Analysis Of ' Grendel ' And The Novel ' The Land Of Stories '

In the Epic Poems Beowulf, by an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, and Grendel written by John Gardner, Grendel, regardless of what he does, has been seen as unsafe to man. Grendel, perceived as treacherous, is just misunderstood and an outcast to society. The back story of Grendel is crucial to the reader’s understanding of Grendel becoming a monster. Grendel’s life experiences of his environment, men and meeting a dragon contribute to the drastic change.

Is Grendel Evil or Victim to Circumstance? : How humanity has a tendency to put labels on people they don’t really understand.

He thinks that humans are easy to understand and yet also very difficult. According to him, humans have a good insight and great observation skills, but they are violent creatures that use weapons instead of words to get what they want. They are even violent amongst themselves, making Grendel wonder what is actually wrong with them. But they are also unwearyingly hardworking. “Meanwhile, up in the shattered hall, the builders are hammering, replacing the door for the fiftieth or sixtieth time, industrious and witless as worker ants – except that they make small, foolish changes, adding a few more iron pegs, more iron bands, with tireless dogmatism.” (7) This fragment of the novel shows that humans do not get tired easily and that they have sheer will on matters concerning their safety and

However, in John Gardner's book, we are given knowledge about Grendel, exposed to his existentialism, and provided many different examples of theories that the Anglo-Saxon's would violently shriek upon hearing. Yet he still portrays him as a monster? One philosophy we are exposed to in Grendel is Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". In this philosophic viewpoint, a man is chained to the ground all of his life facing nothing but a cave wall. The only things he will ever see are the shadows of the objects people walk by the fire with. If a vase were to be held, how would he know what it was besides knowing what the shadow looked like? If he were let out into the real world he wouldn't recognize anything because he would be ignorant to everything but shadows. In Gardner's book, Grendel himself was kept in a cave representing ignorance for most of his childhood. When he finally came out he did nothing but terrorize and eat the people. Is ignorance really such a bad thing under certain circumstances?

In the novel, Grendel by John Gardener, Grendel is a human-like creature capable of rational thought as well as feeling emotions. Early on in the story Gardener depicts Grendel as being very observant, critical and somewhat spiteful of the world around him. He describes himself as a murderous monster who smells of death and crouches in the shadows. Grendel watches the humans from the shadows of the trees and at first it seems as though they are the real monsters, slaughtering and pillaging all for the sake of their leaders and for power. This light that the humans are put in gives Grendel a certain charisma about him, making him seem like the one to side with in this novel. Later in the story, however, things change. Grendel seeks out the

            There is a stage in everyone’s life where they feel they are not accepted by someone or something. Whether it is because of one’s age, appearance, or emotional and mental stability, a sense of disproval and isolation appears to be glaring through the eyes of society. Throughout Grendel’s life, he is shunned from humanity for he was viewed as something of destruction and harm. However, not one person ever took the time out to see Grendel’s true personality or really discover what he was all about. When facing the realities of the cruel world, Grendel found himself severely struggling with some psychological deficiencies. After performing multiple psychoanalysis tests on Grendel’s behavior, his

The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic, chronicling the distinguished deeds of the great Geatish warrior, Beowulf, who travels across the seas to rid the Danes of the evil monster Grendel, who has been inflicting destruction and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land fiendish monsters and stopping the scourge of evil, while the monster, Grendel, is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves death for its evil actions. However, many have disagreed with such a simplistic and biased representation of Grendel and his role in the epic poem. John Gardner in his book, Grendel, sets out to change the reader’s perception of Grendel and his role in Beowulf by narrating the story through Grendel’s point of view. John Gardner transforms Grendel, once perceived as an evil fiend in Beowulf, into a lonely but intelligent outcast who is actually quite similar to humans, due to his intelligence capacity for rational thought and his real, and at times irrational emotions. Gardner portrays Grendel as a hurt individual and as a victim of oppression, ostracized from civilization. Although the two works revolve around the same basic plot,, the themes and characters in Beowulf and Grendel are often different and sometimes contradictory.

Grendel exhibits human feelings and characteristics in many ways. Although Grendel is a monster “forced into isolation by his bestial appearance and limited imagination” (Butts) he yearns to be a part of society; he craves

“[Grendel’s] mother had sallied forth on a savage journey,/ grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge” (Beowulf, 1276-1278). Her desire to avenge her son is carried out, but it ultimately leads to her death. Beowulf’s desire to garner fame and respect overpowers all of the raw emotion and anger felt by Grendel’s mother. She serves the purpose of showing the purest form of revenge, and how its blindness can lead to one’s demise.

