After reading Beowulf over for the second time, I could not help but notice the similarities between Grendel and John Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost. When the grandiose Heorot is initially attacked, the sceop describes him multiple times as both a demon and an outcast. Within the first 85 lines of Grendel’s entrance the scribe refers to him as a ‘demon’ three times and an outcast twice; not to mention a ‘fiend out of hell’. If looked at individually the opening descriptions of both Grendel and Satan are paralleled in that they are both in media res. Satan’s is right after being outcast from heaven and Grendel’s as soon as he assaults Heorot.
Ironically, the description of the origin of Grendel and his ilk almost relates all the way back to where Paradise Lost leaves off. Apparently after Cain was exiled for fratricide he was also ‘cursed’, and is now grouped with a slew of monsters and ‘phantoms’ along with Grendel. I think the strongest difference between the two characters is the way in which they are portrayed. Milton places Satan in a heroic light while he attempts to disrupt the success of mankind, beings created to represent free will, in an ironic gesture of free will; whereas Grendel is constantly depicted as an obscene decadent monster. However both still represent outcasts of God, disrupters of mankind, symbols of envy, and unlikely icons of bravery and resilience.