Grendel's Search For Purpose Analysis

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.

In the novel, the readers are allowed to see the progression of Grendel. As Grendel starts to grow up there are changes in his personality, more specifically his innocence. Grendel becomes conflicted, being the monster that he is and the choices that he makes. Grendel wants to know what his purpose in life is, or what is the purpose of life at all. While Grendel becomes evil there are signs him struggling against that way. Now I will talk about Grendel’s balance between good and evil.

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

He struggles with the thought of being denied and offbeat. He uses violence as a way to wrestle with his feelings. The violence starts when Grendel goes to the Meadhall and kills thirty men on the first night. He says, “I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings! But also, as never before, I was alone” (Gardner 80). His main goal was to destroy the Meadhall and all of King Hrothgar’s people. Grendel now feels like he has power and this helps him feel better, but he also hints at the fact that he is still feeling lonely and hopeless. Therefore, he decided to cause more havoc and kill more people to help him deal with the pain. When Grendel hears some men who seem to be happy and having fun, he wishes that he was able to be happy like them. He wants to fill a void of emptiness. This motivates him to keep performing numerous attacks on the Meadhall. The violence and problems he causes lasts for twelve years until Beowulf rips his arm off. Grendel just wants to be able to communicate with someone and feel accepted. He says, "Why can't I have someone to talk to? The Shaper has people to talk to, I said. I wrung my fingers. Hrothgar has people to talk to” (Gardner 53). If he had someone who accepted him and was able to understand him, he may not have felt that he needed to perform his attacks as a way to try to lessen his pain. There would not have been twelve years of

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.

Grendel starts off his life story by explaining how he is always on the outside of everyone and everything. “Pointless, ridiculous monster crouched in the shadows, stinking of dead men, murdered children, martyred cows....Ah, sad one, poor old freak!” (6). Further throughout the novel, Grendel’s feelings of isolation increase when he realizes the dragon has placed a spell upon him. “Though I scorned them, sometimes hated them, there had been something between myself and men when we could fight. Now, invulnerable, I was as solitary as one live tree in a vast landscape of coal.” (76). Grendel’s consistent separation from the rest of the society causes the reader to feel sorry for him, despite all of his wrongdoings. The only thing that Grendel wishes for is a companion, making him relatable to readers who may feel alone. Grendel is a relatable character that readers may be able to sympathize with because of his isolation and constant feeling of being

Throughout the history of man, humans have been faced with the decision to either follow the path of morality or the path of evil. Especially in the case of choices, fortitude becomes necessary, as one cannot give in to their inner demons. In the book Grendel, by John Gardner, the quote, “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it” (74) shows the true purpose of the Dragon - to demonstrate the path of malice: the path of disinterest. Also, the Dragon shows little to know caring for others, especially in the case of overall interest in the happenings of the world. This idea of indifference plays tricks in Grendel’s mind, which makes sense, as dragons through literature represent evil, greed, and violence, making this character the perfect foil for Grendel.

In contrast to the Danes of “Beowulf”, Grendel searched for his very reason of existence by asking the questions “Why?” and “How?” for answers. Grendel started off in the book struggling with finding meaning in his life while watching the people clearly doing things that gave their lives meaning. He became upset as he saw that he couldn’t deter their spirits no matter what he did and started to feel jealous of their self-found purpose. He realized that through various ways the people attained meaning. In response to his confusion over their self-discovered purpose, Grendel started listening to the Shaper’s words when he spoke to the people shaping their very beliefs which confused Grendel even more on the meaning of life. After listening to the Shaper for a while, readers can see Grendel in a state of contradiction. He started off killing people as a simple, bestial monstrosity but in the end he is shown as quite intelligent and capable of choosing whether to kill or not. Soon, Grendel started seeking answers to his questions from a dragon. The dragon’s very philosophy on life was that there is no meaning of life which started to influence Grendel. Upon Grendel’s persistent questions of “Why?”, the dragon told him “You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme…You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves

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

"The sky says nothing, predictably. I make a face, uplift a defiant middle finger, and give an obscene little kick. The sky ignores me, forever unimpressed. Him too I hate, the same as I hate these brainless budding trees, these brattling birds (Gardner 6)." He also developed a hatred toward humans after getting stuck in the tree. On that dark night, he learned that humans were dangerous because they tried to hurt him instead of helping him. "It wasn't because he threw that battle-ax that I turned on Hrothgar. That was mere midnight foolishness... It wasn't until later, when I was full-grown and Hrothgar was an old, old man, that I settled my soul on destroying him—slowly and cruelly (Gardner 30).” The humans were not as innocent as the Shaper perceived them to be. Grendel lurked in the darkness and watched them as they battled and destroyed their own kind. Ultimately, the dragon with the dark scales made an immense impact on Grendel’s character. Grendel was not sure of his purpose in life, and the dragon confirmed that he should be evil by killing the humans. At first, Grendel resisted. However, hatred led to Grendel’s determination to punish mankind.

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.

Grendel’s encounter with the bull marks his initial understanding of the world; he realizes the universe provides no definite meaning to living creatures, as it is very isolated and mechanical. During Grendel’s earlier life, he accidentally gets his foot stuck in a tree. No matter how hard he cries for help, no one, not even his mother, comes to his aid. This makes him feel distanced from the rest of the world as he thinks he is not important enough to be cared by anyone. Furthermore, a bull comes to attack him and shows no sign of empathy to Grendel but rather charges at him mindlessly. He finally understands that

After waiting in a tree to catch a glimpse of men, Grendel attempts to communicate with the humans in the woods. Initially the humans feed Grendel, but his laughter at the prospect of food frightens them, and they decide to attack them. Grendel, observing the humans plan out their attack, realizes that humans are not dumb, they strategize and plan, making them more dangerous than he could have imagined. And what’s more, there’s nothing he can do to make them see he does not want to harm them. At this moment, Grendel realizes that he is completely separate from man, that there is no meaning to the world: “The world is all a pointless accident...I exist, nothing else!” (Gardner 28).The arrival of the Shaper further hurls Grendel into an existential despair. The Shaper tells tales of glory in battle and other such things that Grendel condemns; however, he does it in such a persuasive way that Grendel doesn’t know what to think: “Thus I fled, ridiculous hairy creature torn apart by poetry...I clamped my palms to my ears and stretched up my lips and shrieked again, a stab at truth” (Gardner 44-45). Here, Grendel officially identifies himself as a separate entity, calling himself a ridiculous hairy creature. The poetry confuses him and Grendel gives up on trying to obtain truth, slipping further into despair.

The dragon’s negativity creates conflict felt by Grendel. For starters, the dragon tells Grendel to go “find gold and sit on it.” This is an example of the dragon essentially telling Grendel to follow his urges, and act based upon what he wants and his impulses. Also, he is telling him to close himself off from the world. According to the