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Narrative techniques
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In the novel, Grendel by John Gardner, Grendel, the protagonist, suffers the pain of isolation. He is ignored by many animals, too incompetent for him. He is considered an enemy by some animals such as the bull and humans. He is only accepted by his mother and his imaginary friends. Grendel finds ways to make light of this. He curiously observes everything and appreciates it for some time. Until he realizes it's a pattern, a chaotic repetition of itself. Grendel finds many truths from observing yet is conflicted when the Shaper comes along. The Shaper tells tales that are so convincing and draw in anyone listening, including Grendel. Although he knows that the Shaper is wrong, he can't resist the stories meaning. As he is ashamed of himself …show more content…
He discovers this when he is stuck in a tree. He cannot escape from the hold it has on him and experiences excruciating pain. He screams and bellows for his mother, but she doesn't come to him. Soon a bull approaches him, in an attempt to defend his new-born calf that Grendel was venturing for. Grendel tries to scare away the bull by howling at the bull but it ignores Grendel and gets ready to charge. The first charge rips through Grendel's knee before the bull smashes it's head into the tree. Grendel realizes that the bull struck too low. After the second charge, which also tears through Grendel's knee, he notices a pattern going on. The bull is charging low and will always charge low because it attacks on blind instict. “He'd struck too low, and even in my terror I understood that he would always strike too low: he fought by instinct, blind mechanism ages old. He'd have fought the same way against an earthquake or an eagle: I had nothing to fear from his wrath but that twisting horn. The next time he charged I kept my eye on it, watched that horn with as much concentration as I'd have watched the rims of a crevasse I was leaping, and at hust the right instant I flinched. Nothing touched me but the breeze as the horn flipped past.”(Grendel
In the book, Grendel by John Gardner, Grendel shows that existentialism is significant in his life. Many of his decisions are based on the thought of whether they have a meaning behind it or not. He tries to be nihilistic and think that the world has no meaning but he ends up being existentialist as he cares about how his choices will be perceived. There are different characters that have existentialism in their lives which allows them to function throughout their world. This book promotes existentialism because the different main characters take on their unique roles throughout the book and create their own meaning.
...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.
Grendel varies from the simple, childish tone of "'Why can't I have someone to talk to? The Shaper has people to talk to'" (53) to the dense philosophical metaphors and complex diction of Grendel's conversation with the dragon. Gardener gives Grendel a purposefully guileless voice to illustrate both the monster's feelings of lost youth as well as his progression into a more sentient being.
John Gardner’s Grendel brings a new perspective to the the way the story of Beowulf is told and interpreted. (Grendel’s ability to be influenced by the multiple sources around him changes his outlook on life. It also changes the reader’s ideas of who Grendel is as a character as he develops and changes in the book.) Grendel’s ability to be influenced with ease by multiple characters throughout the book shows his true adolescence and nature to follow others. These multiple characters such as the Dragon, the Shaper, and Wealtheow all are able to use their propaganda to instill into Grendel a new value or trait. Grendel’s adolescence therefore results in multiple sources of propaganda being so influential on him as a character. (is the reason why propaganda from many different sources influences him so heavily.)
This ‘beast’, the protagonist of the story, fights an internal struggle, of which is a part of the Hero’s Journey. 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 the beginning of the novel, surrounded by mindless eyes, he states, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident. So may you all.” (Grendel, John Gardner, pg.174) Previous to this, he questions if what he is feeling is joy. The reader is lead to believe that Grendel must feel nothing but peace. This, is the concluding moment of his
In John Gardner’s Grendel, the Shaper is an important contributing character that carries the plot in a historical sense. During the first encounter between the monster and the humans, Grendel hears of the stories and tales the Shaper is singing about in Hrothgar’s mead-hall. Throughout the story the Shaper tells about Danish history and the creation of man’s existence and Grendel is fascinated by this. After listening to the Shaper’s stories, Grendel starts to realize that what he is saying is not true, “I too crept away, my mind aswim in ringing phrases, magnificent, golden, and all of them, incredibly, lies,” and starts to question what is true and what is not (Gardner 43). The Shaper’s eloquent tales had a large effect on Grendel, “He told of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the world between darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark side...I believed him! Such was the power of the Shaper's harp!” (Gardner 52). Gardner’s writing of Grendel sheds light on a whole new side of Grendel, as opposed to the monstrous being in Beowulf; so much so that we can see a divide in G...
