Essay On Grendel In Beowulf

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Humanity is a raging river. People persist, caught up in their own problems and lives. Society is ever-changing, always trying to adapt to new ways of life. Humanity plays a great role in how Grendel changes. Grendel is a beast that watches how humanity develops overtime; he notices how destructive and cruel humanity has become. Despite this, he attempts to get along with the people, but they regard him as a monster and try to kill him. Eventually, he gives into and becomes what the people believe him to be: a savage beast. However, Grendel was never originally evil. In Grendel by John Gardner, the anti-hero Grendel is misunderstood by humanity even though he attempts to socialize; has clear, lucid thoughts; and feels love, but humanity continuously …show more content…

Grendel is not a brainless beast like the people think he is; he knows exactly what he is doing although it may not always be ethical. “I picked him [Unferth] up gently and carried him home. I laid him at the door of Hrothgar’s meadhall, still asleep, killed the two guards so I wouldn’t be misunderstood, and left” (Gardner 90). Grendel makes the rational choice to spare Unferth out of his own will, despite Unferth begging Grendel to kill him. In addition, Grendel realizes that he could be misunderstood by the people if he brings Unferth back alive and unharmed, so he makes the wicked decision to kill the guards outside the hall. Grendel does this based on his own thoughts and actions; furthermore, he is misunderstood by the people to be a savage beast only capable of killing, but Grendel obviously has thoughts of his own. “I decided to kill her [Wealtheow]. I firmly committed myself to killing her, slowly, horribly…and nothing alive or dead could change my mind! I changed my mind” (Gardner 109-110). Despite the will Grendel had that wanted him to kill Wealtheow, Grendel goes against his mind and his instincts and spares her. He decides to spare her after realizing that it would be meaningless to kill her, that he would gain nothing from killing her, and that killing her would not solve any of his problems. This goes …show more content…

“I bellowed for help… ‘Mama! Waa! Waaa!’ I bellowed to the sky, the forest, the cliffs, until I was so weak from loss of blood I could barely wave my arms” (Gardner 18). The love Grendel feels for his mother helps show that Grendel is not an angry beast, that humanity misunderstands Grendel, and that humanity is one of the reasons why Grendel acts the way he does towards them. Anytime Grendel is in trouble he always calls out for his mother because he loves her, and he knows that she will come to save him. Grendel is not emotionless; he has various emotions just like a human would. “She [Wealtheow] was beautiful, as innocent as down on winter hills…My chest was full of pain...and I was afraid I was about to sob” (Gardner 100). When Grendel meets Wealtheow for the first time, he thinks she is graceful and beautiful; however, eventually, after watching over her for a while, he gets agitated with her because she does not speak her thoughts and lives a terrible life away from her family. Despite this, she is one of the few people who can provoke different emotions from Grendel just by being alive. Despite feeling different emotions and expressing said emotions, humanity always turns against him. Grendel does not understand why humans would treat other humans like garbage, and the foolishness of humanity

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