All because he is a monster. Being the monster that he was, he never had it easy. The story states, “‘Surround him!" the king yelled, "Save the horses!"—and suddenly I knew I was dealing with no dull mechanical bull but with thinking creatures, pattern makers, the most dangerous things I'd ever met. I shrieked at them, trying to scare them off, but they merely ducked behind bushes and took long sticks from the saddles of their horses, bows and javelins. "You're all crazy," I bellowed, "you're all insane!’” Here, Grendel is almost about to be killed because of his appearance. The king only thinks of him as a threat because he looks like a monster. Others may say that Grendel had it coming. However, the author’s intentions are clear that he wants the reader to sympathize with Grendel not having a fair chance in life because of how he

In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Grendel is nothing but an evil fiend that needs to be slain, “a fiend out of hell, began to work his evil in the world” (Heaney 9). Grendel is portrayed as an evil monster that has only been wreaking havoc and terrorizing a kingdom for an extended amount of time because it thrives on the pain of others. Seamus states, “Malignant by nature, he never showed remorse” (Heaney 10). Grendel is made out to appear as little more than a monster, “insensible to pain and human sorrow” (Heaney 11). He is portrayed to have little to no human qualities, to be the furthest thing from

Like a puppy nipping, playfully growling preparing to battle with wolves." [Page 16] In his early years, Grendel shares the naivete of all things youthful, unchained by the perceptions and limitations the mature mind places on reality in its attempt to instill order to a disorganized world. He has, at this point in his life, no rational concept of reality as a whole, he sees it in vague shadow-shapes and imaginary cohorts. In this condition he finds a certain playful joy. While it is an admittedly childish state of mind, he is quite happy at play, as are most children. When the change and growth comes, it brings him down from the ignorant bliss he feels in his immaturity.

First, Grendel is an angry demon who has been attacking Hrothgar’s Kingdom and hurting the villagers for twelve years. Some people refer Grendel as, “Grim demon”. Beowulf is informed about Grendel destroying the kingdom and hurting innocent people. One night Grendel had struck Beowulf’s men with his brutal strength. After Grendel slaughtered all the men, Beowulf walked up to Grendel tried to grab, but Beowulf grabbed Grendel’s arm and held onto him with a firm grip. Grendel was trying his best to escape Beowulf because of his brute strength. For example, “you could hear Grendel’s claws cracking.” Beowulf through Grendel’s urge to rip Grendel’s whole arm and part of his chest off. Beowulf watched as Grendel died slowly from the amount of blood loss.

Grendel, is thus seen as the descendant of an individual who epitomizes resentment and malice in Beowulf. The author states Grendel lives in exile and is seen as “mankind’s enemy”(Raffel, 22). Grendel is the representation of all that is evil and he is declared to be the “shepherd of evil and the “guardian of crime”(Raffel, 33) by the Danes in Beowulf. The author describes Grendel to be an evil, cruel, apathetic creature who’s pleasure lies in attacking and devouring Hrothgar’s men. The author describes Grendel’s malice by painting a gruesome picture of Grendel’s countless attacks on the mead hall in which he exhibits Grendel as a heartless, greedy, and violent being who mercilessly murders the men at the mead hall by tearing them apart, cutting their body into bits and drinking the blood from their veins. The author describes Grendel’s greed by stating Grendel’s thoughts were as “quick as his greed or his claws”(Raffel, 21). He describes Grendel’s as having eyes that “gleamed in the darkness and burned with a gruesome light”, swift hard claws and great sharp teeth which paints a picture of Grendel’s frightening appearance in the reader’s mind. In contrast to the traditional story of Beowulf, Grendel in John Gardner’s novel, Grendel is not depicted as a monster but as an intelligent creature capable of human thought, feelings and speech. John Gardner portrays Grendel as an outcast

Similarly, Grendel in Beowulf was also a creature that was horrific in nature – full of destruction. The contempt towards festivities and joyous music may have derived from the isolation Grendel experiences. After all, he was described as one who is part of “Cain’s clan, whom the creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts” (9). There was the same reaction of bitterness present in Grendel as in Frankenstein’s creature: both were castaways which led them to be emotionally-driven in anger. Because of his resentment, “the God-cursed brute was creating havoc: greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men from their resting places and rushed to his lair…blundering back with the butchered corpses” (11). Grendel is nothing more than a misunderstood creature. Having hurt feelings, he too resembles a human being; any person who faces seclusion from his or her friends, family, or society as a whole would be full of frustration, sorrow, anger, and loneliness. This negative response towards emptiness brings out the inner monster in us.