social humans, but the center of society at that time—Heorot, home of Hrothgar, the father figure of the story. Hrothgar, as king, stands for paternalism and civilization, not only as a symbolic force in the story but to the band of warriors that follow him. By invading and decimating the hall that Hrothgar built, Grendel is following the classical Oedipal pattern of confronting and attempting to destroy the father.
Hrothgar does not attempt to deal with his symbolic child through his own efforts, but relies on the civilizing punishment that the superego provides in order to keep Grendel in check. Beowulf functions as the superego to Grendel’s id, the overpowering force that ameliorates the primal desires of the shadow, containing its energy within the bounds of social mores. His defeat of Grendel is not intended as a rite of passage, as one might expect from an ego-balanced main character, but is impersonal and almost utilitarian; thus, he is not introduced in order to grow and develop a working ego, as a protagonist would be, but to balance out Grendel’s uncontrollable, infantile selfishness and sadism.
The Oedipal complex is nearly resolved when Grendel, the id, is injured and subdued by Beowulf, the superego, and gives up on trying to overpower Hrothgar, the father figure. However, rather than being quashed and reformed by the superego and submitting to the father and the constraints of civilization, Grendel chooses to identify with his mother, fleeing back to the safety of their shared home in the lake to die. Shifting to Jungian theory, the lake is not only the home of Grendel’s mother, but is the mother herself; a lake is a female symbol, its dark waters resembling the primeval womb (Blake). Grendel’s final journey to his home in the lake is thus a return to the womb, a re-infantilization that does not challenge the childish impulses of his id. This is the land of the subconscious, a prerational existence full of monsters, hostile to the superego and resistant to civilization (Blake).
Grendel the id is destroyed, and the superego has been instilled. Thus, the focus of the story and the onus of symbolizing the psyche shifts to Beowulf the superego, product of the father. Armed with a phallic sword, symbol of domination and civilization, Beowulf does not hesitate to jump into the lake (Heaney 101), penetrating the symbolic yoni and preparing for what seems to be a final victory over the domineering mother and the antisocial forces of the shadow-like monsters. Having resolved the Oedipal complex on his side, Beowulf’s goal is to identify further with the father by dominating, rather than identifying with, the mother.
The threat of castration now comes from the mother, rather than the father. The lake is dangerous, a setting for death, and the mother is still a monster, more powerful than her rebellious psychosymbolic son. Beowulf and the monster mother fight, and she draws a “broad, whetted knife” (Heaney 107) on him in preparation for death, and a symbolic castration. But the knife is an artifact of civilization, and the mother cannot successfully wield the threatening phallic objects that are the province of the father. Instead, it is her own blood, symbol of female power and fertility, that is the agent of castration. When Beowulf at last penetrates her, her acidic blood eats away at the blade of the sword, and she castrates him even as she is dominated, a symbolic vagina dentata. Beowulf’s own phallic sword is not up to the task, and he must wield a larger, older sword, a gift from the ancestors on loan from yet another archetypical father, in order to successfully dominate the mother, take the place of the father, and emerge as a fully formed, adult psyche.
Works Cited
Blake, Allegra. English 234, Fall 2006 semester.
Dobie, Ann. Theory Into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. Thomson Learning, 2002.
Erwin, Edward, ed. The Freud Encyclopedia: Theory, Therapy, and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Norton and Company, 2000.
Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. Dell, 1964.
This was really fun to write and I worked very hard on it.
Rachel Weissserman
Prof.Allegra Blake
English 234
October 24th, 2006
Beowulf, Grendel, and the Dissolution of the Oedipus Complex
The epic of Beowulf, one of the most influential and archetypical stories in human history, can be seen not only as a gripping story of human victory over the supernatural forces of darkness, but as an allegory for the journey taken by a developing psyche in its dissolution of its adolescent Oedipal complex. The character of Grendel stands out most strongly in an archetypical light as the Freudian id or the Jungian shadow, the primal energies and desires that are so strong, they are “transformed into demons when they are repressed” (Jung 83). Grendel is a literal shadow, sneaking into Heorot under cover of night and performing acts that horrify both the characters in the poem and the listeners of the poem. He is barely seen or described in the poem, except for his arm. He does not need to be, for he is more viscerally frightening as an unseen shadow, a blank template for fear, than any carefully-described monster could be. The specter of Grendel is another face of the universal monster within, of the antisocial desires that a member of a civilized society must repress and project onto a mysterious “other” as a safety valve. His actions are purely selfish, intended only to satisfy his hunger and bloodlust, without thought for the lives of others. He cannot function within the moral constraints of society, but, like the id, is “lawless, social, amoral” (Dobie 51).
