Grendel Character Analysis

John Gardner uses symbolism, imagery, and character placement to weave astrology into the very fabric of his novel, Grendel. Each of the twelve chapters corresponds to one of the twelve astrological signs. The author purposely did this and hints to it on page nine with the quote, “cold mechanics of the stars” (Gardner 9). The stars are the guide to the world and all the characters in it in this novel.

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.

Gardner’s Grendel is a novel containing twelve chapters which is parallel to the battle between Grendel and Hrothgar, the signs of the zodiac and the months of the year. These astrology references emphasize life’s cynical nature along with the inevitability of life.

One of the first things Grendel learned about humans is their knowledge and way of thinking. Through different difficult situations, Grendel learned that humans are much more dangerous than any wild animal as they are capable strategy makers. We can clearly see this at the second chapter, when he is

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

The tone of the author is bitter. “In a billion billion billion years, everything will have come and gone several times, in various forms. Even I will be gone. A certain man will absurdly kill me. A terrible pity—loss of a remarkable form of life. Conservationists will howl (Gardner 70). This simply shows that Gardner can be cruel but intellectual. The author’s voice is suitable for the novel and gives me a sense of the place it’s set. The setting is calm and tranquil but has his own uniqueness that differs from what a typical novel’s setting. In comparison, the world that I live in is similar in terms of the four seasons that they experience every year but it also differentiates from the setting in Grendel. Gardner’s writing style is blunt and clever. “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 the races was saved, the other cursed. Yet he, the old Shaper, might make it true, by the sweetness of his harp, the cunning trickery. It came to me with a fierce jolt that I wanted it... I wanted it, yes! Even if I must be the outcast, cursed by the rules of this hideous fable (Gardner

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

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.

Although he describes her as a “life-bloated, baffled, long-suffering hag” (11), Grendel realizes that “she would gladly have given her life to end my [his] suffering… with useless, mindless love” (102). He also believes that “she must have some human in her” (11), furthering Grendel’s character as one that derived from humankind at the very least. The novel acts as a witness to the fact that Grendel did have a childhood. Although his childhood brought on some struggles, this is a part of all life, including that of people. He finds his purpose in life when “at an early age [he] is forced to deal with a brutal and meaningless reality” (Butts) and he begins he finds his purpose. Throughout Gardner’s novel, Grendel tries to learn “how best to deal with the world” (Butts). As Grendel grows up, he learns from and is influenced by many different people who act as his teachers and role models. These interactions are Grendel’s closest alternative to the relations that the average human has. Grendel has three unique influences in his life: his mother, the Shaper, and the dragon. Grendel views his mother with disgust and she provides the inspiration and motivation for him to do better with his own life. The Shaper’s influence brings out Grendel’s ability of

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.

Early in the novel, the reader’s perception of Grendel is barbaric. Gardner writes, “ Similarly, in Gardner’s society at the time, the greater population was very narrow minded in refusing to acknowledge black people’s humanity. Grendel has grown up as a monster, and as a result, he has endured constant mockery and abuse: “And so being the twelfth year of my idiotic war. The pain of it! The stupidity!” (Gardner

A main theme in John Gardner’s Grendel, is the constant competition of the ideas of meaning in life versus existentialism. Throughout the novel, Grendel makes a steady spiritual decay to the point of denying any value or significance in life itself. He believes the world is nothing more than “a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears”(16). This progression starts at a young age, and through out the twelve years of Grendel’s life, he grows closer to a total commitment to this theory. Because of the actions of his mother, the dragon, and man in general, Grendel ultimately dies in the misery that has been created by this belief of his life being nothing but programming, machinery, and random

"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

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

Sigmund Freud is a psychologist, famous for his theory of “psychoanalytic personality development”. Whereby, an individual’s subconscious and conscious are divided into three regions; The “ID”, the “ego”, and the “superego”. Generally speaking, a reader is left to interpret a character’s personality traits from the situations depicted in a work, but a major flaw in this method, is that the “ID” is comprised of the most suppressed thoughts and actions in the subconscious mind, making it practically impossible to ever truly understand what the character is fully thinking. This is not the case though in John Gardner's “Grendel”, as the reader is allowed into Grendel’s mind through the dialogue of supporting characters. For the most part, the three divisions of the mind are represented by the same characters throughout the work. As usual, [the main character] Grendel, represents his outward state of appearance to the reader via the “ego”, the Dragon as his