Monsters In Beowulf And Into Thin Air

Monsters are born in literature through their words, origins, thoughts, and actions. Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer, as well as Burton Raffel’s Beowulf, contain such monsters that are large impediments to the hero’s quest. Also the expeditions or quests are affected in terms of intimidation by the monsters who are always overwhelming at first to the pessimistic eye such as how the Israelites viewed Goliath, the Philistine, when David went to fight him.

A monster’s thoughts, origins, and words are often used to construct the description of monstrosity in literature and are very critical. The climbers in Into Thin Air fought the mountain as Beowulf and his men fought off Grendel. However for some, such as guide Rob Hall, the mountain cost them their lives. Rob Hall’s final words were “Hey look, don’t worry about me.” These words are quite different than Grendel’s where he says “[the wildlife] watch on, evil, incredibly stupid, enjoying my destruction”

The weather on the mountain in Into Thin Air is the monster in the novel. It is attacking the climbers throughout, sometimes costing them their lives like how Grendel attacks the people of Herot and eating them. A monster is usually arrogant as well when attacked and fall when they let their guard down. This is evident when Grendel is initially confronted by Beowulf when he thinks he is sleeping. He then underestimates Beowulf’s strength which leads to his arm being ripped off after slipping in blood on the floor. This ultimately becomes his demise where he dies of blood loss. Another action that makes a monster is that they fight against the protagonist(s) the entire way through the story. The way that both Into Thin Air and Beowulf connect in this action is that Grendel and Everest are both the antagonist in their stories. Everest and Grendel both kill some people and are extremely detrimental to the well being of the protagonists and their