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Influences on Grendel’s Life
The epic poem Beowulf was the first ever poem wrote down on paper in English. In this poem Grendel has been attacking Hrothgars kingdom for 12 years. Every night Grendel goes to the mead hall and eats 30 men. Beowulf hears of the troubles and decides being the epic hero he is that he will take care of the problem himself. So he and 14 other men get on a ship and travel to where Grendel is. When he gets there he does not want to seem to Hrothgar that he thinks Hrothgar can’t handle the problem alone. So using one of his heroic qualities he gives a speech about how it is for his pride and his reputation. One night when he gets there he acts asleep as Grendel comes into the mead hall. Beowulf ceases Grendel and tears his arm off. Beowulf cannot use weapons because Grendel cannot be hurt by weapons due to a spell that was put on him. One Beowulf takes his arm he hangs it on the wall. This upsets Grendels mother and she comes to defend her son. She takes his arm back to her layer where Beowulf follows. When he gets there he kills her with he own sword. The story ends with Beowulf being killed by a dragon which he also kills.
John Gardner, the writer of Grendel believed that it was the artists or poets job to educate to ordinary people. This was because he thought artists saw the world different. In this novel he seems to portray someone as being monstrous if they thought that there was no meaning to life, no greater force than one’s self. In his book Grendel he explores many different ideas and philosophies in the world. He demonstrates theses through the inner struggles Grendel goes through and different characters he looks to for meaning in life. There are many characters that have e...
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... to. Grendel is very confused because the dragon and shaper have different ideas. The shaper also believes there is something bigger than oneself. He wants to buy into it but, it seems he thinks the people are hypocritical.
To conclude, John Gardner believes that it is the artist or the poet’s job to teach to the average person. In this story he goes through many different beliefs that people have. He shows all of these through the people Grendel look to for advice and guidance. By the end of the story one would believe that Gardner was not an extremely religious person. He however did believe in a higher force and wants people to know that life is not pointless. Grendel learns many things through the Shaper and the Dragon which are key to his decisions.
Work Cited
Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Random House, 1989
John Gardner's revolutionary style is not encompassed by a single genre; instead, he mixes first-person narrative and several different literary styles to give the "Ruiner of Meadhalls" a unique voice. The use of first-person narrative is essential to convey Grendel's spiritual growth. Were it not for Grendel's often self-deprecatory tone, which varies from mocking - "big shaggy monster intense and earnest, bent like a priest at his prayers" (72) - to bitter and cynical - "I, Grendel, was the dark side. The terrible race that God cursed" (51) - Grendel would be impossible to relate to. Even Grendel's bouts of insanity - (whispering, whispering. Grendel has it occurred to you my dear that you are crazy?)" are easily understood.
"'Pointless accident,' not pattern, governs the world, says Grendel, who, as a consequence, adopts an existentialistic stance," explains Frank Magill in Critical Review of Short Fiction. This point has been expressed in numerous critical papers by various essayists. One may wonder, however, whether this is the only way to interpret an incredibly ambiguous story in which no question is ever clearly answered nor clearly formulated. One may wonder, actually, whether the author meant for his work to be analyzed in this way at all. The author, John Gardner, spins a tale of a monster held viscously to his destiny of an unnatural death. No matter what Grendel does, his death is predetermined. Though he tries to disprove fate to himself by believing in existentialism, the belief that actions create the future, he never validates that point of view. John Gardner's purpose in writing Grendel was to express that the future is completely unavoidable.
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
It bears mentioning that Grendel was strongly influenced by the idea of nihilism, which means that he believed that nothing has meaning and everything in life was an accident. “Nevertheless, it was
Authors often have to choose between concentrating on either plot or social commentary when writing their novels; in John Gardener's Grendel, the plot becomes is a secondary consideration. Grendel's exploits provide the reader with a clear understanding of the strong opinions the author carries and can be seen clearly as a narrative supporting nihilism in its many forms. The reader easily perceives the blatant religious subtext in the guise of corrupt priests and the foolish faithful. The notion of the old being wise is unacceptable to Gardener along with any notion of hero idolization. Within his novel, Gardner expresses his views concerning religion, wisdom and nature.
One of the prevalent themes John Gardner mentions in the story of Grendel is that perceptions of reality between people are different. Gardner reveals to readers throughout the novel that words, events, experiences, and beliefs forge character’s realities. In Grendel perception of reality greatly affects people’s actions, their viewpoints towards life, and decisions. For example, Grendel’s perception of reality is that the world is solely mechanical and is created with his words.
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 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
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
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.
John Gardener’s Grendel is another version of the epic Beowulf, except in a differing perspective. This story is retold from the viewpoint of Grendel. Gardener wants us to empathize with Grendel through his own thoughts and emotions. The way one sees the monster in Beowulf is completely different than how one would think of him in Grendel. One is forced to view someone else’s opinion versus getting to form an opinion for oneself.
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
For ages, humanity has always told stories of the classic struggle between man and monster. The battle between Beowulf and Grendel is a prime example of this archetype, but is Grendel only purely a monster? In his article “Gardner’s Grendel and Beowulf: Humanizing the Monster”, Jay Ruud makes a point that Grendel is a hybridization of both monster and man, particularly in John Gardner’s novel Grendel. In the poem Beowulf, Grendel is depicted as a purely evil monster who terrorizes Hrothgar and his people, but the novel provides a more humanistic backstory to the fiend. Throughout the novel, Grendel tells of his internal struggle between his thoughts of filling the role of the monster versus attempting to make amends with the humans. This conflict
...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.