Beowulf: Psychologically Complex

Grendel discovers and begins to gain the understanding/knowledge of different concepts such as power, etc. In addition, he observes how humans interact with one another throughout the twelve years of war; Yet, his attempt to communicate with humans gives him the title horrific monster. This leads to his loneliness and isolation from everyone. Furthermore, Grendel is left without any companion. Grendel can be best described as a monster who has human qualities but can be both rational and irrational. In Chapter 1, Grendel has an outburst because of the ram that appears.. “I stamp. I hammer the ground with my fists. I hurl and skull-size stone at him. He will not budge. I shake my two hairy fists at the sky and let out a howl so unspeakable that the water at my feet turns sudden ice and even I myself am I left uneasy.” This demonstrates how Grendel is hostile and belligerent. His emotions get the best of him and blinds his consciousness and awareness of how harmful he can be towards

people for only the reason of that they were having a good time, and he wasn’t. He is

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

Beowulf is a story of great courage and triumph over adversity. But over the whole story there is a hanging sense of dread and impending death. This is shown by the sense of impending death, the strong sense of doom, and the nature of luck throughout the story. These play a mojo role in shaping how the story

This leaves Beowulf as the monster, when we believe him to be the hero. For the rest of the poem this leaves us an opening to judge him on character. Because of this fault, one can believe that he is a faulty king and ruler, even though he does what a king is suppose to do; he gives gifts to his Geats.

In the novel, Grendel, the images of isolation and darkness enhanced the character development of Grendel as he encountered loneliness, developed hatred, and became evil. Isolation and darkness were two important images used throughout the novel. In the beginning, baby Grendel was an innocent being. Initially, he did not kill humans for fun, and he only killed animals for food. With each image of isolation and darkness being portrayed, Grendel began to transform into a lonely, depressed, hateful, and ultimately evil character. The primary burden that Grendel had to endure was that he had nobody to develop a relationship with and nobody to love him in return. Therefore, he became consumed with his own loneliness, depression, and

Beowulf: A New Telling is a book for people that need reassurance that light will overcome darkness and that we need to accept that we have some darkness inside of us, then our weaknesses can become our strengths. Beowulf has to face many faces of evil, including Grendel, the cruel slimy creature who murders Beowulf’s friends and She, the wife of Cain and malicious monster that lives at the bottom of a pool of blood. He becomes king of Geats and is famous all throughout the land.

Throughout Grendel it shows how nature cannot respond to him and how language makes him isolated. Grendel speaks to the sky and he gets not response ever; this shows how lonely and desperate he is for someone to talk to (p.1). Grendal often compares his language to some kind of barrier(p.6). When he talks about his childhood and imaginary friends you can see that he has always been alone (p.6). Grendel’s recurring mention of the shapes hint that his only relative is his mom, and as he grew older he became

He feels he is destined to be cursed and shunned by humanity. As the chapter goes on, Grendel becomes to be angered at the humans and at God. “It was a cold-blooded lie that a god had lovingly made the world and set out the sun and moon as lights to land-dwellers, that brothers had fought, that one of them was saved, the other cursed” (pg 55). This “presence” was beginning to consume Grendel. Thoughts of confusion and rage were going back and forth in his head.

In the first chapter Grendel seems so rude and grumpy but he's more respectful than his mother. His characteristic in the first chapter so far is more animal like, however he does have some human characteristics by respecting what's around him unlike his mother. In the first chapter he states that “i fool myself with thoughts that i'm more noble” (Gardner 6). They also describe him as a pointless ridiculous monster crouched in a shadow. He stinks as dead men because he murders children and cows . He also states “i am neither proud nor ashamed , understand” (Gardner 6). He's not proud of what he does but he has to live the way his mother has adjusted it (tradition). Grendel is a sensitive monster in this book which he does care about

As opposed to the primitive monster in Beowulf, there is not much that separates Grendel from humans. Grendel is intelligent, capable of deep rational thoughts, “I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of causal, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears” (Gardner 21). This is from his younger years when he was going through a very traumatic experience that resulted with him having philosophical thoughts. He is without a doubt intelligent, to the extent that those philosophical thoughts adapted quickly. Grendel goes from believing that existence was pointless, to believing that he alone existed and created the universe. He is also temperamental, as he often cries and goes through outbursts of emotions. For instance, when he first hears the shaper’s words and when he is overcome with the beauty of Wealtheow. If not for his hideous appearance and eating of humans, he could be seen as a human. Grendel’s violence and brutality is not all that special, as it is often stressed how violent humans are. Through this portrayal of Grendel, it becomes obvious that he was misunderstood. His first encounter with humans is the perfect example. When he was trapped in between trees, the humans found him and because they were scared by the sounds he made. They tried to kill him, even though he was only asking for help, “The king snatched an ax from the man beside him and, without warning, he hurled it at me” (Gardner 27). This Grendel is a monster but not like the one in Beowulf, he is a lonely outcast that did not want to be alone, “Why can’t I have someone to talk to?” (Gardner

Epic Motivations vs. Epic Hero (Analysis of Beowulf's Motivations) Motivation has a funny way of pushing people beyond their limits, allowing them to succeed even more than they previously thought possible. Everyone's motivations are different; some people are motivated by other individuals while others are motivated by goals. A common appearance of motivations is seen in the epic poem Beowulf as well. This ancient epic piece of history was originally told orally for numerous years, captivating audiences long ago as it still does today.

The project is was to use the Beowulf story for inspiration on a artistic project that would give depth or modernise the classic tale. Originally we planned on filming a modern take on the scene where Beowulf confronts and kills Grendel's Mother. We thought this was one of the easier projects to do, because it simply had to be a minute long film with a more modern perspective on the scene. I was to be in charge of the story board and the script while Alyssa did the paper. Unfortunately I was dissatisfied with multiple iterations of the script I eventually abandon it for our back up idea of the newspaper. This was your backup because Alyssa has experience with writing newspapers and neither one of us is artistic enough to do the any of the

First, in both pieces of literature, each main character experiences an external conflict in order to complete their quest and return home. The external conflict in the poems involve a struggle with man, nature, or both. In Beowulf, the external conflict is man versus man. Beowulf fights Brecca, Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the Dragon. As he progresses on, Beowulf’s opponents become less and less human, meaning that the risk of death is greater. He expresses this emotion when he addresses his men before the final battle with the Dragon. “I would rather not use a weapon if I knew another way to grapple with the dragon and make good my boast as I did Grendel in days gone by. But I shall be meeting