Horror and the Maternal inBeowulf

Abstract

Grendel's mother projects Anglo–Saxon cultural anxieties about weaknesses in the system of feuding and revenge. Killing off one opponent (Grendel) will only trigger the appearance of another (Grendel's mother) as long as the system of revenge by kin is in place. That she is an avenging mother may have seemed particularly monstrous, in ways that resonate with Julia Kristeva's comments on abjection and the maternal. Grendel's mother attacks to avenge her son shortly after Wealhtheow has attempted to weave the ties of kinship on behalf of her sons. By contrast, women in Old Norse literature often incite men to vengeance or on rare occasions take vengeance themselves. Seen from the social world of the Anglo–Saxon hall, however, a maternal avenger can only be imagined as monstrous or subhuman, carrying the male hero to the threshold of death. The abjected mother returns, with a vengeance, to haunt the patriarchal stronghold. (PA)