Internal Conflict In Grendel

Life always manages to knock people down right when everything seems perfect. Throughout the passage, Gardner displays the connection between the monstrous Grendel and the King of the Danes, Hrothgar; both characters experience problems concerning their humanity and self worth. Grendel splurges his thoughts and desires through a tone shifting between resistance and confidence and further creating a poised yet anxious mood. The contrasting sentence lengths and tones divide the passage into three section where Gardner amplifies the internal conflict of Grendel. Although the varying sentence lengths and tones do not affect each other directly, both literary elements create different internal conflicts Grendel encounters. Within a passage from the novel Grendel,

Revealing the relationship of Grendel to something other than language, Gardner introduces the “beast” performing a “dance” (Gardner 92). He begins by suggesting for Grendel to “do a little dance beast” and continues when “[Grendel] clasps [his] hands over his head, points the toes of one foot [...] takes a step, does a turn” (Gardner 92). Even though the sentence lengths differ, the content of the two sentences juxtapose each other. The contrasting sentences further divulge the internal conflict of Grendel desiring to be known as a “beast” yet he performs like a human (Gardner 92). An uncertain tone later comes to reach as curious Grendel reflects on “what [we will] call the Hrothgar-wrecker when Hrothgar has been wrecked?” (Gardner 92). The ambiguous tone exposes the intrigued mind of Grendel, which discloses another internal conflict of Grendel to be curiosity. Therefore, through an ambiguous tone Gardner emphasizes the curiosity of men baffling and intriguing Grendel. Gardner utilizes contrasting sentence lengths and an ambiguous tone to divulge the distinct internal conflicts of the envious