A Severed Arm and a Mother's Fury Liam Mackay Byrd College

An often-explored trope of both contemporary and classic literature is the utilization of somewhat morbid imagery to further a narrative or perhaps convey an underlying message in a vividly grotesque manner. One such example can be found within the English poem Beowulf during a scene where the eponymous character defeats the macabre monster Grendel by tearing his arm off in hand-to-hand combat: “...a tremendous wound appeared on [Grendel’s] shoulder. Sinews split and the bone-lappings burst. Beowulf was granted the glory of winning” (lines 815-820). What strikes me particularly profoundly is the specificity with which this inflicted wound is described. The references to tearing sinew and burst bone-lappings provide the reader with a harrowing image of brutality. Today we have a plethora of mediums delineating all manner of barbarism, from frenetic video games such as Grand Theft Auto that simply suit the palate of the sadist to serious narrative films such as Quest for Fire where violence is used heavily to advance the story. While we may have those and plenty of others, the people of Old England would have relied much more on the significance of violent imagery within written works like Beowulf. Emphasis of this aforementioned...