In this story, the concept of blood feud is important. A blood feud is a long conflict between families which can go on repeating, involving a cycle of retaliatory killings or injury. Blood feud can be seen as a measure taken for revenge when a loved one is killed or as vengeance for a people or land. These are both seen in this story. Beowulf avenges Hrothgar's men as Grendel continues to kill them for 12 years straight. Beowulf takes it upon himself to put a stop to it and eventually avenges all Hrothgar's people and land. In the second case, after learning that her son is dead, Grendel's mother chooses avenge her son. Grendel's mother challenges Beowulf underwater to pay him back for what he did to her son. Blood feuds are pointless as they take the lives of many for a single unimportant cause done out of spite. An injustice which invokes the need for revenge within a person can usually disappear given the proper amount of time, but the plot for revenge is enacted right away the result is many innocent lives lost for something that could have been avoided. Blood feuds can go on forever through many generations; lucky for Beowulf since these two feuds are connected the blood feud is short. If there were more monsters instead of two, (Grendel and Grendel's mother) the blood feud could have lasted much longer. "This was not a good bargain, that on both sides they had to pay with the lives of friends." In this particular society, the need for revenge may be associated with pride. Pride brings people to believe that they are better than their equals and consequently when something unjust happens to them they are lead to believe that they being higher can exact revenge upon their lower counterparts. If read carefully, it seems that the author is against blood feuds by his wording. The killing of anyone is bound to leave someone hurt and there fore can lead to a blood feud. This shown with Grendel's mother; even though all of Hrothgar's men hated Grendel and all wanted him dead for his crimes, Grendel's kin, his mother, still cared for him and therefore this lead to her exacting revenge against Beowulf. As long as there are people to care for another, there is always a possibility of blood feuds occurring again and again.
Sources Used:
http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/proj1b/beowulf.html
Sources Used:
http://csis.pace.edu/grendel/proj1b/beowulf.html