Comparing Beowulf And Jed Diamond's Frankenstein

Throughout the history of storytelling, monsters have been represented as the “unloved”, nearly always rejected by society, and are often driven to violence stemming from that rejection. Examples of such are featured in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the Anglo-Saxon tale of “Beowulf”. Frankenstein tells the tale of an aspiring scientist who creates a creature in their obsession with creating life but ends up casting it away without a second thought, leading the creature to fall into isolation, misery, and violence, “Beowulf'' is an epic poem that follows the hero Beowulf as he slays monsters such as Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. in which their monsters are born into rejection for the crime of their existence, and are not shown an

But being born was not something within Grendel’s control, nor his appearance. His rejection from God himself likely feeds into his violent nature, not leaving him any room for redemption or acceptance from others. It can help to shed light on the effect of loneliness and how it affects Grendel by looking at modern dissections of its effects, such as in Jed Diamond’s article, “Loneliness: The hidden problem at the root of male irritability, anger, and violence”. Within his article, Diamond uses research to connect isolation and violent behaviors, “‘For years, researchers have observed a connection between loneliness and violence.As evolutionary research has taught us, the main reason for this behavior is fear, sometimes amounting to terror, that becomes embedded in the trauma of loneliness’” (Diamond). Thus, the root of Grendel’s violence is likely his loneliness. He is viewed as a monster and therefore he has become one in the eyes of the people. The people who follow God also shun Grendel due to being from Cain’s blood, leading back to God’s

I thought I’d just kill you if ya found out what I was. Ya ended up acceptin’ me, didn’t ya? It was the first time I felt like I was needed.For whatever reason, the place I belonged to became you’”. ‘Hikaru’ Didn’t care at first if he needed to kill anyone if they found out he was a monster, but since Yoshiki decided to accept him instead of rejecting him, he settles for the more peaceful option as he is not threatened with rejection or isolation when the situation arises. In addition, the monster being offered compassion is not within the standard for most tales. Stephen Fox describes the standard quite vividly in his essay, “The Importance of Monsters”, “The slaying of a monster is often used as a hero’s final obstacle during his journey. By defeating an enemy greater than themselves, he or she shows the growth they experienced over the course of their travels” (Fox). Yoshiki does attempt to “slay” ‘Hikaru’, but not in a classic