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A narrative essay on the point of view of grendel
Essay on grendel character development
Essay on grendel character development
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In the book “ Grendel ” by John Gardner, the reader encounters a lonely monster that is looking for self-actualization and along the way forms an unhealthy obsession with villagers from a nearby town. As the story develops Grendel tries to make sense of his life and the people around it but makes a disturbing discovery that he is alone in this world and must rely only on himself and not others around him. Grendel's story seems to overlap with the theme of Hamlet for they are both betrayed and often ignored by their fellow characters. Both Gardner and Shakespeare do an impeccable job at interpreting the loneliness and the sadness that the two characters face. The authors also give their characters full reign over their lives, giving them the …show more content…
freedom to pursue any of their desires without being influenced by an all-knowing God or ruler. Grendel from an early start realizes that he can only truly depend on himself and not others.
Indeed Gardner wants to make Grendel feel truly alone forcing, Grendel to sadly proclaim " I understood that the world was nothing; a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, 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 whole universe blink by blink... (22)''.This realization gives Grendel's predicament meaning for although his mother has been there all his life he must not trust that she will come to aid him. For his life is governed by his actions, not …show more content…
hers. Hamlet also faces the loneliness and abandonment that Grendel faces. Shakespeare in order to evoke such emotion from Hamlet makes him accuse “ Frailty is thy a woman... (41)”.In this statement he not only accuses his mother of being to weak to handle his father's death but also to brash as to jump in a bed a month later with his father's brother. When these circumstances occur it is clear to Hamlet that his mother is blinded by love and will not acknowledge his needs or desires. With all this anger and heartache radiating of Hamlet, he vows to avenge his dead father. This the first instance where Hamlet makes his own decision that will comes with its own consequences. Both Grendel and Hamlet are clouded in judgment, the decisions and catalyst they should make are unbeknownst to them.
Due to this they are unable to follow their hearts desires and be themselves.Grendel exemplifies this with his need to have a companion and be understood. This leads him to go into the mead halls and attempt to find a companion of his own amongst the villagers. While Hamlet struggles to seek revenge for his father's death and pull past his mother's betrayal, he only seems to find solace by moaning and groaning throughout the castle grounds. Until his dead father appears to him and tells him of what really occurred the night he was murdered.Both of these characters lost themselves along the way and now need someone to set them on the right
track. It can be said that Shakespeare and Gardner gave their protagonist an all-knowing figure so that they would be able to seek out their needs or desires without being influenced by “fate or a predestined path”.Notably, the dragon in Grendel discloses that an individual has no meaning in life and advises Grendel to give into his true desires; becoming a true monster.The dragons advise leads Grendel to acknowledge the truth and become his true self. While the dead king in Hamlet, discloses his tragic death and implores Hamlet to avenge it for Hamlet is truly alone since his mother will not come to his aid.These all knowing figures serve both characters well for with their guidance the protagonist are able to find their true desires. With this new guidance, both Grendel and Hamlet exact their plans and try to be authentic to themselves.Both Grendel and Hamlet have parallel lives for they both have trouble with their mothers, companions, and rulers. It would be an understatement to state that the characters could be one in the same. For they both try at to runaway from their problems without facing the task head on. Ultimately their decisions lead to their untimely demise
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.
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.
The story begins with a flash-back into Grendel’s early years. He is all alone even then, but he is too young to realize it and fills this void with imaginary friends. He talks about how he entertained himself during his early years saying “Crafty-eyed, wicked as an elderly wolf, I would scheme with or stalk my imaginary friends, projecting the self I meant to become into every dark corner of the cave and the woods above” (17). People in our world may invent imaginary friends also, sometimes for companionship, as part of play, or for other reasons. Imaginary friends can serve as an important source of companionship to some children and even adults, especially if companionship is absent for them in the social world. As an example “young children in boarding schools often develop imaginary friends to cope with extreme stress and separation from their intimate relations” (www.phycologytoday.com/z10/fl/mllr.7se.php)
Grendel, surprisingly, adapts quite well to his society despite its detestation of his existence. Grendel live is a rattlesnake-guarded cave, which allows himself to detach from his society, giving him the necessary space to cope with the troublesome thoughts among his people about Grendel. Unlike Frankenstein, Grendel tries to associate with the members of his civilization but is rejected every time he tries to do so. Every night Grendel goes to Herot to listen to the Sharper’s stories because the history interests him. He is quite intrigued and appreciative of the tales he hears, but when he comes in contact with those from Herot, they do not reciprocate the appreciation of his presence in Herot. The ones he admires so much taunt and torture him to the point they try to kill him for “intruding.” As retaliation, Grendel fights back and raids Herot every night.
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
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
John Gardner’s Grendel portrays a monster searching for his purpose in life. The characters know the meaning of their lives, but Grendel tries to discover his role and what life has to offer him. Grendel discovers his identity through other characters’ actions and beliefs. In Grendel, John Gardner illustrates the contrasting views of each character to show their view of society and the influence they have on Grendel.
