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Essay about the character beowulf
Compare and contrast the character of Beowulf with other characters in the poem, "Beowulf
How to interpretate beowulf in the modern society
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Why should people feel sympathy for a monster who claims to have no conscious? I personally feel sympathy for the monster Grendel in John Gardner’s Grendel. The creature is portrayed as being a monster in Beowulf, but in Grendel, he seems like a child who is lost and confused.
In Beowulf, it is mentioned that Grendel has been attacking Heorot for twelve years, although his age is not mentioned, I believe that Grendel is still a juvenile. The way Grendel is characterized in Gardner’s novel is of being jealous of Beowulf and calling for his ‘mama.’ At the end of the excerpt, we read from Grendel, Grendel’s thoughts about how he describes his surroundings are childish; he calls the animals “evil, incredibly stupid.”
The fact that when Grendel wakes on the morning that Beowulf arrives at Heorot and his mother does not care whether or not her son goes outside and into the open during the day makes me believe that Grendel’s mother does not care for him. It is a possibility that Grendel started killing the people of Heorot to gain the attention of his mother those twelve years prior and the outcome of killing a few people became an addiction that must be rationed. Grendel does not even gain his mother’s attention until after he dies of his “accident” and his mother journey’s to Heorot to retrieve her son’s arm.
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Grendel’s situation could represent the life of a child who misbehaves to gain the attention of his parents.
The only problem is that Grendel is unable to achieve attention so he involuntarily seeks it when he starts to kill the Danes in Heorot. Due to Grendel’s actions, this prompts Beowulf and his men to come to the rescue. The way that Grendel describes Beowulf’s appearance makes Grendel seem entirely envious of the man. The infatuation that Grendel has for Beowulf is like a child in a toyshop not able to get that brand new toy that everyone else has, and is instead stuck with an old action figure that has a missing
arm. I can sympathize for Grendel because in all honesty he is just like a child feeling under-loved and inadequate in the eyes of those around him. He takes on killing people to try to gain the much needed all children need, but instead he attracts the kind of trouble that is ultimately his demise. Grendel was a misunderstood creature that was only looking for his mother to acknowledge him and he ended up down a wrong path that caused his addiction to eating the Danes.
Rudd cites various sections of the poem, describing Grendel as a “night-monster of the border lands” (Rudd 3), and the translation of the poem says that Grendel was, “...Conceived by a pair of those monsters born Of Cain, murderous creatures banished By God…” (Raffel 42). Rudd also gives evidence for Grendel being seen as demonic, and reasons that Grendel attacks the Danes out of “...not mere thirst for gore, as we might suspect… but rather… envy of the Danes’ happiness- and envy was a chief characteristic of the medieval devil.” (Ruud 5). He then ties this devilish persona to Grendel’s humanistic aspects, stating Grendel has a heathen soul, and therefore he must be human. Ruud also notes, however, that there are critics who question the validity of portraying Grendel as this three-sided figure, asking questions such as, “How can Grendel be a devil when he has a physical body? How can he be a man when he is so manifestly bestial?” (Ruud 7). Ruud believes that the original poet of Beowulf is doing this for effect rather than consistency, but a more reasonable explanation that encompasses all three characteristics is that Grendel represents the evil in
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
In the epic poem Beowulf, Grendel is depicted as an evil monster that destroys Herot-hall and kills people for no reason. In the poem, Grendel had filled the Danes with terror as he ravaged their mead-hall and killed their men again and again. He did so without remorse and even took joy in killing, and even eating them. He had stopped, because a great hero, Beowulf, caught and killed him. However, what readers do not hear is why and how Grendel was treated by the Danes. When he was a young little creature, Grendel had been ignored, humiliated and bullied by Danes in Herot-hall. He wanted to fight back, but instead, he decided to give them a second chance. However, the Danes began singing the “Song of Creation” which totally
Even if, at first, Grendel seems almost kind, and the reader is pleased with his character, he soon becomes more and more evil, and his actions bring about a feeling of uneasiness, to say the least. Before, the killing of people for no apparent reason disgusted Grendel. However, when he brings Unferth home, he kills the two guards "so I wouldn't be misunderstood" (90). Later, in probably the most disturbing scene of the book, we see how meaningless killing has become to Grendel. He brutally attacks the queen and is determined to kill her.
The first opponent Beowulf must face in the land of the Danes is Grendel, textually described as “a fiend out of hell … [a] grim demon / haunting the marches, / marauding round the heath / and the desolate fens” (Beowulf, line 100 – 104). The author also provides us with a moral description, explaining how Grendel is “merciless … malignant by nature, he never showed remorse” (line 135-137). As we can see here, the author’s physical and moral portrayal of Grendel is rather unforgiving. We also resent Grendel further once we learn that he has wreaked havoc upon the Heorot hall for twelve years, “inflicting constant cruelties on the people / atrocious hurt” (line 165).
While Grendel may possess a brute strength, his lack of wit and logic is what ultimately leads to his downfall and demise. In Beowulf, the actions and character that of Beowulf, or an Epic Hero, define the perfect Anglo-Saxon warrior. Epic heroes are indicated by a variety of traits, including that they, “must look like a hero, they must be noble, famous, strong, courageous, humble, prideful, thick-skinned, self-sacrificing, faithful, focused, be a leader, and have a tragic flaw” (Jones 3). Unfortunately, aside from the ‘tragic flaw’ and ‘strong’ categories, Grendel’s character is antithetical to all characteristics of an Epic Hero. This makes him quite the villain, and a generally despicable character. “Suddenly then, / the God-cursed brute creating havoc: / greedy and grim, he grabbed thirty men”
Grendel is alone; he can not know God’s love and be comforted. He is an outcast, and the sins of his forefather have fallen upon him. Evil can not stand God being glorified just as the praising of God by the Danes angered Grendel.
