She, Grendel's mother, awakens to the faint sound and smell of the things known as men. She has been sleeping down in her dark and dingy cave below the world that is known to men. She has been biding her time, and plotting her revenge against the man that murdered her son. All that she had left in the cold and unforgivable world was her only son. Her only child was the being men despised and called Grendel. She lifts her head from the cold cavern floor, and her ears prick up as she hears a sound in the water beyond the entrance to her lair. She gingerly glides through the muck of a thousand centuries, as naturally as if she had lived all one thousand of them, and all the while she is straining to pick up the smell of that dreaded man. Then, all at once, he is floating beside her. He reeks of manly confidence and heroism. She reaches a quick-as-death hand, on which are a set of vulture-like talons, and snatches him to her. She is intent on grinding his bones into powder. She grimaces when her talons fail to gain access to the hated heros heart. She opens her mouth to shriek her rage, but is only answered by the firesnakes who nip and tug at her flesh. Still she is not deterred from her morbid course. She swims back to her cave with the man still in her evil, cunning clutches. She gains solid ground again, and casts the killer-of-children to the floor of her dingy home. As he is recovering from the shock of the water, and his recent capture, she has time to note that this mans seemingly invincible flesh is merely a protective covering. She is grimly pleased to witness his surprise and disgust at his sordid surroundings. She cracks a wicked smile full of razor-sharp teeth as she sees his head turn, and sees his eyes widen in recognition. The man regains his senses and draws his mighty sword. He gives a mighty cry that strikes momentary fear into her breast, and heaves the huge blade at her head. She sees his surprise as his sword inflicts no damage upon her scaly skin. She thinks that he was quite foolish to think that her sons death would not be rightfully avenged. She believes that she will win this battle, and drain this arrogant mortals blood before the day has faded from the sky above them. She is caught off guard when the man drops his sword and seizes her by one mighty shoulder, and forces her to the ground.
Upon arrival at the mead hall, Grendel notices the door is much to small for him to enter through it easily. This does not make him happy because it happens everywhere he goes in the little human towns. So he squeezes his shoulders through the small opening and manages to ask the man at the nearest table what was going on. The man, being exhausted from his own celebrations, was to tired to even notice the beast standing over him. Monsters of Grendel's type are not used to be ignored and see it as disrespectful and so do not like to be ignored. Which is why Grendel pulled his head from the doorway and reached his claw in to snatch up unsuspecting man. Everyone else in the room was too busy to even notice the man being lifted from his place behind his drink. With the first man out of the way, Grendel decided to try a different approach. Again, scrunching himself down partway through the door, Grendel looked for someone to tell him what was going on. He cleared his throat and said with a rough, gravelly voice, "Excuse me!" No one noticed. So he said it louder, "Excuse me!" A few heads turned. After a number of astonished gasps, more turned to see. Detecting he was now the center of attention, Grendel asked what they were all doing making so much noise so late at night. The men only stared at him. So he asked more simply and slowly, not knowing if they were intelligent or not, "What are you doing?" The only response this time was an echoed "Get him!" This surprised Grendel because they seemed to say it in unison. He jumped slightly and hit his head on the doorway. He stood up and rubbed his head and knocked over a horse and its cart with his foot.
sw[ears]” and “ hit[s] them.” All the anger in her is due to the loss of her freedom
very anxious, as Trujillo slides his had down her back, below her waste Minerva's reaction is to
As characters in the poem are literally snow bound, they find that the natural occurrence actually serves a relaxing and warming purpose, one that brings together family. This effect is further achieved through the use of meter throughout the work as a whole. In its simplistic yet conversational tone, the author uses meter to depict the result that nature has forced upon these humans, who are but a small sample size that actually is representative of society that that time. Due to nature, the characters can talk, represented by the conversational meter, and thus, they can bond within the family. A larger representation of this more specific example can be applied to a more general perspective of human’s relationship with the natural world. Although “Snowbound” captures what humans do as a result of nature, it can also represent a larger picture, where nature appears at the most opportune times to enhance relationships from human to human. In “snowbound,” this is symbolized by the fire, “Our warm hearth seemed blazing free” (Whittier 135). This image relays a spirited, warm, mood full of security, which is expertly used by the author to show how fire, a natural phenomena, can provide such beneficial effects on humans. This very occurrence exemplifies how such a miniscule aspect of nature can have such a profound effect on a family, leaving the reader wondering what nature and its entirety could accomplish if used as a
from the fear. By this time she has worked up such a frenzy she thinks
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words,” Robert Frost once said. As is made fairly obvious by this quote, Frost was an adroit thinker. It seems like he spent much of his life thinking about the little things. He often pondered the meaning and symbolism of things he found in nature. Many readers find Robert Frost’s poems to be straightforward, yet his work contains deeper layers of complexity beneath the surface. His poems are not what they seem to be at first glance. These deeper layers of complexity can be clearly seen in his poems “The Road Not Taken”, “Fire and Ice”, and “Birches”.
Basow, Susan A. Gender: Stereotypes and Roles. Third ed. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub., 1992. Print.
as he has never seen her in broad daylight. He then tears the paper lantern off
She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will--as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over...
When you mention gender roles in society the first thing that comes to mind usually are stereotypes, or the set labels that society has established on how everyone acts based on the different biological, social, and cultural categories they fit into. Throughout history these stereotypes that pertain to genders roles in society have been proven true. Gender roles refer to a behavioral and social norms that are widely accepted for people of a certain sex. In this report I will discussing the gender roles of the two most recognized types of gender, man and woman, from the perspective of a man and a woman who have lived 65+ years. I will also discuss how those roles have influenced society and how they have changed gradually over the years.
Like most people in her social sphere, the woman takes for granted the civility and restraints that have kept her, prior to her attack, comfortably exempt from the personal chaos that violence unleashes. All of...
She murmurs to him how much she feels for him but he knows that they
This is one of Robert Frost simplest poems. When I initially read this poem, the first thing that came to my mind was the biblical theory. In the second line "Some say in ice" furthered my theory. In the Bible it is told that God destroyed Earth with water the first time he came to get his people (the story of Noah's Ark). Ice being a form of water I related the two to each other. In the first line of the poem "Some say the world will end in fire" this is where I compared the stanza to the theory. In the Bible, the book of Revelations also say that the next time that God comes to take his people that he is going to destroy the world by fire. This...
to see her, she expresses her plan to kill Duncan, and then utters, "Only look
Frost uses a lot of figurative language in this poem. In the quote, “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in Ice,” Frost is saying that in the world there could be multiple outcomes to one solution. Many people think it could go one way, others think it could