In Ap English, the class read the poem Beowulf. Or at least the first half in which Beowulf slays first Grendel then Grendel's mother. Let me start from the beginning, some Finnish people build a giant hall and start partying. Grendel gets mad that these people are making so much noise so he goes to the hall to get some payback. Along comes sadistic Beowulf and chops his head off. Still think Grendel is the bad-guy? Let me put it like this, when a flea or a mosquito starts buzzing in your ear, what is the first thing you do? SLAP! Try and kill that annoying bug any way you can.
So say you're Grendel and in the middle of the night a whole bunch of fleas start to party. You would probably wake up and reach for the Raid. That's what Grendel was doing, reaching for the Raid...metaphorically. This poor monster was trying to get his beauty sleep and instead he gets decapitated. And to add insult to injury, Beowulf kills Grendel's mom too. Beowulf isn't the same when you see it through the eyes of the real victim: Grendel.
In the 1996 movie "The Rock," Ed Harris plays a general who has become disenchanted with the government's treatment of fallen veterans. He takes over Alcatraz Prison and threatens to launch deadly missiles unless the government reforms. Sounds like a typical bad-guy, right? Wrong! All he wants is some compensation for his fallen allies and addressing his fellow "villains" he says this: "A couple hundred years ago, some guys named Washington, Jefferson, and Adams were branded traitors by the British. Today we call them patriots." History has a funny way of heroizing some people and making others villains.
Another good example is my favorite literary character: Roger Chillingworth from "The Scarlet Letter." He comes back to town to discover his wife is pregnant and he isn't the father. How would you feel? English teachers claim that people like Chillingworth and Grendel are the bad-guys when really they are the victims of the Beowulfs of this world. Just remember the next time you watch Star Wars, Darth Vader has feelings too. Until next time, I should have taken CP
