Feminism In Beowulf: Women's Representation Of Women

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Once you learn about feminism, it is impossible not to notice the misogynistic undertones in just about everything. Beowulf is no exception. The entire work focuses on a man and his trials and tribunes, but throughout, there is a minuscule and unflattering representation of women. From the queen to the monstrous final battle, there is no woman represented in the same way the male characters are. In the work Beowulf, in the battle scene with Grendel’s mother, the unknown author uses a representation of women as the other, phallocentrism, and misogyny to show that men can vanquish other men and if a woman dares to intervene, he will destroy her as well. Representing Grendel’s grieving mother as an “other” instead of what she is (a grieving mother mourning the death of her only child) would be the first way the unknown author makes it clear that patriarchal men are vastly superior. Anyone that loses a child can relate to the grief that Grendel’s mother was feeling, and some would say that made her more human than Grendel. However, they never humanized her despite her human-like emotions. “I guarantee you: she will not get away, / not to dens under ground nor upland groves / nor the ocean floor. She’ll have nowhere to flee to (lines …show more content…

It is essential for this to be studied moving forward because Beowulf is a timeless piece of literature; high school and college students alike spend lots of time learning and analyzing the composition. Once you put on a feminist lens and realize the poem is hugely unfair to its female representation, it takes on a whole new meaning and interpretation. Looking at Beowulf this way gives it a lot more depth than it initially had and goes to reinforce that antifeminist themes have existed since the beginning of

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