Grendel: Finding His Purpose In the book Grendel by John Gardner, Grendel, the monster, tries to fit in with humanity and has difficulty doing so, ultimately giving up on the idea. Grendel struggles with the internal battle of finding the meaning of his existence and finding out his part in the human world. Before Grendel can even understand the role of himself in the human world, he has to struggle with the question of what his existence means to himself. “The essence of life is to be found in the frustrations of established order. The universe refuses the deadening influence of complete conformity” (Gardner 67). Grendel, in order to find his purpose, can not really rely on anyone but himself; the true purpose lies within him. He has the …show more content…
You make them think and scheme. You dive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last. You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves.” (Gardner 72-73). Grendel is hesitant at first to continue tormenting the Danes, but the dragon makes him think otherwise. By becoming the “evil” one the Shaper says Grendel is, it gives the Danes a sense of their own purpose of existence: to live with bravery, honor, courage, and other cliché attributes warrior-like races were supposed to have.“I had become something, as if born again. I had hung between possibilities before, between the cold truths I knew and the heart-sucking conjuring tricks of the Shaper; now that was passed... I was Grendel, Ruiner of mead halls, wrecker of Kings!” (Gardner 80). Grendel, from the charm the dragon casts upon him, realizes that his pure existence is for the destruction of the Danes. Grendel is meant to be the monster. “Poor Grendel’s had an accident. . . . So may you all.” (Gardner 174). After waging a twelve year war that turns out stupid and meaningless, Grendel finds out that the purpose he
“I wanted it, yes! Even if I must be the outcast,” (55). This is after Grendel has listened to the Shaper’s story about Cain and Abel. Grendel learns that he is the cursed descendant of Cain and is forever destined to be a monster. At first, he didn’t want to believe that is was true but after a while, he gladly accepted the role thus creating his own meaning. “I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings!” (80). This is when Grendel is experiencing his newfound invincibility to the humans and their weapons and he is tormenting them. After he visits the dragon in Chapter 5, Grendel has a renewed sense of confidence of who he is - which is a monster. In Chapter 6, he continues to terrorize the Danes and pursuing his monstrous desires. Grendel is acting upon his role as the monster because after speaking to the dragon, he realizes that nothing can stop
...n very human feelings of resentment and jealousy. Grendel was an unstable and saddened figure because of his outcast status. Though Grendel had many animal attributes and a grotesque, monstrous appearance, he seemed to be guided by vaguely human emotions and impulses. He truthfully showed more of an interior life than one might expect. Exiled to the swamplands outside the boundaries of human society, Grendel’s depiction as an outcast is a symbol of the jealousy and hate that seeks to destroy others' happiness and can ultimately cripple a civilization. This take on the outcast archetype ultimately exposes the Anglo Saxon people’s weaknesses, their doubts and anxieties towards the traditional values that bounded nearly every aspect of their life.
Towards the end of the novel, Grendel finally becomes ‘himself’. Grendel is unable to decide what to make of himself and of the world surrounding him. He has only ever known the world as wild and mechanical, yet he is charmed by the artistic brilliance of the Shaper’s words. Grendel ultimately meets a brutal yet peaceful demise. Standing on the face of the same cliff he found himself in at the beginning of the novel, surrounded by mindless eyes, he states, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident.
Gardner plays Grendel as like a child when he first discovers the the new world. For example, Grendel announces, “ I played my way farther out into this world” (Gardner 16). This shows Grendel’s first look in the real world. He first thinks that this world is going to be a fine place to live. Unfortunately, Grendel explore more into the world and sees the “Burning eyes of the strangers” (Gardner 17). To explain, Grendel has never seen such people in his life, so he starts to rethink life. In other words, his exploration of the world of humans changes the way he perceives the creatures in the underground world. This mentally changes his self
Throughout John Gardner’s Grendel, the audience bears witness to a creature who has been ostracized by the world around him. Throughout his journey, the stories protagonist tries to live out his own life the way he wants to, despite being labeled as evil by those around him. Due to this constant criticism by his peers, he develops an inferiority complex that he desperately tries to make up for as the story progresses. Throughout his development, Grendel very rapidly moves past his existentialist beginning, through a brief phase of forced skepticism, and into a severely nihilistic point of view.
Many of the characters in Grendel have direction and purpose in their lives. Wealtheow is self- sacrificing, and Hrothgar is out for personal glory. Unferth and Beowulf spend their lives trying to become great heroes so that their names may outlast their flesh. The dragon believed in nihilism, and the Shaper used his imagination to create something to believe in. Some of the characters’ philosophies may not have been commendable, but Grendel could not find any direction or purpose for his life whatsoever. Grendel looked for the intervention of a power higher than himself to lay the truths of the world upon him, an experience that the Romantics would characterize as an experience of the sublime. John Gardner portrays Grendel as someone who wants to find a philosophy, whether his own or someone else’s, that fits him and gives him an identity or a reason to live. By looking at the text from this perspective we can see how Gardner believes people should pursue, or rather, embrace a power greater than themselves.
