Grendel's Point Of View In Beowulf

The point of view in which a story is written, when compared to a story about the same event in another point of view, can completely change the way the reader interprets it. Grendel is told from the perspective of Grendel. Beowulf is written in third person omniscient. From the point of view of Grendel he is made to seem to be a child. When you look at Beowulf, Grendel is described as a monster. As people read these stories, they either think of Grendel as this horrible monster or as this innocent little kid, depending on which perspective is being read.

Beowulf starts out talking about Herot and Grendel attacking the mead hall. Hrothgar and his people describe Grendel as this horrible and ugly monster that everyone is terrified of. Everybody

thinks Grendel is trying to hurt them on purpose out of rage but they don’t stop and consider him and his feelings. “A powerful minster, living down in the darkness, growled in pain, impatient as day after day the music rang loud in that hall, the harp’s rejoicing call and the poet’s clear songs” (page 14 of Beowulf ). This sentence shows that Grendel was getting tired of the music but when he attacks they don’t care that they are bothering him, the just lash out and attack him. On page 16 of Beowulf Hrothgar describes Grendel as a demon. This shows how the people see Grendel has. They don’t care that he is being hurt and annoyed by their music. He is killing their people and they think it is for no reason. So they call him a demon.
The author used this perspective to show how the people of Herot saw Grendel. By using the third person point of view it makes it seem like you are being told this story from a third party that is unbiased so it makes you think that they story must be true the way that it is being told. The author sets himself apart from everyone else but he still knows the thoughts of everyone. He does not just talk about one person’s thoughts, he goes in great detail and depth about everybody’s thoughts and opinions. By doing this the author enables the reader to understand the thoughts and feelings of all the characters, not just the main one.
Unlike the perspective shown in Beowulf, Grendel is told in a first person perspective.

The story is told from Grendel’s point of view. From his perspective you can gather that he is not the horrible, violent monster that everybody makes him out to be. He is actually just as scared as the humans are. On page 30 of Grendel, Grendel states that it wasn’t because he threw that battle-ax that he turned on Hrothgar. He said that was mere midnight foolishness and he dismissed it. This shows that Grendel is not out there to harm them, he is an innocent being.

The author uses this perspective because it allows the reader to get inside of Grendel’s head. The reader can clearly see that Grendel is not out to hurt people, he is just as scared as they are. For the longest while he does not hurt them, he just watches and learns from them. The effect of using this perspective is it allows the reader to see the other side of the story and not just Beowulf’s story.

These two types of writing do not just pertain to stories, they also pertain to actual events in the world. For example the news, when an anchor is telling a story they distant there self from the event and tell it in third person where as an eye witness or victim would tell it in first person. News anchors do this to make it unbiased and give people the facts not their opinions. When a witness or victim tell their story, they try to explain how they felt and try to make us understand their

feelings.