The Seven Deadly Sins in Medieval Epics
The artistic purpose of the evil creatures is to show three things: the first is to juxtapose the good from the evil, and the second is to show how to be a good person. The third and final point is that some of them are symbolic of political and/or religious events. Each monster serves as an allegory to show what not to do if you’re to be a worthy Christian. In addition, each physical body of the monster is a mirror image of how they appear inside too. They are depicted with a monstrous body because they are in fact monstrous inside too.
In Beowulf, Grendel is jealous of what he does not have (Envy), and his mother seeks revenge on those who killed her son (Wrath). Meanwhile, the dragon is often associated with greed.
In ‘The Faerie Queen’, Error, as her name suggests, signifies human error, or human wrongdoings. She encompasses all sin because to sin is human error. Despair provokes each person who talks with him to commit suicide. He in particular is scary because he doesn’t inflict physical pain: he turns the mind against itself. Despair is the onset of a poisoned mind that leads to sin. Lastly, we have the almighty dragon that cannot be defeated without having unwavering Christian faith.
Finally, we have Paradise Lost. In Sin, we find several allegories. The first being that of lust, and the second being that she represents the fact that sinning comes from within the mind. Satan represents Pride, and Death represents the consequence, the final destination if you are evil.
Grendel is the descendant of Cain (Beowulf, 102-07), the by-product of a betrayal of brother against brother. He looks at the outside world and is jealous of everything he does not have. He displays envy when he occupies the mead hall and takes out his malice on all those who get in his way (115-25). The suggestion is that to be envious is to become a monster. Grendel also serves the purpose of justifying the tenacity of Beowulf.
Continuing with the seven deadly sins theme, Grendel’s mother demonstrates a great deal of hatefulness (Beowulf, 1275-80). In the first fight with Grendel, Beowulf wins because of his brute strength. However, with Grendel’s mother, Beowulf swims to the bottom of the pitch-black swamp to meet evil head-on (similarly to The Faerie Queen when the Red cross Knight must descend before gaining the Christian armor). They are parallel situations (1557). Without the sword (God-given perhaps) Beowulf would have been defeated. The purpose of Grendel’s mother was to serve as a challenge of faith. Beowulf, having found the sword, found his faith in a way. He embraced his god and found victory. Once again, good beats evil.
Finally, we have the dragon representing greed. It, combined with Beowulf, can also represent being death or evil itself. Beowulf is a force of good, while the dragon is a force of evil that hoards treasure and kills when it pleases (Beowulf, 2271-2295). It’s also the last monster Beowulf fights, so it is the most important battle. The dragon serves to oppose the image of the good king who shares his treasure and fights for a reason (to save his people).
With the final defeat of the dragon, even though Beowulf dies, it is symbolic of the vanquishing of evil. The dragon brings about tensions within the story. In contrast to the traits of the dragon, Beowulf is everything good. Beowulf is the leader, but he is a warrior first, so the decision to fight the dragon knowing he was the only one who could possibly have a chance was the right call. Some might say that he should have stayed and safeguarded his kingdom and people. However, that decision would have left the community in the same state as when Grendel was attacking, and that situation lasted for years with many casualties. They would have had to wait for another warrior like Beowulf to save them, which was highly unlikely. It is a much easier task to find a leader than a fighter capable of defeating the evil dragon.
Error, the first monster encountered in The Faerie Queen, represents exactly what you’d think: human error. Red Cross Knight did not heed any of the warnings he was given, nor did he use any of his senses, and thus he meets his first fight and test of faith. Error is described as half-woman and half-snake (FQ, canto 1, stanza 14). The snake is also a biblical reference symbolic of Satan who we see later in Paradise Lost. It is depicted as a deceptive and manipulative creature.
Error lives in complete darkness; another symbol of evil, while Red Cross Knight is the light. Error shows us how to be a good person in several ways. The first being: heed advice given and use your senses when making decisions. Usually in literature, dark and windy paths don’t lead to flowery fields. Una tells him not to venture that way, but he has pride and wants to prove himself. Unfortunately, this pride points him to a bad place. Only when he listens to Una, symbolic of the church and reason, is he able to defeat Error. Follow the bible, and you will succeed.
Despair is a different beast all together (FQ, B9, C35). Having a short conversation with despair brings Red Cross Knight the closest he has ever been to dying before. Despair is the opposite of hope, which is god given. This is to say that Red Cross Knight turned his back on god during the conversation with Despair. The loss of hope is yet another test of his faith because if he’d had faith during this battle, he would have been able to walk away from the conversation. Yet again, Una, the voice of reason and the symbol for the hope, is able to save him by taking him to the house of holiness. The fact that he was so effortlessly defeated by Despair is a warning to newcomers to the Christian faith. Hope and faith will save you. If you abandon these things, you will not move on or succeed. The purpose of Despair is to illustrate what happens when you don’t have faith.
