Choose one of the monsters in Beowulf (Grendel, Grendel mother, or the dragon). What symbolic value does this creature seem to have? How is he/she connected to nature or to the past, and how do his/her values differ from those of the warrior society? Where do you see similarities and differences (to/from the warriors) in his/her actions or practices, and why are these differences (or similarities) meaningful? What do these monsters potentially tell us about the warrior society’s eventual doom?