| Chapter 1: | The Clothes Make the Man: Transgressive Disrobing and Disarming in Beowulf |
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No dog will obey a monster, though he will obey both humans and other dogs.
In “OE aglæca: Magic and Moral Decline of Monsters and Men,” Marion Lois Huffines highlights Grendel’s status as both literal and metaphorical mearcstapa (l03a),2 boundary-walker, between human and monster, between civilization and chaos—which is where one ends up after transgressing fundamental boundaries. Huffines says that Grendel “is pictured as a perverse retainer, committing wicked deeds, and according to the Danes, Grendel has the form of a man, except much larger; indeed, it takes four men to carry his head. He also devours men as a fierce animal and has a claw like one” (74). Grendel, then, is forced to skulk on the outskirts of theDanes’ settlement, entering Heorot only at night when it has been left empty by the Danes.
Beowulf and the other people in the poem are at their most fully human when they are gathered together in the mead-hall drinking, eating, telling and listening to stories, giving and receiving gifts of gold, armor, and weapons. What constitutes civilization, what demonstrates the revelers’ common humanity is their reenacting the various rituals of humanity, most obviously conveyed by the storytelling. Sometimes these stories recount the conquest of the monster, both within and without; sometimes the stories reiterate and define these rituals. Storytelling becomes the overarching symbol of being human, as the stories themselves emphasize the differences among humans, monsters, and beasts. The solitary characters, such as Grendel, being cut off from humanity (literally and figuratively), become monstrous. So Beowulf, by removing his armor and weapons, becomes solitary, a monster, a mearcstapa, violating the boundaries between the human and the monster.
Wearing clothes, most particularly in their specialized forms of weapons and armor, are the frequent subjects of the mead-hall tales: warriors using weapons against their enemies and wearing armor passed down from father to son, uncle to nephew, king to retainer.3 Like reason and language, these traits are particularly related to each other. Clothing protects the wearer from the elements as armor protects the warrior from injury.