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 outcast, an identity relating to nearly every humanistic myth or story, represents the tragic creature Grendel. A giant beast with the intellectual equivalence of a human, Grendel lives nearly half his life before realizin...
Many of the characters in Grendel have direction and purpose in their lives. Wealtheow is self- sacrificing, and Hrothgar is out for personal glory. Unferth and Beowulf spend their lives trying to become great heroes so that their names may outlast their flesh. The dragon believed in nihilism, and the Shaper used his imagination to create something to believe in. Some of the characters’ philosophies may not have been commendable, but Grendel could not find any direction or purpose for his life whatsoever. Grendel looked for the intervention of a power higher than himself to lay the truths of the world upon him, an experience that the Romantics would characterize as an experience of the sublime. John Gardner portrays Grendel as someone who wants to find a philosophy, whether his own or someone else’s, that fits him and gives him an identity or a reason to live. By looking at the text from this perspective we can see how Gardner believes people should pursue, or rather, embrace a power greater than themselves.
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.
Most authors, occasionally uses their characters to guide their personal views they want to emphasize to their audience. In the novel, Grendel written by John Gardner, Gardner uses Grendel as an agent to portray his perspective of the evil and corrupt world of humans and their place in the universe. Gardner not only uses Grendel as a vehicle, but also uses the Dragon as another source to express his opinions of people in the world. Gardner can be considered as an isolated human being, who is kept away from the affection of others; Grendel and Gardner can be closely related due to the fact that Gardner is embodied as Grendel in a more dimensional aspect. They both seem to contain repugnant thoughts towards the world they are “forced” to live in. The Dragon supports Gardner’s statement by going against the Shaper’s stories, by telling Grendel that life seems to possess no meaning and every story the Shaper tells is to alter the people’s attitudes. While Grendel is conversing with the Dragon, the Dragon mocks the Shaper, “[He] provides an illusion of reality- puts together all their facts with gluey whine of connectedness. [...] But he spins it all together with harp runs and hoots, and they think what they think is alive, think Heaven loves them” (Pg. 65). This proves that humans are weak-minded and are easily persuaded into faulty stories; this puts humans into a low ranking scale of morality. Through Grendel’s observation of Hrothgar’s kingdom, is also considered a source of perspective. Grendel witnesses Wealtheow being used as a balance of harmony between the two rivaling families, the Danes and the Helmings. As Grendel spies on them he thinks to himself, “But she was beautiful and she surrendered herself with the dignity of a s...
One thing that influences perception of reality that is initially explored in Grendel are words. This is demonstrated when Grendel secretly listens to the poem sung by the shaper, who is a blind court bard who sings poems with the harp, and sees how the people are
I shrieked at them, trying to scare them off, but they merely ducked behind bushes and took long sticks from the saddles of their horses, bows and javelins. … I'd never howled more loudly in my life. Darts like hot coals went through my legs and arms and I howled more loudly still. (27)
He is damaged psychologically and is basically put on exile by his own nature. As more humans appear to colonize within the area, Grendel meets a blind poet he calls “ the shaper” who tells the story of a man named Scyld Shefing, however being a myth Grendel is confused becomes hysterical and flees. When Grendel gets back to his cave he attempts to speak to his mother again and fails. This leads him to feel even more lonely and falls through the sea where he meets a dragon with a different philosophical view of fatalism. He shares with Grendel this view and Grendel again becomes hysterical. So it seems that when someone eventually does communicate with Grendel he is even more confused. Especially when someone has a different ideology, Grendel enters into a state of denial and
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