Evil Grendel Character Traits

The novel Grendel, by John Gardner, gives the reader an inside look on the “monster… demon… [and] fiend” (Beowulf, 99) who, in Beowulf (translated by Burton Raffel), seems only capable of destruction, sneaking around in the night and killing soldiers off by the dozen. Grendel is a non-human entity who possesses human characteristics; no one truly knows who or what he is. He is monstrously huge, absurdly strong, and insatiable (he has been murdering for approximately twelve years). He is a “[monster] born of Cain, [a] murderous [creature]” (Beowulf, 105-106). He lives with his mother in a swampy marsh that is secluded by a “pool of firesnakes” who guard “the sunken door” to the strange world of humans (Grendel, 16). Beowulf does not provide any information of where he came from or any history about him, except that he is a pre-cursed, wicked being with no conscience. This seems like a biased assumption because the story

Another part of the text which is evidence to Grendel not being the monster he is made out to be, is the relationship dynamic between Grendel and his mother, and also his mother’s actions after his death. The actions of Grendel’s mother are not those of a monster, but those of any normal woman who has children. After her son was killed (murdered and then part of his body was taken as a trophy), she just wanted to seek revenge. “But now his mother/ had sailed forth on a savage journey,/grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge.” (1276-1278). Grendel’s mother displayed the emotions of complete sadness and despair over her son; it seems more of a human response rather than that belonging to a monster. Considering that the bond of a mother and son is supposed to be the strongest bond of all, her actions after his death are in a way justified. It is easy to see that the character of Grendel is much more than just a monster through his mother’s subsequent actions of taking down Grendel’s arm from hanging in Heorot, and feuding (in her own way she was trying to feud, to obey the code as it was in this time. When she went to Heorot to seek her revenge, she did not

The inhumanity of humanity is an intriguing paradox explored by John Gardner in his 1971 work, Grendel. Little is definitively known about the physique of the novel’s eponym, Grendel, but he is portrayed as decidedly inhuman; Grendel dwells on the skirts of humanity, in both a literal and figurative sense. While not human himself, Grendel experiences an incessant urge to explore humanity and the communities that compose it, including the Spear-Danes tribe. Through Grendel’s observations of human culture, he develops an understanding of his own monstrous stereotype. In Chapter 6, Grendel finally succumbs to the expectations put forth by human society, which closely parallels the approach taken by Unferth, a celebrated Danish warrior.

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

Like many whom suffer the same disorder, Grendel completely changed his mind, extending from one topic to the exact opposite. He goes against his own ideas as if he were two totally opposing characters. He also always thought the dragon was near. Grendel allowed the ways and beliefs of the dragon to get in his head. He would claim he could “smell the dragon’s scent” whenever something sinister occurred. All of these symptoms, in addition to the isolation from Hrothgar’s people lead to the overall cause in withdrawal from society. Grendel’s emotional disturbances caused him to react completely unreasonable and rather foolish many times within his life.

individual who just wants to be a part of something. His desire to fit in causes

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

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

In this story, Grendel is cursed from the beginning and he has no chance of being a useful contributing member of a society that does not accept him, so in turning away from god, he became a

"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

In a world of chaos, he who lives, lives by his own laws and values. Who is to say that the death of millions is any worse or better, for that matter, than injuring a cockroach. And in the case of an existing power in the form of God, who is presumed to be all which is good, presiding and ruling an organized universe, why then does evil exist? The prosaic response of “without evil, there is no good” no longer holds any validity in this argument as the admitted goal of good is to reach an existence without evil. So even if a God does exist, I think it is fair, at this point, to say that he is the embodiment of both good and evil. And if humoring those who would answer the previous question with the response that there can be no good

How can Grendel, a Literature based on a sixth-century of Scandinavia poem, Beowulf, have any similarity to the more modern literature, The Poisonwood Bible? In perspective, both book have very different plots. Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, follows a family on a missionary, who moves from the U.S. to an isolated village of Kilanga in the Belgian Congo in 1959. Grendel is a retelling of the Beowulf through the eyes of Grendel, the main antagonist of the story. Grendel and The Poisonwood Bible takes us on a journey where we can see that all the themes of injustice is relevant in the telling of each story.

(Pg 20) Even as a child full grown animals were scared of him and felt that he was a danger to their children. Grendel takes the fear and violence done to him as a sign to continue to isolate himself even further from all living

“That shadow of death hunted in the darkness, stalked Hrothgar 's warriors, old and young, lying in waiting, hidden in mist, invisibly following them from the edge of the marsh, always there, unseen” (Beowulf 2: Line 74). Grendel was smart and a slithery serpent. He did not wish

“The state is an organization of violence, a monopoly in what it is pleased to call legitimate violence (Gardner, 119)." Grendel is monster that first appears in the epic poem Beowulf. Gardner later takes the character on for his own adaption. In Grendel the monster Grendel struggles with humans and his own inner demons throughout the whole book. Throughout history, people have been forced to use violence as a solution; But even in those instances, there was a negative force that required the use of violence. Humans have adapted their instincts to access a situation and do what they think is right. However we are flawed so we don’t always make the right decisions. Gardner’s views on man were correct. In the history of man; there has