Grendel was a monster, and a monster can’t help but act like monster. He throws objects, dislikes people, does whatever he wants when he wants to, kills and eats the Danes, and behaves like a wild animal. So just like wild animals that lack free will, so does Grendel. He is limited by his fate. Additionally, Grendel is evil, because he is a descendent of Cain, the first murderer
The epic poem, Beowulf, focuses on how the forces of light and darkness are always at war, just as God and the Devil fought and God won. Grendel just sits in his cave with nothing to do all day, which explains why he is so grumpy all of the time. Grendel behaves as though he were grounded. Because people already think Grendel is scary, he might as well act scary. Monsters have no life whatsoever. Just like how wolfs act so mean and scary.
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When John Gardner wrote his novel from Grendel’s point-of-view, Grendel was already a bad creature, because he is cursed by what Cain did to Abel.
Grendel have to finish what cain had started.Since cain killed his brother.Grendel have to kill the danes who was the good people.Just like How cyclops had ate the Greek Gods.Cyclops are monsters.Grendel has the same chaterics as monsters in other stories.Just like how the villains in movie always have some kind of bad side to them.Just like in monsters incorporated the monsters had to get the children to scream.Also,in pete's dragon the people was scared of the dragon.Even in how to train a dragon the people was also scare of them until they got to know the dragon. Not all monsters are scary,but in this case grendel is scary.A Lot of people don’t want to go near
him. Except for Beowulf. Beowulf wasn’t afraid of Grendel, because he had already dealt with things much scarier. Just how people are so scared of bears, and they are bear hunters who is always so brave to kill the bear. That is just what Beowulf is like. All Beowulf really wants to do is save the day and get all of the glory. Grendel’s fate is already cursed, because he is already supposed to die ,and Beowulf is going to fulfill that destiny by killing Grendel, so since all of the things that Grendel did are coming back to haunt him. Just like karma comes back to the people who do wrong. Some may argue that Grendel has free will, but they are wrong, because he is cursed to live out his destiny. He is a descendent of Cain. In the epic, it says he was ”conceived by a pair of those monsters born of Cain” (Beowulf line 20-21). He is also banished by God, separated from men. In the epic, it says “By God, punished forever for the crime of Abel’s death” (Beowulf line 22-23) In conclusion, Grendel acts according to his fate rather than exercising free will. He goes according to fate, because he is a monster, and monster’s have no free will. Grendel was cursed as a descendent of Cain, and his actions are those of an animal. Overall, he doesn’t choose what he does; only humans do.
“The monster’s thoughts were as quick as his greed or his claws: He slipped through the door there in the silence snatched up thirty men, smashed them…” (Raffel Lines 34-37) In other words, Grendel is characterized as a monster whose only desire is to kill. However, the humans chose to forget their beginning encounters with Grendel and don’t realize that they are the true cause. When Grendel tries to communicate with the humans because they speak the same language, he is repelled by the Danes. “The harper broke off, the people screamed. Drunken men rushed me with battle-axes. I sank to my knees, crying, “Friend! Friend!” (Gardner 52) In other words, Grendel wants to be friends with the humans but they immediately judge him based on his appearance and reject him. This causes Grendel now have become isolated from both the humans and animals. This isolation leads to Grendel to start killing the humans as a form of interaction. Sadly like with animals, the only form of communication with the humans Grendel will receive is through killing them like the Grendel we see in Beowulf. Overall, due to Grendel being surrounded by humans who misjudge him, he is motivated by isolation in which the only attention he will get is from killing
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
Like animals they are frightened of anything that is different from what they are used to. When Grendel attempts to communicate they show their ignorance and simple-mindedness. Instead of taking the time to understand. the anomaly in their world, they panic and decide to destroy it. Without being able to view the story from Grendel's point of view the reader might assume that the humans had every right to attack. Another example of the same type of simple-mindedness is their second premature attack on Grendel. After hearing the shaper's words, Grendel weeps, "'Mercy! Peace! ' " ( ch.4 pp.50) in the hopes of salvation from the god of these men. The men, in a drunken state, merely misunderstand Grendel's intentions and attack him. once again. Instead of killing the men, which would have been an easy task. for the giant, Grendel escapes into the night. This action alone defines.
What's the difference between good and evil? In John Gardner’s classic tale Grendel the line between good and evil is exceedingly blurred. Gardner does a phenomenal job of forcing the reader to question who the real hero of the story is. So is Grendel evil or simply misunderstood? To answer this question one must look at his basic character traits. Grendel is an unloving creature, he enjoys killing and torturing humans, and when he shows any sort of mercy, he later regrets it. Due to these facts it is impossible to label him as “good”.
