n goes as far as mocking the warriors when he lets them openly attack him while he thinks to himself: "I saw their weapons come flying straight at me, saw them touch my fur and drop... I laughed" (78). Concurrent with Grendel's confidence in action is Heathcliff. When arriving back from his three-year exile he goes about threatening and attacking those he sees as his rivals. He speaks about Edgar to Catherine: "I'll crush he ribs in like a rotten hazelnut, before I cross the threshold!" (106). Later on he gets into a bout with Hindley, his focus of revenge and, "kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flags" (162). In the case of the Byronic hero perhaps confidence is a negative instead of a positive attribution.
             The next part of the Byronic hero is definitely in contrast to the usual image of a hero. Being extremely conscious of self seems to be an attribute of someone weak and lost in their life, but in the Byronic hero context it is a definite form of self-analysis, perhaps a way of learning about the hero's inner demons. When considering life, Grendel becomes conditioned to the existential point of view. When observing himself he concludes: "I saw myself... a meaningless smudge" (81). And when identifying the world around him: "I seemed to see the whole universe, even the sun and sky, leaping forward, then sinking away again, decomposing" (19). This lack of anything optimistic seems to define Grendel's life and leads to his eventual doom. Heathcliff's woes are much different from those of Grendel's. He becomes downhearted when he comes to the realization that he is not worthy of his dearest loved one, Catherine. He openly tells her that she doesn't need to acknowledge him when he tells her: "'You needn't have touched me!'" (48). Catherine blindly accepts the fact that she canno...