Grendel Vs Humanity

At first, the humans do offer their support but get scared and attack Grendel when he is only asking for assistance. Over time Grendel sees a recurrence of this due to his multiple attempts to adapt to the human society, however, he is always rejected. Throughout the novel, Grendel, Grendel shows that he is deeply affected by the humans' actions, of which leads him to transform into a terrifying monster. Another reason for Grendel’s transformation into a monster is due to the humans’ ongoing violence towards one another. Throughout the novel, Grendel witnesses the Hrothgar kingdom and other Danish tribes engage in brutal fights filled with senseless violence and destruction.

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

When readers are introduced to Grendel, he is a melodramatic creature who has no one to truly understand him. His emotions contribute to Grendel is caught in situations where he tries to interact but there is a barrier. When he encounters humans they fear him because of how violent he is or seems to be, but they retaliate with the same violence. The irony in this passage is that humans are attacking him because

            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

As shown here: “I struck at them, holding the body as a shield, and two fell bleeding from my nails at the first little swipe. The others backed off. I crushed the body in my hug, then hurled it in their faces, turned, and fled. They didn’t follow.” (Grendel, page 52) Grendel came to make peace with the humans and they attacked him and in his anger he taunted and killed many men. In Beowulf they mention this scene, but in contrast they said that Grendel barged in and attacked them first. Not that he came in to talk to them and they panicked and

Grendel Argumentative Essay In the heart of John Gardner's "Grendel," lies a world where the echoing howls of loneliness blend with the chilling winds, taking readers into a realm where every step of Grendel's path is shrouded in isolation. In this novel, Grendel embarks on a journey of self-discovery, influenced by various factors that lead to his transformation into the villain he is seen as being towards the end of the novel. Among these influences, the role of humanity stands out, showcasing how human actions shape Grendel's descent into darkness: Humankind's relentless hostility towards Grendel who is consistently met with fear and aggression by the humans, and humankind also blindly accepts the Shaper’s narratives that glorify human heroism while maligning Grendel.

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

"Fate will often spare a man if his courage holds"(Gardner 162). He is not afraid, he does what he believes is right without regret or doubt. Grendel raids Herot, reeking havoc on the hall and annihilating its men, bunches at a time. He does this with no fear. Grendel goes for it and knows what he is doing will get a point across to those who taunted and ridiculed him in the first place, when he did no harm. Instead, he was showing appreciation and acceptance of them, but they jumped to other conclusions and tortured Grendel. Most people see heroes like Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk or Batman, battling the bad guys to do good for their community or to live up to their image of being the biggest and strongest to battle their rivals in a fight for power and to take over the world. Or they see these admired heroes help other people battle their problems. Grendel is not like that. Grendel has nobody to protect. He is alone in the world and has only his feelings and actions to rely on and defend. To have the self-power and the self-motivation to stand up for himself, when he never has had anyone else to guide him to do so, is appraisable.

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

Though he does not actually remember how he’d learned it, John Gardner’s Grendel speaks a language which is similar to that of the human characters in the book and is, therefore, able to understand them. During Grendel’s first encounter with humans, he pleads to them for assistance when he is caught and wounded in a trap. The leader of the humans is Hrothgar who eventually becomes king of the Danes. When Grendel’s cry for help is mistaken for a cry of attack, the humans attack Grendel and wound him more painfully than flesh could be wounded. The first intelligent, speaking beings, with some similarity to himself, which Grendel has encountered, have attacked instead of helped him. It is in this moment that Grendel forms his first opinions of existence; the outside world does not seem to embrace good as he does. In a one-way conversation he has with his mother after the incident (Chapter 2), Grendel says, “ the world resists me and I resist it. That’s all there is. The mountains are what I define them as.” In the statement, “ the mountains are what I define them as”, Grendel starts to form a belief of a sort of reality which does not actually exist. Life is meant to be lived as the owner wishes to live it; it is what you

“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

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

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

It may be that at one point Grendel was a human much like Beowulf. "Yet, so as to save his life, he left behind his hand, his arm and shoulder" (957-959). He has the appearance of a man and he has a mother, but the humanness of Grendel has disappeared, and what remains is a creature that as the text says, "the Creator had condemned." Instead of saying that Grendel was just a real bad guy, through these descriptions, he has taken on a supernatural or mystical quality. God was even concerned enough to curse Grendel for his atrocities.

In the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the main character Grendel comes into contact numerous times with a character only identified as a dragon. As readers begin to read deep into the book they still do not see the real Grendel. He is constantly changing, he isn’t formed well as a character in the story. Readers begin to get sense of what kind of character he will be after the encounter with the dragon. The encounter Grendel had with the dragon causes Grendel to have two characteristics, that of the heroic and evil traits.