Perhaps it is because of the illustration on 8 and 46, but the image of Grendel was very closely tied to the trolls of the Elder Scrolls. No physical description is given of Grendel, aside from appearing unnatural, showing up at night and eating people. The last part is what links Grendel to the trolls. Trolls are often found with bones around their “nests” and implies that they eat people. Grendel probably would have had a a physique similar to these trolls to have grabbed and carried the soldiers off to his cave.

This is my interpretation of Grendel. Grendel’s appearance is never described in the poem, so how is it that my image of him is the troll? The image of Grendel would be different from everybody. My experiences, namely the Elder Scrolls, have given me an idea of what monsters look like, thus when a monster is not described, I relate it to something that is familiar.

Just as a side note, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (a video game) could have easily turned into Beowulf if those chose. The setting, many of the names and narrative the game has puts in very close proximity of becoming Beowulf. Heck, one of the locations is named Hrothgar.

Everything is parallel. Prospero’s dukedom is usurped, and Caliban’s island is usurped. Caliban, with the incompetence of Stephano and Trinculo plot Prospero’s murder.  Antonio and Sebastien plot Alonso’s murder. Caliban is forced to do trivial jobs (getting sticks, moving longs), and Ferdinand moves logs.

Why are all these characters in parallel situations? Perhaps it is to make us as the audience question character motives. In Caliban and Prospero’s case, it makes us see Prospero in a less “righteous” way. He’s not completely in the right, because he commits the same crimes as the ones that happen to him.

In the case of Sebastien/Antonio and Stephano/Trinculo, it puts the two nobles in line with the bumbling drunks. It puts their plans of regicide on the same level as Stephano’s drunken fancies. The comparison serves to make the idea of regicide look like a folly idea, akin to one that would be made unde the influence.

Perhaps it is because I took 110 concurrently with 220, and in both classes Paradise Lost was on the curriculum that I find it hard to agree with Milton’s God. In 110, the reading of Paradise Lost focussed on Satan as both a villain and an epic hero, and that reading really resonated with me.

I have a hard time seeing God as anything other than a dictator. Obedience is a big word I find associated with him whenever He is mentioned, such as on line 190 “to pray, repent and bring odebience due”. Later at line 210, the punishment for disloyalty is death. We see with Satan that his original sin is the his ambition to be more than what he is. Thus, we see that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to move any direction other than down in God’s heirarchy.

Dealing with Satan, God, being all-knowing, knows of Satan’s plans and allows him to sin, and punishing him. I don’t know how others, especially those of the christian faith see this, but I can’t see it as particularly fair.

The Houyhnhnms relfect, albeit exaggerated, an idealized society. They are goverened wholly by reason, which would reflect the Enlightenment, a time where empirical science took hold, and “reason” became  questioned the power of the state and church. Exaggerating this, reason is the only way the Houyhnhnms think, allowing their society to be “peaceful” and generally conflict free. This sounds wonderful, however, they also lack the idea of “opinion”. Every member of the houyhnhnms subscribes to the ideals of their society, making them all kind of robotic. They lack individuality and public debate. Their society, because of the rules and traditions will continue to “thrive” however because of the lack of debate or opinion, it will remain static and not evolve – something societies should be able to do.

Further adding the dystopia argument is their stance on the Yahoos. They’ve enslaved the Yahoos, using them much like the slaves in Oronooko (minus all the beatings and executions). Then they contemplate genocide – wiping out the Yahoos because they are “disagreeable” creatures. Clearly, this is not a society that would be seen as the utopia the Gulliver implies it to be.

Chaucer’s Wife of Bath, Chaucer plays the role of a Goliard, a century late to the party. Goliards were, to quote a music history professor I once had, “misbehaving clergymen”. They wrote poems, songs and held performances that satirized the church, which at the time had come under increasing scrutiny for it’s abuse of power. We see Chaucer poking fun at the church through Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, as well as through the other characters related to the church, such as the Prioress and Pardonner. Looking specifically at the wife, we see her poke holes through many of the church’s teachings using her own logic. To the present reader, her logic is perfectly sound, especially because of how much social values have changed. To the contemporary reader, it might sound outrageous, but at the same time, it provided an alternative outlet of thought.

In a patriarchal society like it was (and largely still is), the character of the Wife represented everything men did not want in a woman. Chaucer writes Jankin to represent the collective idea of the church’s teachings on women: that they are inferior and wicked. The wife argues against these ideas through her stories about her marriages.Through the wife, Chaucer mocks the church by using bibical references, and then poking holes in their logic. She cites teachings such as the importance of purity and virginity of women, and the logical flaw in the teaching. Where would the “pure” women come from if all women remained virgins? Also, she notes that it is men who perpetuate the myths of women, and that had women been writing, it would be men who would be in the state of being discriminated. Which is kind of ironic, if you think about it, as it is a man who is writing her character.