According to Freudian theory, the superego is developed by a child’s fear of being punished (usually castrated) by the father (Erwin, 545). Grendel, the id incarnate, lacks this paternal influence; he and his mother are “fatherless creatures” (Heaney, 95), wild and selfish without a dominating male presence. For reasons that are never fully explained in the poem, Grendel attacks not only social humans, but the center of society at that time—Heorot, home of Hrothgar, the father figure of the story. Hrothgar, as king, stands for paternalism and civilization, not only as a symbolic force in the story but to the band of warriors that follow him. By invading and decimating the hall that Hrothgar built, Grendel is following the classical Oedipal pattern of confronting and attempting to destroy the father.
Hrothgar does not attempt to deal with his symbolic child through his own efforts, but relies on the civilizing punishment that the superego provides in order to keep Grendel in check. Beowulf functions as the superego to Grendel’s id, the overpowering force that ameliorates the primal desires of the shadow, containing its energy within the bounds of social mores. His defeat of Grendel is not intended as a rite of passage, as one might expect from an ego-balanced main character, but is impersonal and almost utilitarian; thus, he is not introduced in order to grow and develop a working ego, as a protagonist would be, but to balance out Grendel’s uncontrollable, infantile selfishness and sadism.
The Oedipal complex is nearly resolved when Grendel, the id, is injured and subdued by Beowulf, the superego, and gives up on trying to overpower Hrothgar, the father figure. However, rather than being quashed and reformed by the superego and submitting to the father and the constraints of civilization, Grendel chooses to identify with his mother, fleeing back to the safety of their shared home in the lake to die. Shifting to Jungian theory, the lake is not only the home of Grendel’s mother, but is the mother herself; a lake is a female symbol, its dark waters resembling the primeval womb (Blake). Grendel’s final journey to his home in the lake is thus a return to the womb, a re-infantilization that does not challenge the childish impulses of his id. This is the land of the subconscious, a prerational existence full of monsters, hostile to the superego and resistant to civilization (Blake).
Grendel the id is destroyed, and the superego has been instilled. Thus, the focus of the story and the onus of symbolizing the psyche shifts to Beowulf the superego, product of the father. Armed with a phallic sword, symbol of domination and civilization, Beowulf does not hesitate to jump into the lake (Heaney 101), penetrating the symbolic yoni and preparing for what seems to be a final victory over the domineering mother and the antisocial forces of the shadow-like monsters. Having resolved the Oedipal complex on his side, Beowulf’s goal is to identify further with the father by dominating, rather than identifying with, the mother.
The threat of castration now comes from the mother, rather than the father. The lake is dangerous, a setting for death, and the mother is still a monster, more powerful than her rebellious psychosymbolic son. Beowulf and the monster mother fight, and she draws a “broad, whetted knife” (Heaney 107) on him in preparation for death, and a symbolic castration. But the knife is an artifact of civilization, and the mother cannot successfully wield the threatening phallic objects that are the province of the father. Instead, it is her own blood, symbol of female power and fertility, that is the agent of castration. When Beowulf at last penetrates her, her acidic blood eats away at the blade of the sword, and she castrates him even as she is dominated, a symbolic vagina dentata. Beowulf’s own phallic sword is not up to the task, and he must wield a larger, older sword, a gift from the ancestors on loan from yet another archetypical father, in order to successfully dominate the mother, take the place of the father, and emerge as a fully formed, adult psyche.
Blake, Allegra. English 234, Fall 2006 semester.
Dobie, Ann. Theory Into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism. Thomson Learning, 2002.
Erwin, Edward, ed. The Freud Encyclopedia: Theory, Therapy, and Culture. New York: Routledge, 2002.
Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. New York: Norton and Company, 2000.
Jung, Carl. Man and His Symbols. Dell, 1964.
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I only wish we'd-a had bloggin' when I was a young campus whelp. All my English profs seemed to spend half their time fiddling around with the new technology that was only then creeping its way across the millennial border into central Ohio.