The basic idea of Beowulf is the struggle between good and evil. Even though Beowulf is not even physically capable of beating Grendal he still overcomes him,because he is good. The poem starts out describing this great Meade hall, and there’s all these warriors that get drunk there. After the Meade hall is glorified it goes on to tell how there is this great monster.
Also this great monster can hear the harps rejoicing from the Meade hall,and the poets singing of the Almighty making the earth’s beautiful plains. line 27) Then the story describes that the monster, also known as Grendel, is spawned of hell on earth. This is like hyping the monster’s reputation so that it can foreshadow the coming of a great hero. (Beowulf) Grendel then goes on a murderous rampage and renders the Meade hall lifeless, and enrages the great king Hrothgar ( owner of the Meade hall). Stories of Grendel’s rampages soon reach the ears of the local hero Beowulf, and he immediately outfits a boat and sails across some great sea.
He rushes to the king and finds his great Meade hall abandoned. He ends up setting up a trap for Grendel by boasting to the great king of how he was going to defeat the great Grendel with his bare hands. This miss leads Grendel into thinking that he will be easy to kill. Untold to Grendel Beowulf has taken half of his men with their weapons and hidden them. They attacked him in vain, his skin was too tough to be pierced by a sword. Beowulf ended up ripping Grendel’s shoulder and arm out of its socket, because he could not kill him with his sword.
Grendel escaped back to his layer to slowly die of his mortal wound. This proves that good will all ways overcome evil no matter what stands in its way. Like in the story of Beowulf he could not kill Grendel with his sword so he mortally wounds him by taking his arm and shoulder right out of its socket. Beowulf had the clear disadvantage, but good represented by Beowulf still finds a way to overcome the evil represented by Grendel Through other methods other than the standard. This poem also shows how an overconfident opponent can be beaten by good preparation.
Beowulf ambushes Grendel by making him think he has the upper hand, because Grendal knows he could beat Beowulf in a one on one confrontation. When Grendel goes for the easy kill he is startled by Beowulf’s hidden men he had prepared giving good the chance it needed to rip the arm off the evil. I learned from the morale of this poem by realizing that no matter how far you are beaten back you might still have the chance to get ahead. It does not matter how big or strong you are there will be an opportunity for the weaker and small to all ways come out on top.
