Theme Of Darkness In Grendel

John Gardner’s novel Grendel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil. The motif of darkness is repeatedly applied to symbolize the old life of Grendel and to contrast the forces of good and evil, heaven and hell. This use of darkness exposes Grendel’s depression in his youth, and his need to make everything in life appear better than it was. This realization of Grendel’s characteristics uncovers the true personality and the traumatic experience that haunts him.

The motif of darkness helps Gardner to emphasize Grendel’s old life. In Grendel’s old life, he is depicted as a monster who lives in a dark and gruesome underground cave with his mother and dozens of cold, unmoving creatures. Seeing the larger world after entering human society, he is constantly reminded of how he can never fully possess or participate in the hopeful and beautiful things, though he can clearly lift his mind to them. And that makes him bitter. The motif of darkness is identified to symbolize the evil resides within himself that haunts him since his

childhood. Thus, reader’s attention are drawn back to Grendel’s old dark life of childhood. The darkness has triggered Grendel to believe the world is all pointless accident, to become a beast by killing people, to despise against human.

Gardner also uses recurring motif of darkness to resemble Grendel’s inner characteristics that fighting with human is what he has to do to gain what has been lost within himself, even with guilty. Grendel is everything humans despise. He acts the opposite of everything humans want to believe, what humans want to see, which seems like a “dark side” to human. However, Gardner digs deeper into why Grendel acts like an evil by depicting the recurring image of the darkness inside him. There is no support for Grendel; there is no one to vouch for his existence, his values and intentions. He only wants to exist in the human world, but he is stuck with reality that he doesn’t belong to human beings no matter how hard he tried. By indicating the darkness within his characteristics, Gardner depicts Grendel’s loneliness and remoteness to the next step.

The author makes the motif of darkness relate to the lives of human.

Even though Grandel wants to assimilate into human society in all its pride and glory, he is misunderstood, he is the other. He is stuck with the truth that he can never be anything more than a villain in the human world, and that all humans are terrified of him and hate him, and nothing that he can ever say or do will change that fact. Through the moments of pleasure found in Grendel's humanness and hope, and the contrasting moments of uneasiness and hopelessness, we can see the different sides of the a creature -- light and darkness. In the novel, Grendel defines the humans as the "evil" ones simply by bringing out the true nature of humanity. The author use the motif of darkness to indicate the evil within human’s mind and to contrast the similar darkness in all creatures, both monsters and

human-beings.

It’s obvious that the darkness as a motif guides the entire novel. By symbolizing Grendel’s past life, representing his inner character, and relating Grendel to human beings, Gardner makes the motif of darkness vividly understandable by the readers. Without the darkness, Grendel would not be Grendel, and the novel would hit nowhere to deal with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil.