Character Of Grendel And Beowulf

There are two sides to every story. The events may be the same, but the tone in which the story is told shapes the reader’s understanding of the events. This idea is never more evident than through the disparity between Burton Raffel’s translation of Beowulf and John Gardner’s Grendel. Both novels are based on the idea of Beowulf killing Grendel. However, the two different points of view telling the story create vastly different novels. Beowulf highlights the heroic and positive world in which Beowulf lives. Whereas Grendel elucidates on the miserable life that Grendel is circumscribed to. The consistent variance in tone skews the events in two completely different directions. The tone between Beowulf and Grendel differ in

Both of the pieces of literature, Grendel and Beowulf, contain the same story; it is just told from different viewpoints. Beowulf is an epic oratorical poem depicting the heroic Beowulf defeating the hideous creature that haunts the halls of Herot. Grendel, however, allows the reader to be able to experience the story from Grendel’s point of view. Though the books depict the same creature who possesses the same qualities, within Grendel, he is given more human characteristics and this makes the reader feel as though they are reading about a different being.

Beowulf is about a warrior who fights a huge monster to show his loyalty to a king that was not even his. It was written in the Anglo-Saxon time period and this greatly affects the way the story is written. Grendel is written from the monster's point of view and this was written many years later.

Perspective plays one of the most important roles in literature due to the drastic shifts between the meaning of who is the real antagonist, profoundly portrayed in the epic Beowulf and the novel Grendel. The first major piece of English literature, Beowulf, was narrated through the perspective of the poet, experiencing his surroundings by following Beowulf’s adventures in the third person. Beowulf signifies the heroic code as the reader is provided with little background and history on Grendel, as well as a small scale of information for Grendel’s motivation. The modern novel Grendel shifts the point of view to a new rendition of Grendel, which also shifts the focus of the story from the battles to the relationships of characters and their philosophy. The third-person perspective of the epic Beowulf and the first-person perspective of the novel Grendel both serve as a lens through which the reader sees two drastically different interpretations of the same story. In Beowulf, the titular Beowulf is the hero and protagonist while in Grendel, the traditional antagonist, Grendel, is the protagonist and Beowulf is the antagonist.

In Grendel, the story is told from Grendel's point of view. Therefore he is not viewed as a killing machine. In Beowulf however, it is the exact opposite. Grendel is seen as a monster who is terrorizing Hrothgar's people. The way Grendel is portrayed in Grendel is different from the way he is portrayed in Beowulf regarding his initiative and purpose. Grendel is portrayed the same in both stories when it comes to his actions and his nature.

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.

“Beowulf” and Grendel are two tales similar in many ways, yet different from each other. These stories are like a coin; you cannot have one side without the other. Just as the sides of a coin share the same coin, these stories share a similar plot, a setting, and tell of the same events. The sides of a coin also have differences as do “Beowulf” and Grendel. In the case of these two tales this difference is in their respective philosophical views.

The poem does not give this insight of what happens before, or from Grendel's point of view. Seeing this scene in the movie gives the audience a better understanding of why Grendel and also his mother attack the Danes. Later in the movie Beowulf says, "He's no more human than you and I", which is true. If the Danes didn’t kill Grendel's father, the outcome of the story could have possibly been changed because Grendel would have had a different life and not seek revenge on the Danes, specifically the one who Grendel had seen kill his father. In the poem Grendel fights Beowulf, rather than avoiding Beowulf most of the time in the movie. In the poem, Grendel is seen as an evil monster that kills and eats the Hrothgar warriors and cannot be penetrated by weapons, rather than just human, or troll, like the movie. When the battle with Grendel occurs in the poem, it is said that Beowulf had cut off his arm to defeat him. While in the movie, Grendel finds himself stuck hanging, and must cut off his own arm to escape from Beowulf and his men. Both the movie and poem result in the death of Grendel, eventually leading to the revenge of his mother.

Children typically bear some physical resemblance to at least one of their parents. The child may have the same skin color, facial expressions or height as his or her parent. Could this be the same for behavioral traits? Are behavioral traits likewise inherited? Or, are they learned? In other words, do behavioral traits come from nature (inherited) or from nurture (learned)? This question can be applied to “Grendel,” a murderous monster a in the epic poem of “Beowulf,” Was Grendel born a monster? Or, was he raised to be a monster? Or, are his monstrous behaviors a result of both nature and nurture? Descriptions of Grendel from the “Beowulf” poem give evidence that his monstrous behavior was a result of both nature and nurture; a

Both the epic poem Beowulf and the novel Grendel depict the same storyline, but from different point of views. Grendel’s personality tends to be much more evil than he himself depicts in the novel. Since Grendel is the narrator of the novel, the audience only gets to know what the story is like from his point of view, which he stretches the truth on numerous occasions. But, in Beowulf, the poem has a narrator and is in the third person omniscient, this means the audience knows how all the characters and feeling, thinking, or saying. Also, the theme nature vs. nurture appears a lot in Grendel which means his viewpoints on certain things are either

Although both books are written about similar topics, it is expression that separates the two. In the novel “Beowulf” by Seamus Heaney, and in the novel “Grendel” by John Gardner, both books explore what it means to recreate ancient english stories. By reading Beowulf or Grendel, one can distinguish the literary difference in each book when it comes to style of writing, format, and common elements in each book, therefore causing the reader to compare the overall purpose of each book.

Many works are so inspiring, they are retold time and time again, sometimes in fresh, unheard ways. The ancient poem, known as “Beowulf,” is a complex epic detailing the arrival of the title character, Beowulf, and his battles with three otherworldly monsters. Grendel, a novel written centuries later by John Gardner, takes that story and turns it on its head. Grendel, a character filled with introspective thoughts, is one of the three monsters that Beowulf appears to fight. While telling the same story, the two texts have many differences, but often manage to get the same emotion evoked from the audience.

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

Heaney gives Grendel a personality while still following the plot lines of the original epic. Heaney even gives Hrothgar, the King of Danes, character flaws. In truth, Bewoulf is awfully egotistical and focuses on himself most of the time. One of the main reasons why he defeats Grendel is for his reputation. Beowulf is also a hero in some ways, and is loyal to his kings and nobles. Grendel is a monstrosity and a killer, but has fair traits and only wants to be accepted.

Many people have read or heard of the epic poem of Beowulf, which spins a tale of Grendel, the monster, attacking the admirable Danes and their king, Hrothgar. Some may not be as aware of a book titled Grendel written by John Gardner in 1971. Gardner’s book tells a completely different account of the more familiar tale of Beowulf, from the perspective of Grendel, the monster. The narrator from Grendel portrays a more plausible, powerful story than the excerpt from Beowulf by drawing the reader in with a more emotional viewpoint from the character Grendel, making him more relatable by giving him humanlike qualities, and clarifying why certain events took place in Beowulf.