The dragon is the last beast in ‘The Faerie Queen’ (FQ, B11). It represents death, sin, and impending doom, and it also serves as a religious and political figure too. He represents the dragon St. George (Red Cross Knight) slayed in British history, and the dragon also represents Catholicism in a Protestant society: it is an unwelcomed guest. In this fight, Red Cross Knight descends and is nearly overcome because he still hasn’t put on his “Christian armor” (B11, C28-30). When he’s in the coma-like state, his faith restored and his weapons, which before did nothing, can now defeat the dragon. The coma-like state acted as sort of an atonement to wash away the sin from his journey and thus he won his battle (B11, C30).
In ‘Paradise Lost’, we see the character Satan. Satan represents pride, which is by far the worst of the sins. (PL, B1, 80-110) It caused an angel to stop wanting to serve God in the hopes of becoming Him. Pride is the worst of the sins because it can lead to any of the sins; it is a slippery slope. If one is prideful and arrogant, they can come to expect to have everything and when they don’t get it, it can lead to greed. Feeling jealousy can lead to wrath, and pride can also mean you exhibit sloth and laziness. If you have pride and power, someone else will do the job for you, so sloth can enter the equation when one has nothing to do from too much success. It can also lead to lust and gluttony, which is a perverted love of food and sex.
Satan is the ultimate example of what not to be and serves as a warning that even angels can fall from the grace of God. Satan is symbolic of the ultimate evil. It is the evil that can creep into our minds and wreak havoc as we see in the Garden of Eden. (B9, 455-550) He turns into a snake and corrupts Eve the moment he sees her. He is an interesting artistic choice for a main character in an epic because characters are usually ‘good’ and ‘human’. In this case, Satan is an anti-hero and he serves as an opposition to heaven. He is also an example of what not to be and shows what happens when you turn your back to god.
Sin, Satan’s daughter is an embodiment of all sin (PL, B2, 724-780). She is also one sin in particular. Evil women in literature are often depicted as sexual beings. Sin has a child with her father, Satan, which is the highest form of lust. It’s incestuous, wrong, and forbidden. The child is death itself. There is a lot that can be said about the birth of sin. The birth of sin, from Satan’s head, is an allegory for where sin comes from to begin with. Sinning happens when your mind is corrupt and evil. Only a poisoned mind can even entertain the idea of sin. Sin also has the half and half mix going with half woman and half snake. Snakes, because of Satan, are a symbol of trickery and persuasion. You can see the evil with how each character appears. Their appearances are symbolic of what is going on inside.
Finally, we have Death, who is a shadowy form and darkness visible. His birth too is an allegory. Satan is the sinner, who (from his head) birthed sin (PL, B2, 755-60). A Christian tempted by sin will die. Death is the result of giving in to sin. The purpose of having Death be a character is as shock value, and to represent the difference between Paradise and Paradise lost. In Eden, you live forever with an innocent mind, and a sky that never changes. Without Eden, there is sickness, sin, and death. Satan, Sin, and Death serve as a deadly trio to explain the fall, and they are also employed to explain all the daily struggles and temptations in this world as it was in Milton’s eyes.
In conclusion, many of the creatures serve multiple purposes including shock value, teaching a Christian lesson, juxtaposing the good from the evil, and aiding in the representation of religious or political events that happened during the author’s time. In ‘Beowulf’, the creatures represented different sins, and each was as ugly as the last. They also serve the purpose of showing the difference between the good and the bad. In ‘The Faerie Queen’, the purpose of the creatures is to serve as a lesson to the Christians. Don’t doubt that God will protect you if you have the faith, and don’t go looking for a fight if you’re not ready for it. In Red Cross Knight, we see him sin several times and he is always saved by the damsel, Una. In ‘Paradise Lost’, we see the story in the opposite fashion. The main characters are evil instead of heroic. However, they still serve the same purpose. They serve as a warning to not become those beings because if an angel can fall, you can fall. The artistic purpose of each creature was to show how to be a good Christian.
[WORKS CITED]
Beowulf. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton 2012. 36-108.
Milton, John. Paradise Lost. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton 2012. 1943-2175.
Spenser, Edmund. The Faerie Queen. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt et al. 9th ed. Vol. 1. New York: Norton 2012. 775-984.