Since the beginning Grendel is very confused with why he can’t talk or get along with people or animals. He starts off wandering through the forest when he gets caught in a tree. Grendel cries out for his mom but is disappointed to be without her arrival. He later encounters a bull that nearly kills him but instead ends up wounded. Grendel could not communicate with the animal and out of this encounter he perceives life in a nihilistic way. After waking up from his sleep humans wearing armor surround him and believed him to be a tree spirit. Grendal tried to speak to them but again he had failed to do so. Finding out he wasn’t, they became hostile but fled after hearing Grendel's mother.
In the early stages of Grendel’s life, Grendel is appalled by the senseless violence of man. Before he meets man, he realizes that he “alone exisit[s],” and that he creates “the whole universe, blink by blink” (Gardner 22). In his mind, he believes that he has complete control of how the world
Throughout the novel, this monster, Grendel, seems confused as to whether he wants to view life like his existentialistic dragon mentor, or like the ignorantly optimistic humans on which he feeds. At times he is captivated by the romantic songs of the Shaper, and feels no desire to kill, while at others he thrives on the "knowledge" of the dragon, and goes on bloody rampages. At one point during Grendel's insecure state, the dragon tells him something that changes his outlook, and gives him a new feeling of self-worth.
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
As children, we were taught that good and evil were black and white terms. The fairy tales that our parents would read to us have conditioned us to believe that characters such as the princess in distress or the prince in shining armour were nothing but friendly and good, while the troll guarding his own bridge or the fire-breathing dragon were the most frighteningly evil creatures of all. However, as we grew up, we learned that these distinctions are never so easily black and white, but more-so different shades of grey. We learned that the characters that we initially deemed evil had reasons for acting that way, and most of them out of their control. Such is the case with the main character in John Gardner’s Grendel. The character Grendel
No. Compared to the humans, Grendel is also an intelligent being, capable of thinking, speaking, and rationalizing. An animal is therefore, not what he is. He murmurs stuff to himself constantly and even when he talked to humans they were able to somewhat comprehend that he was speaking, and could understand what he was saying. “’Come, come,’ I said. ‘Let me tell them I was sent by Sideways-Walker’” (Gardner 83). Grendel is also capable of thought; “Strange thoughts come over me. I think of the pastness of the past” (Gardner 146). When Grendel’s leg was caught between two trees and was sustaining continuous attacks from a bull, who was charging at him, he was able to think, and rationalized that the bull would always strike low. “He struck too low, and even in my terror I understood that he would always strike too low…” (Gardner 21). Control over one’s action is one of the few perks intelligent being have in their nature. As we have deciphered in the previous paragraphs, Grendel is considered an intelligent being, but still he chooses to do harm to others at his own will. As mentioned, animals lack the ability to rationalize or even think, so they kill, because they need to. But Grendel on the other hand is intelligent, so he killed with purpose, whether they are foul or honest “I settled my soul on destroying him—slowly and cruelly” (Gardner 30). This proves that even with the presence of free
Grendel is born a neutral being, perhaps even good, but nevertheless, without hate. The transition which he undergoes to become evil is due to misunderstandings between himself and humans and also meeting with a dragon who is questionably evil. As a young “monster”, Grendel knew nothing other than the cave he lived in and his mother who could not speak any distinguishable language. He was a playful creature who seemed to be like a “bla...
However, this stranger is unlike any human Grendel has ever met before. When Grendel attacks the mead hall that night, he discovered that this stranger is not only much stronger and smarter than he imagined, he is also much more cruel. “He’s crazy. I understand him all right, make no mistake. Understand his lunatic theory of matter and mind, the chilly intellect, the hot imagination, blocks and builder, reality as stress” (Gardner 172). This insane man is actually the hero Beowulf. However, in this story, Beowulf is portrayed as one of the worst humans of them all. He cannot just kill Grendel, he has to see Grendel suffer up to his death. He forces Grendel to sing and humiliates him in front of the other men. This unearthly cruelty is what finally took down Grendel. But it also shows that even though Grendel was physically the monster, that he was not the worst creature on earth. Grendel was not as cruel as Beowulf; in the end, man becomes the monster and the monster becomes the
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.
The character Grendel portrays the fallen self, which will assert itself violently if neglected, and must be overcome throughout life. The monster Grendel mirrors the part of our fallen state. Grendel's ancestry leads to the biblical figure Cain, to which all evil can be attributed. Grendel represents the hidden evil of Beowulf. Rollo May describes this in his metaphor "the dragon or the Sphinx in me will often be clamoring and will sometimes be expressed"(174). Grendel represents Beowulf's Sphinx, that lashes out on others.
Through Grendel's own hatred and anger, he brings his own downfall. The "sin-stained demon" has his roots in the vile creature Cain. Since Grendel is spawned from Cain, he can never feel the love of God or of people: ". . . God, / Whose love Grendel could not know." (84-85). It is because of this, that Grendel hates every mortal being he lays his eyes upon. Hatred leads to anger, constant anger, ". . . bearing God's hatred, / Grendel came, hoping to kill" (393-394). Fear is Grendel's other major flaw, "His mind was flooded with fear . . ." (435). Through his hatred and fear, Grendel seals his own fate.