Archetypes In Beowulf

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.”

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.

Archetypes are the foundation, walls, and roof to a good story. They build on each other to explain a story in a way the reader can relate to. Beowulf was originally composed in Old English in the 6th century; although there is no known author, the more modern version was translated by Burton Rafel. This story has three main archetypes as such: The Journey, The Task, and The Battle Between Good and Evil.

Lucy Deadman explores the existence of archetypes across all literary text types and how they revisit from our childhood by pressing replay in our lives.

In a multitude of aspects of the novel, Gardner makes departures from the traditional, elevated style of the epic. From the main plot points focusing on internal rather than physical struggles, to the candid and blunt writing style that makes Grendel highly relatable and even pitiable rather than a cold-blooded beast, down to the word choices that show Beowulf’s might and Grendel’s uncertainty and novice. Beowulf and Grendel were written with different purposes in mind: one to tell the tale of a great hero as he progresses through life, and the other to tell the story of a hated beast who loathes the idea of repetition as much as he fears the inevitability of death. Despite being the terror of the Danes, Gardner almost makes the reader wish that Grendel had received a hero’s funeral as

Beowulf is the archetype of the dragon slayer, the hero who faces death to save a threatened community. There are many modern day heroes that would also be a part of this exclusive archetype. For example, Owen Grady from “Jurassic World” also shows characteristics of a hero, very similar to Beowulf.

The Dragon even “helps” Grendel by making him invulnerable to any of humans’ weapons. After their discussion, Grendel thinks about what the Dragon said regarding Grendel scaring humans for no reason. He is sitting at the edge of the forest, listening to the Shaper’s songs, which enrage him with how fictitious they are, when all of a sudden, a twig snaps behind Grendel, and a guard attacks him. Grendel tries to run, but something was in his way, so he fell. The guard tries to stab Grendel, but the sword does nothing. Soon, Grendel was surrounded by multiple guards, who were all throwing weapons at Grendel, trying to hurt him, but to no avail. Grendel picked up the guard who had first attacked him and held him upside down. Then, “as if casually, in plain sight of them all, I bit his head off, crunched through the helmet and skull with my teeth and, holding the jerking, blood-slippery body in two hands, sucked the blood that sprayed like a hot, thick geyser from his neck. It got all over me. Women fainted, men backed toward the hall. I fled with the body to the woods, heart churning- boiling like a flooded ditch- with glee” (Gardner 79). This gruesome scene is Grendel’s point of no return. He decides to become the monster that the humans think he is, thus, he murders the guard in front of everyone. This action is also directly linked to the Dragon and his influence on Grendel. The Dragon was the one who pushed Grendel to become the bad guy to the

Faith Dailey Beowulf Literary Analysis English 2250 March 12, 2024 The Hero and the Outcast The hero and the outcast archetypes are the most used archetypes within Beowulf. There are also mythological characters within Beowulf, who may also have an archetype. In fact, Beowulf seems to be a myth, filled with mythical creatures and heroes. A myth is a traditional story about characters such as deities, heroes, and fantasy creatures. Mythological characters consist of what a myth would usually have, therefore a mythological character could be a deity, creature, or hero.

John Gardner wrote his book with a purpose, to exploit Grendel in every way and to give readers an understanding about the way he has become. The Anglo-Saxon's didn't want their loyal

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.

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

To begin, Beowulf has a complex motivation for fighting the monster Grendel. His first motivation is duty which is part of the Anglo-Saxon code he’s obligated to go and kill Grendel. His people told him so go and do it so he does duty comes first and personal choice comes second. On page 47 lines 244-246 Beowulf says, “My people have said, the wisest, most knowing And best of them, that my duty was to go to the Danes’ Great king.”

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

Beowulf holds fate responsible for his early victories. He believes that God has the power over everything and He determines everyone’s fate. It says in line 455 “Fate goes ever as fate must.” Beowulf was a devout Pagan warrior in which wyrd played an important factor in the Pagan culture. God determined if Beowulf

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.