This is a question about how abstract structures are made into narratives. every culture makes distinctions between what is inside the social order and what is outside, between the human and the non-human (a category which can include animals, plants, natural processes, monsters and the miraculous). cultures organize themselves to contain or exclude these “outside” things; social organization also works to control certain violent human tendencies inside the culture (anger, lust, fear, greed, how does the social world depicted in beowulf do this? that is, what does it exclude, and why? what is its attitude towards the “outside” of culture? how does it control the forces that threaten social stability within the hall?