Styling Texts: Dress and Fashion in Literature By Cynthia Kuhn an ...

Clothing can be a sign of rank, profession, character, marital or religious status; armor and weapons are signs of military status; they mark a man as a warrior and establish his rank within the hierarchy. Weapons, according to Ruel A. Macaraeg in “Dressed to Kill,” “indicate status by style and expense.” He calls them “status differentiators” because “certain weapons required exceptional skill which only professional training could provide” (46). Macaraeg also argues that “as status symbols, swords were kept directly on the costume; historic sources are nearly unanimous in showing swords worn at the waist where they could be both easily seen and easily drawn into action” (46). Without these outward visible signs of rank and ability, the difference between a warrior and a non-warrior becomes invisible, because it is internal to the man.

In Beowulf, monsters do not wear clothes, they do not wear armor, they do not generally use weapons. Grendel, for example, rips men apart with his bare hands, drinks their blood, and eats their flesh raw. While some readers may wish to call Grendel’s behavior “cannibalism,” because of his human descent from Cain, that term goes too far. He is not quite human enough to be a cannibal. Furthermore, Grendel’s mere, as a monster’s home, is so frightening to beasts that the hart—a beast—will sooner face the wolf—another beast—and its own death than go near the mere:

Monsters terrify animals even more than they terrify humans. Animals will not admit monsters into their ranks. As a monster, Grendel is clearly in between.