Analysis Of John Gardner 's ' The And The Brave Universe '

Even as a villain, Grendel is satisfied with having a purpose. Grendel eavesdrops on a reading by the Shaper, a poet who mastered both language

“To make Michael Myers frightening, I had him walk like a man, not a monster.” In Grendel, the well-known monster is viewed as a cruel and terrifying creature that is filled with hatred. This was partially something that the Grendel brought upon himself. Throughout this novel, the Grendel’s actions and appearance affects every single thing that happens including how humans view him. John Gardner’s Grendel entranced me with its extraordinary style and outlandish story.

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

62). At the time Grendel didn’t really think that his advice was great but he sat there and still lessoned. Grendel had changed a bit by starting to think more positive. For instance, he says "something will come of all this." (Gardner Chapter 5, pg. 73). See in the past he used to not care about thing and think negative about everything till this moment when he was taking to the dragon. He would usually think of killing humans for fun all because he like to do such things. In the book Grendel said “So much for meaning as quality of life! I would kill her and teach them reality." (Gardner Chapter 7, pg. 110). This was a moment in the book where he wanted to show them that killing is what he did for fun so at this point he was in his killing stage yet something happened. As we keep on reading Grendel then says “I could finish them off in a single night, yet I hold back” (Gardner capture 7). Yet he holds back this is the moment he starts to change even more but this time he changes his actions for such valance. Grendel is starting to change his whole way of thinking. He come to a point where he says "Nihilo ex nihilo," (Gardner Chapter 10, pg. 150).

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.

In contrast to the Danes of “Beowulf”, Grendel searched for his very reason of existence by asking the questions “Why?” and “How?” for answers. Grendel started off in the book struggling with finding meaning in his life while watching the people clearly doing things that gave their lives meaning. He became upset as he saw that he couldn’t deter their spirits no matter what he did and started to feel jealous of their self-found purpose. He realized that through various ways the people attained meaning. In response to his confusion over their self-discovered purpose, Grendel started listening to the Shaper’s words when he spoke to the people shaping their very beliefs which confused Grendel even more on the meaning of life. After listening to the Shaper for a while, readers can see Grendel in a state of contradiction. He started off killing people as a simple, bestial monstrosity but in the end he is shown as quite intelligent and capable of choosing whether to kill or not. Soon, Grendel started seeking answers to his questions from a dragon. The dragon’s very philosophy on life was that there is no meaning of life which started to influence Grendel. Upon Grendel’s persistent questions of “Why?”, the dragon told him “You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme…You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves

John Gardner’s Grendel is the retelling of the heroic epic poem Beowulf; however, the viewpoint has shifted. Grendel is told from the viewpoint of one of Beowulf’s antagonists and the titular character of Gardner’s work—Grendel. In Grendel, Gardner humanizes Grendel by emphasizing parallels between Grendel’s life and human life. Through Gardner’s reflection of human feelings, human development, and human flaws in Grendel, this seemingly antagonistic, monstrous character becomes understood and made “human.”

When men come upon Grendel in the forest, they are bewildered as to what he could be. Their communication with one another helps to develop a brief understanding as to what he is,

In John Gardner’s Grendel, his theme can be interpreted in several manners. I see it as the author is trying to have the reader sympathize with Grendel. Others may think that Gardner is trying to make Grendel seem more monstrous; more evil. The author’s intentions are portrayed by explaining Grendel’s experiences prior to facing off Beowulf.

Grendel is an unreliable narrator in John Gardner’s book Grendel, which describes his life journey to find truth about humanity and himself. Grendel does not display the qualities of an impartial, authoritative, and unbiased narrator in the story, but instead gives the reader cause for suspicion in his narration of events. Firstly, Grendel is inherently biased as a narrator because it comes from the first person point of view. Grendel has a bias to favor himself more positively in the events that transpire over the course of the novel. He displays personal interest and is directly involved in the conflicts that arise. Moreover, Grendel antagonizes and tortures the humans over the course of twelve long years and can lessen his guilt by being deceptive to the reader. He diverts blame for

Life itself, devoid of any actions or reactions, contains no meaning. Through life and struggles one defines his worth and identity. Identity and essence develop through perseverance in the face of adversity, decisions at crossroads and service to self and others. Within the novel, Grendel by John Gardner the characters struggle with the worth of their own life. The monster, Grendel, denies the existence of a vocation as to not collapse his worldview. Grendel, therefore, takes action to remove the meaning from the lives of certain important characters. Grendel cannot remove the meaning from the life of the Shaper due to a complete lack of ability and a lack of personal willingness to destroy the identity of such a powerful man. The Shaper’s

"The mountains are what I define them as.... What I see I inspire with usefulness... and all that I do not see is useless, a void." [28-29] Grendel then sees that the world is how he views it, and his senses make up everything: reality is dynamic. This important conclusion leads him to begin to look around him and form thoughts and opinions on all that he sees, as well as placing him at the first step down the road of the cynical death he suffers. His first impressions

Though Gardner presents countless philosophies in his novel, Grendel, the two most distinguished are nihilism and existentialism. In Chapter 5, Grendel, the story's monstrous antagonist, stumbles into the cunctipotent Dragon's lair and is presented with a difficult realities. The Dragon, the total nihilist, claims there to be no meaning, no destiny, yet he contradicts himself by stating Grendel's role as an important catalyst to the human's progress. But the Dragon soon defends his claim by saying he experiences all times and that "knowledge is not caused"(63) nor is it evidence of a godly entity. Even with this argument, Grendel, being the stubborn monster he is, still tries to cling onto his own beliefs of existentialism and questions "why?"(72), though he later on embraces the phrase "nihil ex nihilo" (150), life itself is meaningless, the ultimate nihilistic phrase. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

This way of thinking leads Grendel to be the assassin we know him as today.