Theme Of Propaganda In Beowulf

As Beowulf slayed the Water Witch after Grendel, citizens of Danes never bothered to think about what they would have done if it was their son who has been killed. Through this scene, a typical reader, including myself, would see Beowulf as a hero as well as a leader from a glance. However, because Hrothgar, the king of Danes who requested Beowulf's assistance, is the individual who informed and convinced Grendel as a threat, he is the leader of his Danish environment. Shunned from society, Grendel, in the other hand was not, for all his life, he only lived and interacted with his mother, the Water Witch. From this, I concluded that the poem Beowulf is written in the perspective the victors of this event, Hrothgar and Beowulf, since at the

very end of Grendel by John Gardner Grendel breathes his last breath, making him the 'loser' of the event.

Although Beowulf was written thousands of years ago, when compared with Grendel, it acts as an example of propaganda of a certain perspective that was used throughout the history, even today.

Walter Benjamin once said that history is written by the victors, and that is what Beowulf is. As a reader, I was only limited to the point of view of Beowulf, a supposed hero as well as a victor of the tale. Moreover nobody questions Grendel's reasons for his actions, and it was not until 1971 that Grendel's perspective of Beowulf was carefully analyzed with a publication of Grendel by John Gardner. The fact that at the end of the novel Grendel breathes his last breath indicates that he is the 'loser' of the situation, unlike Beowulf. This proves that in history or any event, the winner, who gains power over his opponent at the end is the one who writes the history books. For example, during my freshmen year, I came a across a body of text describing imperial Japan’s rule over Korea during World War II. Born in Korea, I knew this subject very well for it is still a very big topic today between Japan and Korea. From my knowledge, Japan imposed more than harsh rule in

Korea, such as performing human experiments, brutally murdering towns of innocent men, women and children in various different ways, such as boiling them alive in a pot, and banned the Korean language in an attempt to erase Korean identity itself. Although Korea gained independence from 1945, they are still struggling with the aftermath from Japan’s rule. However, in the textbook, all of these atrocities were all chalked up to only one line that simply stated that Japan imposed a harsh rule of Korea, and proceeded to list the ‘good’ things that Japan claimed to have done to Korea, claiming that Japan were the ones to modernize Korea and that Korea was able to produce more crops than ever before under Japan, which is heavily one sided considering that Korea was already modernized before Japan’s rule and vast majority of crops harvested were for Japanese soldiers, not benefiting Korea in any way. The way that Beowulf compares to Grendel is like a wake up call to our society to look at both sides of the story rather than the victor’s.
The influence of Hrothgar depicted in Beowulf gives an insight to our modern society, about how leaders influence our lives.

Hrothgar is a well respected king of his land, for "men rushed to join his army" as soon as he ascended to his throne, automatically being an influential leader in his land. When Herot was built and attacked by Grendel, Hrothgar did not think or consider possible reasons for Grendel to attack and devour men in Herot. In addition, the only justification for Grendel's action in Herot was because he was a "demon" or a "fiend" that was a "monster born Of Cain", which Hrothgar firmly believed in. No longer young, he requests Beowulf to slay the "demon" for his kingdom. We, as humans, are product of our environment (Ryan and Deci, 68), and this situation, since Hrothgar is the influential leader in his land, he is the one who sets the environment. This leads to Beowulf believing that Grendel is a monster, much like Hrothgar. However, in reality, Grendel was a product of Water Witch as his environment, who fed on humans to survive. This gap between perspective and reality is disturbingly close to what United States did during World War I and II. Because U.S government wanted to keep the country's morale high and enthusiastic about the war, they censored or disposed soldier's letters that depicted the terrible conditions of the battlefield (unknown). The similar practice continues today in news networks here in United States: because according United State's

military code of people who help enemies are as bad as the enemy, the news state that U.S military took out their foe, while what they really did was murder innocent people (Bill).
The ending of Grendel and the ending of the battle between Grendel and Beowulf in Beowulf depicts our society ruled by powers of victors and leaders. Through this, readers were enlightened of how world runs and how different point of view is formed among historical documents and modern events.