Grendel, the Queen and her Vagina: A Cultural Analysis

Grendel is nursing his feet, moping in his cave and thinking about the beautiful Wealtheow. He is "teased—tortured" by her hair, her shoulders and her chin. Grendel is moved toward disbelieving the dragon. His chest insists that a glorious moment is coming. He watches the Wealtheow’s hand move across the old man’s arm and is reminded of the shaper. Grendel is frustrated by the illogic of his desires; he falls first for the shaper, then for the hero and now for the queen. His mother breaths heavily, runs her hands through her hair and moans, watching her son (Oedipus anyone?). The next night grendel bursts into the mead hall intent on the queen. He slams into the bedroom and grabs Wealtheow by the foot, "her unqueenly shrieks were deafening" (109). No one came to her rescue. Grendel pulls her legs apart while she calls for the gods. He decides to kill her slowly, "I would begin by holding her over the fire and cooking the ugly whole between her legs" (109), he laughs. He will teach them the truth about life while squeezing her feces between his fists, "nothing alive or dead could change my mind!" But Grendel changes his mind. He quotes the dragon realizing his action and this event is only "one frail, foolish flicker-flash in the long fall of eternity" (110) so he lets her go. Later, Grendel concentrates on "the memory of the ugliness between her legs (bright tears of blood)" and figures he’s been cured. But he is not, inside he is still of two minds.

In the first paragraph Grendel is acting the voyeur, dwelling on the Wealtheow’s attractiveness. He watches her and the old man with eager jealousy. Grendel knows what is coming, as Wealtheow moves her hand across the old man’s arm; he likens watching her to listening to the shaper. Sex is a new longing for him. Culturally, we are torn between abundant sex and true love. On one hand Maxim and James Bond espouse easy, no strings attached sex and the playboy life style. While on the other, we have Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts in Notting Hill espousing sweet-touching commitment and (fated) love. Which is it? Gutteral sex or tender whispers? Both are idealized and both are largely fictional. Grendel is caught between these two stories like he was caught by the hero-myth and the shaper’s words. Grendel attempted to communicate with the humans and belie the shaper’s words, "I am not a monster!" but he fails, the humans do not understand him and they reject him; Grendel is alone and miserable. Next, after talking to the dragon, Grendel decides to play along with the shaper’s description of him and act like the monster the humans think he is. He makes up his own name, "Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings!" (80) he is his own hero. But again, he is their monster now more so than he was before; Grendel is still alone, and miserable. Now, here is Wealtheow, tenderly demonstrating the idea of man and woman, "the idea of a queen" and Grendel wants this myth. But Grendel is a monster; his mother is a female monster, it is impossible. His mother is the whore, like old depictions of Eve as the fall of mankind, she is lewd and abhorrent. "My mother, breathing hard, scraping through her hair with her crooked nails, watched me and sometimes moaned" (108) from previous descriptions I know that Grendel’s mother is grotesque, especially compared to a culturally ideal-female, she is fat and hairy like an animal. Here his mother behaves like a female sex object, running her fingers through her hair, breathing heavily, moaning and affixing her beau with a come hither stare, but she is not Marilyn Monroe. His mother perverts this image. Rather than increase her sexual attractiveness her actions make her more ridiculous, she is pitied and reviled, tragically trying to work wiles she doesn’t have. In this paragraph Grendel is confronted with two women, one who fits an ideal vision, Wealtheow, and one who does not, his mother.

Men fart, women do not. Men can be lewd, guttural and dirty, women are demure, proper and pristine. Grendel bursts into the mead hall like a man, he is aggressive, driven and superior/cruel (he laughs at other’s fear). Think of any action movie or western. In the pitch of battle the man sweeps in a grabs the girl. Here Wealtheow, like any woman in danger (in any movie), screams. In movies the image of a screaming woman, is a different kind of sexy. But for Grendel, her screams ruin his illusion. She becomes coarse and human, her shrieks are "unqueenly" and no-one would defend her. The scene Grendel has created would not happen in a typical action movie here is the monster to get the girl, but where is James Bond to rescue her? Where is the suggestively slipping dress strap? Instead the scene is ugly and cruel, it is both sexually and heroically, disillusioning. Wealtheow’s screams and the men’s failure to rescue her are written next to eachother, it is as if once one myth (the pristine, superhuman image of their queen) is dispelled, the other myths (such as the hero) fall away as well. Now that the myth of the myths has been exposed, everything is painfully real, human frailty and isolation are tangible. As evidence of this Weatheow calls on the gods while Grendel pulls her legs apart; the gods do not come, though Grendel waits for them. Myth is not reality.

