The Significance of Grendel‘s Attack in the Light of Lacanian Psychoanalytic Theory

Abstract

This research tries to examine the significance of Grendel‘s attacks, in the first half of the Old English poem, Beowulf. The researcher, by the use of Lacan‘s ideas such as the name-of-the-father, paternal function, and the law, and also by the use of the biblical texts which are alluded to in the poem by the poet, tries to show that, the sense of the fear and threat caused by the attacks of the monster, is the result of the sense of fear and guilt that the subject experiences. This fear and guilt are emanates from subjects incestuous desire toward the transgression of the law of the incest taboo. This deduction is possible if one focuses on the relation of Grendel with his biblical ancestors, Nephilims