The fear of what is inside you, your desire for revenge, your lack of control over your impulses, and your dark side, is the greatest fear presented in the story Beowulf, a book by Robert Nye. Grendel’s mother, Cain’s wife, a female without a name, represents what is dark inside ourselves. She is filled with cruelty, hate, and revenge; a wicked evil. She is more huge and powerful than her son, more terrible than Grendel, her actions motivated by revenge. She is shaped like a snake and possesses terrifying features. She moves in a twisty way and attacks with her long scaly tentacles, as strong as armor. When Grendel returns to the Fen, wounded, with one of his arms ripped from its shoulder, the mother decides to seek revenge instead of living her life in grief. She cannot retain this evil inside her; it is a part of who she is. She is powerless against the darkness that consumes her and has no control over her actions. She attempts to avenge Grendel’s death, her son, by attacking Hall Heorot. She manages to retrieve her son's claw, and murderously abducts one of the Scyldings, Unferth, from the mead hall. When Beowulf comes after Grendel’s mother, she has another advantage. She is in her home territory, the Fen, which is where she has lived for a hundred years. As Beowulf dives into the lake, the mother waits patiently and attacks him only when he is close to the bottom. He is virtually helpless as she drags him to the dry, eerily lit cave for the kill. Grendel’s mother feeds on fear, and once Beowulf stops being afraid, and stops struggling, she begins to lose her power over him. Her magic was slowly going. Beowulf defeats her, the darkness inside of her, with his goodness, his kind heart, and bravery. Grendel’s mother is powerless against good, which is inside of Beowulf. Feeling fear, he puts this fear to use and plucks new courage from the fear itself. He makes her fall asleep, then strangles her to death, turning her body into a thick dark pool.
The fear of what is inside you, of what you will do to other people, such as your desire for revenge, often shows up in our society today. Many people get back at others through violence, the internet, or through the justice system. Some might post embarrassing pictures of someone or make a bad comment online to seek revenge. This can be spread all over the internet for everyone to see, which can greatly ruin someone’s life or reputation. Sometimes we act without thinking first, and your dark side can be the cause of this. We all have it somewhere inside of us, some more than others. Sometimes people have combative and assaultive behaviors, substance abuse, recklessness, excessive risk-taking, gambling, and binge eating, which is all because of a lack of impulse control. A murderer committing a crime on news coverage is an example of someone’s dark side. Your dark side is the shadow aspects of yourself that you don't want to look at and even less you want to consciously work with them. Instead of facing our dark side from the place of presence, we ignore the parts of ourselves that we dislike. It’s your fear of failure, your extreme shyness, or jealous behavior. In movies and books, we often see the contrast between good and evil. There’s usually a superhero and a villain in other words. The villain intends to cause chaos or commit evil actions driven by an ambiguous motivation, either revenge or to receive a certain advantage.
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This fear, the fear of what is inside you, connects with my personal life. My desire for revenge and my lack of control over my impulses influence my behavior and choices. This little evil voice behind my head pushes me to do things that I will regret afterward. My own dark side tells me what to do, and I often listen to it, even though I know it’s wrong. I don't always have control over my actions, and my sudden impulses cloud my better judgment. Whenever someone does a wrong by me, I have to get back at them, for the sake of justice. When my sister sent an embarrassing picture of me to my friends, for example, I absolutely had to send a photo of her in return. When I fulfill my urge for revenge, I feel better than I had been, maybe because it is secretly rewarding. I often notice the effects of this fear on my friends. They can’t control their own impulses, and because of those powerful negative emotions such as anger, their actions have disastrous results. They hurt other people and say things that are rude or insulting. They don’t always think before they act, and this usually causes problems in my group of friends. To avoid hurting others, we must learn to contain our emotions; our dark side. We must understand the fear and embrace it.
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