Though women are portrayed as sex objects in the media and our culture the actuality of their sexual organs is not considered sexy. Breasts are idolized, but women’s vaginas are foreign, frightening territory. The vagina has little presence en in slang, unlike "penis" which may be favorably described through innumerable euphemisms, the vagina is relegated to four or five, most of them derogatory. The missionary position carefully avoids any visual contact with this area, and though blow jobs performed by women on men are popular subjects, a man performing oral sex on a woman is rarely portrayed, much less with any pleasure, by the media.

Menstruation, related to the vagina, is another unspoken element of female sexuality. Women do all they can to avoid it and ignore it, and men would rather not know about it. A typical embarrassing scene for a man or a woman, on TV, in movies, books and magazines, involves buying feminine hygiene products in the grocery store. So, when Grendel pulls her legs apart he destroys Wealtheow’s mystery or illusion as a sex object; none of the men will come to her rescue now that she is no longer holy/untouchable. Grendel decides to kill her slowly, by "cooking the ugly hole between her legs", destroying the visceral/guttural part of her which, like her piggish squeals, ruins the myth of her divinity or Beauty. Grendel decides again to kill her, "yes! I would squeeze out her feces between my fists" feces are not womanly, they are not even human, they are something that animals produce. Making her feces prominent, Grendel emphasizes Wealtheow’s connection to animals she is ugly and base (like Grendel’s mother). The use of the verb "cook" in connection to Wealtheow’s genitalia is interesting, given that culturally, one of a woman’s or wife’s primary occupations is to cook for her husband. Grendel decides to kill her, in something of a womanly way, to shatter the Thanes’ illusions regarding her holiness. Perhaps, the reality of a wife is similarly disillusioning for men. Certainly in sitcoms, becoming a wife often transforms a previously svelte beauty into something cranky and covered in cellulite. But moreover, in focusing on Wealtheow’s hole, Grendel links sex with violence and indignity. He would teach them "reality": love is not tender, sex is not meaningful. People are animals, they have shit and holes like animals; their sex is merely instinctual drive, not holy union.

But Grendel changes his mind. He changes his mind because he remembers the dragon’s theory, killing her would seem meaningful for the moment but ultimately nothing would change. Whether he lets her live or not, the act is meaningless. At this point killing and raping her would be culturally expected of him. Grendel, the big hairy "man" comes bursting into a woman’s bedroom and pulls her legs apart. He is a "monster" what do you think will happen next? He either rapes her and the audience weeps or he rapes her and the audience is titillated. But Grendel chooses neither. He leaves.

Grendel remembers " the ugliness between her legs (bright tears of blood)" (110) and thinks himself cured from his desire for love. Menstruation is still a dirty thing we avoid talking about. Women are not supposed to have gross bodily functions, a woman is supposed to smell of "gardenias" or the "summer breeze". I could tell a dozen jokes which describe menstruation in a gross and smelly way. While Rite-Aid and Walgreen’s stock an abundance of perfume and scented "feminine hygiene products" to keep her "fresh".

Grendel calls himself a "sly old devil" but the words rang false; Grendel still wants the illusion. He remains of two minds "and one of them said—unreasonable, stubborn as the mountains—that she was beautiful" (110). Our culture does the same thing, not just regarding women, but regarding celebrities in general. We both want them to be human, and want them to be perfect. Looking at a magazine photo of a model we know intellectually that the photo has been touched up, but at the same time we want to fall for the illusion and believe she/he is actually beautiful.

What idea emerges from all this? Nothing is perfect. Grendel finds out that even queens are made of flesh and blood; the reality never lives up to the myth. The contrast between Grendel’s mother and Wealtheow seems significant. Grendel’s mother behaves lasciviously (you may think that interpretation a stretch) yet is never a sexual object, nor are we confronted by her genitalia, whereas Wealtheow behaves innocently and is a sexual object, yet we do see her genitalia. There is something, I want to say "visceral", about women that men are repulsed by or afraid of. Culturally, Grendel is goes from lover/voyeur, to strongman, to rapist and finally to weak man; Grendel changes his mind, how unmanly! And fails to complete his mission, also unmanly, but by not raping her. By refusing to become "the rapist" does Grendel elevate himself or imply that he is beyond the human’s trivial mythmaking? He chooses not to fulfill what would be expected of him, he leaves Wealtheow neither queen nor victim. No role is met, Grendel wrecks another human theory, yet in so doing he fulfills his own, "truth-teacher". But despite his words Grendel remains torn between the two theories, man’s and his own. He is unsatisfied and disappointed. Grendel is not his own myth; reality is not the same as its description.