Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Monsters

In Christian medieval culture, monster was the word that referred to birth defects, which were always understood as an ominous sign from God—a sign of transgression or of bad things to come. In keeping with this idea, the monsters that Beowulf must fight in this Old English poem shape the poem’s plot and seem to represent an inhuman or alien presence in society that must be exorcised for the society’s safety. They are all outsiders, existing beyond the boundaries of human realms. Grendel’s and his mother’s encroachment upon human society—they wreak havoc in Heorot—forces Beowulf to kill the two beasts for order to be restored.

Read about the theme of distinguishing men from monsters in Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

To many readers, the three monsters that Beowulf slays all seem to have a symbolic or allegorical meaning. For instance, since Grendel is descended from the biblical figure Cain, who slew his own brother, Grendel often has been understood to represent the evil in Scandinavian society of marauding and killing others. A traditional figure of medieval folklore and a common Christian symbol of sin, the dragon may represent an external malice that must be conquered to prove a hero’s goodness. Because Beowulf’s encounter with the dragon ends in mutual destruction, the dragon may also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the inevitable encounter with death itself.

The Oral Tradition

Intimately connected to the theme of the importance of establishing one’s identity is the oral tradition, which preserves the lessons and lineages of the past, and helps to spread reputations. Indeed, in a culture that has little interaction with writing, only the spoken word can allow individuals to learn about others and make their own stories known. This emphasis on oral communication explains the prevalence of bards’ tales (such as the Heorot scop’s relating of the Finnsburg episode) and warriors’ boastings (such as Beowulf’s telling of the Breca story). From a broader perspective, Beowulf itself contributes to the tradition of oral celebration of cultural heroes. Like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Beowulf was passed on orally over many generations before being written down.

The Cyclical Nature of Life

Beowulf is structured primarily around three main battles with great foes. Though Beowulf’s fight with Grendel immediately incurs the retaliation of Grendel’s mother, the fight with the dragon doesn’t occur until fifty years later. These three antagonist fights serve as an allegorical tableau of the life of a leader. Conflict arises in the form of Grendel, and the fallout from his defeat leads to direct, almost immediate consequences. In the fifty years that follow, seasons of peace and disruption ebb and flow, and even though it is ultimately the dragon that kills Beowulf, the cyclical nature of life is such that if it wasn’t the dragon, it would be something else; death is inevitable, whether it be at the hands of this foe or the next, as exemplified in the concept of wyrd. 

Throughout the poem, the reader sees old kings pass on and new kings rise and grow old themselves, weaving a pattern of ongoing change, conflict, and resolution. Perhaps best exemplifying the cyclical nature of life is Hrothgar, who has lived through enough to know that there is no true sense of stability. Kingdoms will see times of peace and times of adversity, and a wise king not only knows to anticipate both, but also appreciates the value in savoring beauty and hope when it is present.

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