Grendel's Journey

John Gardner’s Grendel is the retelling of the heroic epic poem Beowulf; however, the viewpoint has shifted. Grendel is told from the viewpoint of one of Beowulf’s antagonists and the titular character of Gardner’s work—Grendel. In Grendel, Gardner humanizes Grendel by emphasizing parallels between Grendel’s life and human life. Through Gardner’s reflection of human feelings, human development, and human flaws in Grendel, this seemingly antagonistic, monstrous character becomes understood and made “human.”

This passage helps to develop the character of Grendel at the beginning of the novel to show his mental state at the beginning of the book as well as his character as a whole. This quote is used to show that Grendel is alone and he recognizes his only true companion is his shadow because it can never leave him. This allows the reader to get a grasp of how Grendel is as a character and shows his mental thought processes to lead him to the thoughts he does have. This passage contributes to the theme of finding one’s purpose in the world by showing that Grendel has no purpose in the world at the moment and he hasn’t found anything to keep him grounded therefore he is alone and lost.

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive...." Joseph Campbell made this comment on the search for meaning common to every man's life. His statement implies that what we seem bent on finding is that higher spark for which we would all be willing to live or die; we look for some key equation through which we might tie all of the experiences of our life and feel the satisfaction of action toward a goal, rather than the emptiness which sometimes consumes the activities of our existence. He states, however, that we will never find some great

Grendel’s lives under the hall of Herot. The Danes are celebrating with loud music, alcohol, and dancing. Grendel became deranged and took matter into his own hands or his claws. While the men were passed out from being drunk, he snuck into Herot and ate the men one by one. In Grendel’s perception, he is doing the right

He is overcome by the Sharper’s song and approaches them with the body trying to show a good gesture. However when he approaches them, he describes it as a sudden attack. He mentions that his approach with the dead body would provoke them by saying that there are other interpretations, but his version is the truth. Grendel says, “ I staggered out into the open and up toward the hall with my burden, groaning out, ‘Mercy! Peace!’ The harper broke off, the people screamed. (They have their own versions, but this is the truth)” (51-52). His opinionated and partial version of the truth is another cause for concern, to the reader, of Grendel’s reliability as a narrator. Furthermore, Grendel interjects his opinions about the meaning of life, humans, and nature throughout the story. This is clear evidence from Gardner that Grendel’s reliability, as a narrator, is questionable. Grendel’s use of stream of consciousness in his narration introduces additional flaws, which further degrades the reader’s trust in the

“An evil person is like a dirty window, they never let the light shine through.” Stated by William Makepeace Thackeray, this idea of “never letting the light shine through” aptly portrays Grendel’s evil and monstrous figure even though Grendel himself is not a person. Living in a world of loneliness, Grendel searches for the meaning of his own life, attempting to discover the “good” aspects that life brings instead of focusing on the evil individual he was predestined to be. Grendel manages to discover and gain knowledge about life’s various “good” qualities from his enemies, the humans. Although Grendel is exposed to these qualities by the humans, he never changes his approach to life, continuing to behave evilly like

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 characterized as a lonely creature who is trying to figure out the meaning of life around him. Grendel is an unhappy soul because he feels useless in society and doesn’t want to accept his given role. Throughout the novel Grendel feels as if he has no friends and nobody else accepts him but his mother. Humans have always been a problem in Grendel’s life and they affect how he lives life each day. Grendel is not an evil creature, he is just unhappy because of the way he is treated. We should sympathize for Grendel because he is suffering on Earth and he does not know what to do about it. The author shows that Grendel is in a place where he needs love and does not get punished because he uses his emotion to escape from his punishment.

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.

The towns people painted a picture of Grendel being a horrible horrific beast when he was just trying to be accepted. Grendel is unhappy in many ways. He wants to be accepted by man but never knew why he was always shunned out of there society. Grendel in the beginning of the book states “And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war. The pain of it! The stupidity!” (5). Grendel is hinting to the reader that the fear of the citizens had been a continuous problem in his life and have had a large emotional impact on him as a person. When Grendel shows up the first time in the meat hall he yells “Mercy! Peace!” however no one even gave him a chance when he walked in holding a dead body using it for protection against the drunken men swinging axes and swords at him. They never gave him a chance to explain his reasoning on

            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

Our first character, Grendel, is an exceptionally diverse character. It is implied that in both book and poem, Grendel is a blood-thirsty monster. All Grendel does is go through

The Old English epic Beowulf is the earliest recorded poem in Old English. The story is set in Scandinavia with the antagonist Grendel. Gendel is a monster and an insensitive character. Grendel was born into a monster and was cursed his entire life. Although Grendel was strong he wasn’t very brave because he only attacks at night when the guards are asleep. He has many characteristics that a monster would have. First and foremost, he was raised to be evil, and never had the chance to be good. Also whenever he would hear joy, he would be filled with anger and hatred. Grendel likes killing people he doesn’t feel any remorse after killing people. An example from the story that shows this is “Snatched up thirty men, smashed them unknowing in their beds and out with their bodies (Genesis,pg 4).”Talking about Grendel ties in with our next evil antagonist known as Cain. Cain is the son of Adam and Eve. He was a farmer who was jealous of his brother who was accepted by God and when Cain was rejected he decided to kill his brother Abel. Unlike Grendel Cain believed in god he just didn’t

In Grendel, the main character, Grendel, has a feeling of being alone. He feels as if no one understands him and therefore, he feels like he is abandoned in the world. Because Grendel is a monster, people in society, do not really care to be with Grendel. They see his as a creature of disgust, someone who descended

The reason why Grendel wants to visit the dragon was because he wants to learn about the Shaper. Grendel was very interested in what his songs had to say and what they had meant. This is because as it says in the novel “The Shaper was singing the glorious deeds of he dead men…He sang how they’d fought me. It was all lies.” (pg.54) This made Grendel very upset and was so confused on what the Shaper was saying. Grendel wants to know more about the Shaper because of why he was singing these stories that were lies about Grendel. He responds “Bullshit!... How was it that he could enrage me so? Why not? the darkness hissed around me. Why not? (pg.54 L.12-14) The darkness that is surrounding him made him feel uncomfortable and sounded like it had wanted to answer his question. The darkness represents the dragon. Based on my understanding Grendel sees this darkness as “evil” and the dragon as “evil”. Grendel discovers more about this “darkness” as the dragon because this is what causes Grendel to sit up with a jerk and asked “Who is it?... No