Why All the Darkness?

By: Shelby Bagby

More often than not, the nighttime and darkness have negative connotations. When you think of the nighttime, do you think of peaceful dreams, restfulness, tranquility? Or, do you envision murderers who come after dark, the black alley cat who crossed your path at midnight, and monsters under your bed? We see through the two novels, Beowulf and Grendel that monsters are frequently associated with darkness, and thus, associated with the crimes of the night. When did this association begin and is there any evidence for why Grendel and monsters alike, should be associated with darkness, and as a result, associated with the negative characteristics of darkness?

This concept is really showing the associative property in literature. Let me explain: In mathematics, formulas are solved because of relationships between variables.

If A=B and B=C then C=A

The two novels similarly state that:

If Darkness = Danger, and Grendel = Danger, then Darkness = Grendel.

From the very beginning of the novel, Grendel, Grendel associates himself with nighttime. As he narrates his movements through the wilderness, he states, “I stand in the high wind balanced, blackening the night with my stench” (9). From the start, the reader discovers Grendel’s negative self-image based on the words he chooses to describe himself, like stench. But take note that his foul odor is somehow more foul out of the comfort of daylight. I pose this question to the author, Could he not stink when the sun is out? Just in chapter one, we see multiple negative connotations associated with nighttime: “move down through the darkness, burning with murderous lust” (10), “lifeless night” (11), “dark shadow out of the woods below” (12). In one small chapter, the nighttime is given a threatening reputation of death and murder, which is similar to the reputation of Grendel. I find it interesting that during the narration of Grendel’s fight with Beowulf, the entire fight happens in the darkness. Once Beowulf’s grip is tight around Grendel’s arm, Grendel describes how his “long pale dream, my history, falls away” (169). This shows how even one of the few positive things about nighttime, dreaming, can be turned negative during this frightful situation. The last positive association with darkness dies with Grendel’s death. Coincidence? Once Grendel’s arm is torn off in the fight, he realizes that he’s living a “nightmare. Darkness. I really will die!” (172). Would the fight have lost meaning had it occurred in the daytime? The reviews on the back of the book claim that Grendel is “the first and most terrifying monster in English literature.” Perhaps Gardner simply wrote the fight to occur in the nighttime to make the fight more horrifying and scary for the reader, captivating his audience. Or, is there another valid reason for the association of monsters with the darkness?

Has society today changed at all? In my opinion, darkness is as negative as ever. Think about it! Don’t we all turn on the lights if we are watching a scary movie alone? Somehow, the daylight makes things less menacing. After all, children are usually scared of the dark, never the light. That means that our society is reinforcing the negative connotations associated with darkness, and thus, monsters. In Grendel, we see the stark contrast between darkness and light when the Queen enters the meadhall “as if she’d brought light and warmth with her,” calming the crowd of drunken men (163). Here we see that a comparison with light is viewed favorably, which has completely opposite implications of a comparison with the night. In Beowulf, the narration of the fight between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother also occurs in the darkness, or in “the depths” of the lake where Grendel’s mother lives (105). After Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother, a monster, “a light appeared and the place brightened” (109). Here we are able to see another blatant comparison between monsters and darkness: when a monster dies, a light appears! 

Maybe the reason that darkness is associated with danger, and thus, with monsters, is because darkness hides truth in the shadows. Humans are consistently afraid of the unknown, and maybe darkness is the tangible unknown – and monsters must live there, because what is actually scary about monsters is everything we do not know about them. We do not know if they are human or not. We do not know if they are for us, or against us, because they are different from us. The unknown is scary! Since the humans in the story do not know much about Grendel or his mother, they are fearful of them. The unknown is personified through the monsters, and then equated with darkness.