Beowulf And Grendel Comparison Essay

Grendel in the beginning of the book is just a lonely creature that has had no outside persuasion but this slowly changes when he meets man for the first time. He becomes fascinated with them and wants to deeply relate to them. However since society has already made him an outcast Grendel fails to see the similarities between him and mankind. In "Even Mothers Have Monsters: A Study of Beowulf and John Gardner's Grendel.” Hutman, Norma L states “perceptively at the fundamental parallel between man and monster, wherein the monster represents some older form of ourselves,” Grendel is just an older version of mankind. He not only walks on two legs like humans do but also is psychically more like them than we realize. Hutman also later argues

Mankind is still chaotic from how they destroy the land to the war the wage and Grendel does the same but only wages war with the Danes. The Danes must see a side of him that they recognize and that is why they retaliate against him. Whether that side be the bad side that humanity has chosen to leave out, Grendel is still kin to them. Langaue is also another strong indicator that we are descended from Grendel. For example In “Grendel” by Gardner he say’s “The sounds were foreign at first, but when I calmed myself, concentrating, I found I understood them: it was my own language, but spoken in a strange way,” (Page 22) just as we evolved from Grendel so did our language. Again later in the Novel by Gardner we see another example “They sing, an antique language as ragged and strange as their beards, a language closer to mine than to their own.” (Page 127-128) It only seems more clear that we aren’t just projecting out selves onto Grendel for being a monster but because we see ourselves in him. Animals understand each other if they are the same specious, two of the same specious animals can communicate very