He is evil not because he was born evil, and not because it was destined that he would become evil, but because the world told him he was, and eventually he believed. Grendel resigns to a mode of being that is the easiest for him- and that may be just what make him so intriguing. It is not the fact that Grendel is Bad that makes him a compelling protagonist; that alone would almost surely not be enough. He is an engaging, almost likeable, main character precisely because he lapses into evil like a habit, like a role to be filled, like any number of the habits and roles the book’s audience might fulfill themselves. Grendel is important because he is, by the book’s end, purely evil. He is malevolent, chaotic, maniacal, and violent. He is everything a storybook antagonist should be, yet the reader still feels for him. It is there that the power of Grendel’s story lies- in his complexity. The novel’s refusal to accept the simple themes and characterization in Beowulf makes it refreshing, and, in a sense, more real; Grendel is not a tale that allows readers to escape the world, but one that forces them to vividly examine its most gruesome realities, and to imagine that even the worst of monsters
John Gardner’s Grendel is the retelling of the heroic epic poem Beowulf; however, the viewpoint has shifted. Grendel is told from the viewpoint of one of Beowulf’s antagonists and the titular character of Gardner’s work—Grendel. In Grendel, Gardner humanizes Grendel by emphasizing parallels between Grendel’s life and human life. Through Gardner’s reflection of human feelings, human development, and human flaws in Grendel, this seemingly antagonistic, monstrous character becomes understood and made “human.”
From the darkness of his home life, to the murders bread in his heritage, how could one not argue he was destined for the life of a bloodthirsty monster? But the family of the deceased held the biggest grudge of them all. They gave Grendel the name of the horrible monster that everyone feared. The family and friends told the stories of the way Grendel had smashed, and ripped apart, with his claws, the bodies of the sleeping soldiers. But if only they would have been kind to Grendel in the beginning of when he had first tried to establish friendship. If the villagers had not run away, screaming words of rejection, Grendel might have been able to hold onto his little peace he had once had. But instead, he had been automatically turned into the misunderstood monster that everyone
GRENDEL is a monster who is a descendant of Cain, the brother-slayer. For twelve years, Grendel attacks Heorot and kills Danish people: "he wanted no peace with any of the men of the Danish host" (Norton, 29). Hrothgar, the Danish king, doesn't have enough strength to fight Grendel. Only Beowulf can rescue the Danes from the monster's attacks.
Anger then yields itself to insecurity and low self-esteem. The moment Grendel realizes that there is someone just as strong as him, he tries to run away, ". . . Grendel's one thought was to run / From Beowulf, flee back to his marsh and hide there:" (437-438), but it is too late. Just like when the average bully meets his match, he runs in fear of not being able to win. Grendel does not have the audacity to stand up to Beowulf with all his might and therefore falls to Beowulf.
The movie Beowulf desires equality and compassion. In the movie, Beowulf’s compassion towards Grendel represents that views Grendel as a human like figure and this is supported because of the evidence that Grendel has a son. Grendel’s death ceremony contains the same respect as that of a human’s death ceremony would. Beowulf expresses his compassion when he tells Grendel’s son, “Be proud”, as Grendel lied there dead in his mother's underwater cave. (Gunnarsson 2005) His love and admiration towards the witch are expressed deeply, which eventually is discovered to be the mother of Grendel's
The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic chronicling the illustrious deeds of the great Geatish warrior Beowulf, who voyages across the seas to rid the Danes of an evil monster, Grendel, who has been wreaking havoc and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land of a fiendish monster and halting its scourge of evil while the monster is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves to die because of its evil actions. In the epic poem, Beowulf the authors portrays Grendel as a cold-hearted beast who thrives on the pain of others. Many have disagreed with such a simplistic and biased representation of Grendel and his role in the epic poem. John Gardner in his book, Grendel set out to change the reader’s perception of Grendel and his role in Beowulf by narrating the story through Grendel’s point of view. John Gardner transforms the perceived terrible evil fiend who is Grendel into a lonely but intelligent outcast who bears a striking resemblance to his human adversaries. In Grendel, John Gardner portrays Grendel as an intelligent being capable of rational thought as well as displaying outbursts of emotion. He portrays Grendel as a hurt individual and as a victim of oppression ostracized from civilization. The author of Beowulf portrays Grendel as the typical monster archetype as compared to John Gardner’s representation of Grendel as an outcast archetype.
Since Beowulf is the hero of the epic, the words used to describe him are positive and strong, for example, “marvelous tales” (379), “hero” (399) “fine-forged mesh” “gleaming” (400). In contrast, when Grendel is being discussed he gets negative words such as, “gruesome day” (442), “glut himself.”(443) “gorged and bloodied” (447) “gloating with my raw corpse … in a cruel frenzy, fouling his moor-nest” (447-450). This difference in language is done to show that Beowulf and Grendel are opposites of each other and to emphasize that Beowulf is a valiant hero while Grendel is a malicious monster. Another difference in language is that Beowulf is depicted as God’s champion, while Grendel is like a demon who opposes God’s will. Beowulf shows his affiliation with God by using speech like, “Heaven’s dome” (414) and “just judgement by God” (441). His connection with God is shown in the fact that Hrothgar says was sent by God to Heorot to defeat Grendel. Grendel is portrayed as some demonic presence because Beowulf has to “purify” (431) Heorot from