Essay On Grendel Is Not Evil

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Grendel Essay People are beings who do not always have a correct view of things, but despite the fact that they may be wrong they will not change it just because someone says so. In the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the people view the character Grendel as an evil creature who only wants to torture them. But what they don’t realize is that Grendel is not evil but instead he is just confused in his mind. His actions are misunderstood. He did not set out to create havoc but instead slowly fell into the darkness of evil caused by the actions of the people. Grendel himself did not have much confidence. He saw himself as an almost evil curse sent to live among the humans. He believes the harp when it describes him as “the terrible race God cursed” (51). He recognizes how he related to the humans and his closeness to them but sees himself as the evil within them. He even describes himself as “an alien” or a “rock broken free of the wall” (23). This clearly shows the reader that he has confusion and disappointment within himself. Therefor, this affects the way he knows the people see him and causes his mind to have thoughts of depression and evil. …show more content…

One example of this is when Grendel ran up towards the people but he says that “drunken men rushed me with battle-axes. I sank to my knees crying “Friend! Friend!” They hacked at me, yipping like dogs” (52). He tried to befriend the people but instead they deny him and attack them. They people automatically assume he was going to harm them but he only wanted to have a connection with him. Later in the book he also says that his heart was “leaden with grief at my own bloodthirsty ways” (48). Here we can clearly see that he feels guilty for his actions and see the bad in them. We are shown his confusion and how the people judged him caused him to make that first evil

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