...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.
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.
Hamlet lives in a Kingdom of lies, and betrayal. He does not trust the new King Claudius and becomes isolated from everyone in the Kingdom. Hamlets isolation is caused by his responsibilities to himself, to his father, and responsibilities as the prince. These responsibilities take over Hamlets life and do not allow him to have time to think about what he is doing. When he is not true to his responsibility he avoids it.
...ut his lifetime. With all the events occurring, Hamlet goes through so much stress, pain, and suffering from which started with the murder of his father. He has tried to understand his position in life, yet every step he takes, someone always steps in front of him, and it puts him in a worst situation from which he started. A young man like he should be out studying and having fun with his friends, but his two non family related friends betray him, and follow King Claudius' ruling. His mother who he once loves dearly and felt so close to also betrays him by ending her mourn so soon and remarrying to Claudius. Everyone in Denmark has a problem, and the "unweeded" garden is not being kept in good hands, for which bad things have come. The evil in everyone has come out, and Hamlet searched and searched for a reasoning in life, to only come out with one thing, nothing.
Hamlet, a young prince preparing to become King of Denmark, cannot understand or cope with the catastrophes in his life. After his father dies, Hamlet is filled with confusion. However, when his father's ghost appears, the ghost explains that his brother, Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, murdered him. In awe of the supposed truth, Hamlet decides he must seek revenge and kill his uncle. This becomes his goal and sole purpose in life. However, it is more awkward for Hamlet because his uncle has now become his stepfather. He is in shock by his mother's hurried remarriage and is very confused and hurt by these circumstances. Along with these familial dysfunctions, Hamlet's love life is diminishing. It is an "emotional overload" for Hamlet (Fallon 40). The encounter with the ghost also understandably causes Hamlet great distress. From then on, his behavior is extremely out of context (Fallon 39). In Hamlet's first scene of the play, he does not like his mother's remarriage and even mentions his loss of interest in l...
Hamlet, a dispirited victim of unfortunate family circumstance, or a man plagued by a serious and debilitating mental illness? This is a topic that has intrigued literary and psychological critics alike for many years and has produced many interesting theories about Hamlet’s less than stable behavior throughout the length of the Shakespeare’s play. While the question of Hamlet’s sanity is debatable, his inability to act on his decisions and his constant depressed and agitated mood do inspire some curious questions about his methods and behavior towards other characters in the play. While it is true that the death of a loved one can propel any being into a state of grief and depression, Hamlet seems to exaggerate the situation of his father’s death by constantly bruiting and wearing “the trappings and suits of woe” (Shakespeare, 1.2. 89), and makes no real effort to move on as he seems content to wallow in his grief. What is even more fascinating is the way in which he treats the people who clearly care about him and want nothing more but the best for him. He constantly badgers the ones who are closest to him, and while he meticulously analyzes his every thought, his actions towards others are still rash and sometimes needlessly harsh. These complex characteristics of the man Hamlet, have baffled and mesmerized literary scholars and the general public alike for decades, sometimes making the play hard to comprehend and even frustrating for the audience at times. The frustration of relating to such a complex character however can be easily alleviated by perceiving Hamlet not just as a man weakened by a complicated domestic situation, but as a man tormented by what we know today to be Major depressive disorder.
Throughout Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, we see the true tragedy of loneliness Ophelia encounters in the play. Ophelia, who remains lonely with silence in the play, was not able to express her feelings and had no freedom of choice to make her own decisions. She lived her life with grief under the control of men. The only escape, she saw from her sorrow was madness and death, which was not a willful choice for her to do. However, Hamlet didn’t feel as lonely as Ophelia, as he was allowed to speak to everyone in the palace and he had the power to make his own choices as well. Silence is the true state of loneliness. Thus, Worsley expresses that loneliness is more appropriate to describe Ophelia than Hamlet, as Ophelia remains silent in the background,
Old Hamlet is killed by his brother Claudius. Only two months after her husband’s death a vulnerable Gertrude marries her husband’s brother Claudius. Gertrude’s weakness opens the door for Claudius to take the throne as the king of Denmark. Hamlet is outraged by this, he loses respect for his mother as he feels that she has rejected him and has taken no time to mourn her own husband’s death. One night old Hamlets ghost appears to prince Hamlet and tells him how he was poisoned by his own brother. Up until this point the kingdom of Denmark believed that old Hamlet had died of natural causes. As it was custom, prince Hamlet sought to avenge his father’s death. This leads Hamlet, the main character into a state of internal conflict as he agonises over what action and when to take it as to avenge his father’s death. Shakespeare’s play presents the reader with various forms of conflict which plague his characters. He explores these conflicts through the use of soliloquies, recurring motifs, structure and mirror plotting.