Setting

The setting of the first two parts of Beowulf is Denmark and the third, Geatland or modern-day Sweden. The setting within the first part of Beowulf is Heorot, Hrothgar, the King of Denmark's mead hall. It is in Heorot that the killings are perpetrated by Grendel and the place in which Beowulf mortally wounds the monster. The hall itself is significant as the center of medieval warrior society. By breaking into the mead hall, Grendel is breaching the heart of society itself. In this way Grendel could be a symbol of Christianity - that new religion that was unceremoniously replacing the code of ethics by which the northern Europeans had lived for so long. Grendel represents uncertainty, the unknown, and the alien, which has somehow penetrated the barriers of what was known as civilization.

In the second part of Beowulf the hero with a company of Danes must...