John Gardner's Grendel: The Differences Between Good And Evil

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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”.
Grendel does not love, at least not in the way humans do. One could make the argument that he loves Wealthlow, but all signs point to the fact that this is just mere infatuation. Grendel doesn't love her. He's …show more content…

He kills people because he enjoys it. Evidence of this can be found in an abundance throughout the novel. “An evil idea came over me-so evil they it made me shiver as I smiled-and I sidled across to the table.” (Gardner 83-84) This is the point in the story when Grendel is torturing Unferth. He's enjoying himself, smiling. The one time it would have been merciful for him to kill he refuses to do so. This scene can without a doubt prove that Grendel’s intentions are not for the best. He's not terrorizing the humans to “improve their lives”. He's doing it because it's fun to him. The reader can already see that Grendel doesn't care about the humans, so why would he ravage their town to improve their society? The only reasonable answer as to why Grendel does what he does is because he enjoys …show more content…

Perhaps he would actually like to live a normal life with the humans. “Some evil inside myself pushed out into the trees, I knew what I knew, the mindless, mechanical bruteness of things, and when the harper’s lure drew my mind away from hopeful dreams, the dark of what was and always was reached out and snatched my feet.” (Gardner 54) It seems as though Grendel would like to change things if he could, but some outside force will not allow it. Even if this is true, Grendel is still inherently evil. Despite whatever dreams he may have. The reader simply cannot ignore the fact that he still does evil deeds with evil intentions. He is seemingly unable to feel love, or at least disinterested in it. He enjoys torturing and killing humans and rarely shows mercy. Due to these facts, it is impossible to say Grendel is a hero in this

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