Grendel, as a character, has a much more complex identity than just a monster and a human. Some, such as Ruud, classify him as a mixture of three different characteristics, but alone, they tend to conflict with each other. By making the connection that Grendel represents immorality, the previous idea makes more sense, while simultaneously incorporating more aspects of the character into the analysis. In either case, Grendel represents much more than meets the eye, and provides a fascinating insight into
Grendel as a character is very intelligent, he is capable of rational thought at all times. Because of this, at sometimes during the story I would forget Grendel is a monster, the way he acts in his thoughts and actions I would mistake him for a human; at times I was even feeling bad for Grendel because he is a very lonely person who tries to understand all of the meaningless of the world around him. Grendel can never get to close to
87-91). Hearing all the jubilation that he cannot share in makes Grendel bitter. Because nothing that can be done to make Grendel’s resentfulness subside, he “[wages] his lonely war, inflicting constant cruelties on the people, atrocious hurt” (ln. 164-166) to make himself feel better. Every day he finds satisfaction in killing and eating the men who fall asleep in the hall after they have drunk and partied the evening away. Causing harm to human society is Grendel’s means of compensating for his loneliness.
The clash between good and evil has been a prominent theme in literature. The Bible presents the conflict between good and evil in the story of Adam and Eve. Many authors use the scene in the Bible in which the snake taunts and tempts Adam and Eve to take a bite of the apple of knowledge to demonstrate the frailty of humankind. John Gardner provides these same biblical allusions of good and evil in his novel, Grendel.
As a result of not receiving help when the bull was attacking him, Grendel develops a new theory: “I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back. I create the universe, blink by blink” (Gardner 21-22). Grendel’s questioning of his way of living marks a transformation of Grendel into a mature character who gains knowledge from his experience with the bull, concluding that the world revolves only around him. The utilization of ‘I’ portrays that his growing isolation from the absence of his mother during the bull attack is what permits him to believe that he is superior to everyone else and the only worthy creature to exist. This foreshadows his ultimate purpose in life which is to kill mankind. Grendel, as the creator of the world, holds the ultimate power to decide who will live, lacking the perspective that there is a higher force other than himself. In other words, the experience Grendel acquires from the bull attack enables him to mature and obtain insight on the truth of his
Grendel feels like an outcast in the society he lives in causing him to have a hard time finding himself in the chaotic world. He struggles because the lack of communication between he and his mother. The lack of communication puts Grendel in a state of depression. However, Grendel comes in contact with several characters with different philosophical beliefs, which allows his to see his significance in life. Their views on life influence Grendel to see the world in a meaningful way.
In the beginning Grendel’s perspective of himself leads to various encounters that help him discover the meaninglessness to his very own existence. From the beginning through many centuries of pondering Grendel has come to the idea that the world consists entirely of Grendel and not-Grendel. Thus Grendel begins his search for meaning of his very own life with an existential philosophy, the belief that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. While Grendel’s overall perspective of nature is that of mindless and mechanical machine, he believes that he is a separate entity from this machine. Furthermore he holds the philosophy that he himself is a god like creature that “blink by blink” creates the world. This philosophy undermined when Grendel notices that events occur before he can think them into existence. Grendel witnesses the death of a deer by the hands of humans: “Suddenly time is a rush for the hart: head flicks, he jerks, his front legs buckling, and he’s dead. He lies as still as the snow hurtling outward around him to the hushed world’s rim. The image clings to my mind like a
In Chapter 8, Grendel exclaims, “I’m a machine. Like all of you. Blood-lust and rage are my character,” (Gardner 123). This profound statement establishes a connection between Grendel and the ambiguous “you,” the reader. The monster, though he confesses to his wrongdoing, asserts that readers are no better than he. Countless bible verses reiterate this concept: “For all have sinned,” (Romans 3:23) “[Humans] are all. .impure with sin,” (Isaiah 64:6). Gardner’s reminder to readers of mankind’s predisposition to sin earns pity for the monster. He expands on these sympathies by describing the nature of Grendel’s lonely existence. “But there was one thing worse,” Grendel states after discovering the dragon’s charm, “no weapon could cut me,” (Gardner 75). In this moment, nihilism overcomes Grendel; if fighting poses no danger, it has no purpose, and neither does he. Any reader who has had an experience which challenged his or her values cannot help but feel empathetic towards the purposeless creature. Perhaps more piteous, however, is the suggestion that Grendel has no choice in being “the dark side. . the terrible race God cursed,” (Gardner 51). The dragon condemns Grendel as “the brute existent by which [humans] learn to define themselves,” telling him that it is worthless to better his character (Gardner 72). It is not until after
Grendel is the embodiment of all that is evil and dark. He is a descendant of Cain and like Cain is an outcast of society. He is doomed to roam in the shadows. He is always outside looking inside. He is an outside threat to the order of society and all that is good. His whole existence is grounded solely in the moral perversion to hate good simply because it is good.