Grendel

A detailed Summary of Grendel

In the epic poem Beowulf, Monsters play a big role in what the main hero has to gain or lose, whether it is a friend or even his life. But hey also play an more personal role than what the original dialogue states about them. In the epic, then monster are seen as an evil presence that brings a

Grendel is seen as pure evil and nothing more. The epic poem just shows him as a monster who needs to be killed. In John Gardner’s novel, Grendel, the monster is showed as bringing good things through his evil, like art and poetry. Grendel is also depressed and confused. He is confused about how he should view life. Grendel, as shown in John Gardneris novel, is a story of the struggle of good versus evil. John Gardner shows that neither good can not exist without evil. Just like beauty and ugliness, good and evil are only definitely in contrast of one another. In Grendel, Gardner describes this concept with a confused and depressed monster and the society of humans he terrorizes. He can either view life like the dragon or like the humans that he kill. This problem makes Grendel go on his rampages and kill the humans. He wants to view life as the humans at times because of the Sharper. The Shar

2. Raffel, Burton. (Trans. ) Beowulf. New York: New American Library, 1963

Gardner does not justify Grendel's murderous nature in these selections from his novel Grendel. Perhaps if the monster had intent when he killed, his actions would have been more justifiable. Under these circumstances, Grendel had no purpose for his actions, and cannot be deemed guiltless for his crimes.

expected this evil of him and they wanted him to be a monster. The humans needed Grendel and they pushed him to be the monster that he is.

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in Grendel that he does not like and he goes on his rampages. Then at other times he wants to get the knowledge of the dragon and he goes on his rampages of the human village because he can’t have this knowledge. When the dragon and Grendel meet, the dragon tell Grendel something that changes his outlook and in a way gives him self-confidence. The dragon tells Grendel that he stimulates the humans and inspires their poetry and art. He is telling Grendel that you are evil and they are good, but they are good because of you. Grendel's evil motivates the fearful people to work, to strive, to think, and to overcome their problems. The humans need Grendel and they pushed him to be the monster that he is. Grendel is actually producing good. Amazingly, he manages to be both evil and good at the same time.

In addition to the music, their overall beliefs contributed to Grendelis complete hatred to the population of Herot. Grendel seemingly believed that pure carnage and destruction was his only way for communicating. Herot and its people expressed their thoughts, feelings, and personalities through music, laughter, and dance. However, Grendel, whose hatred had known no other, had to express his thoughts in his own way. Lines 29-35 showed how the poet concurred this belief, ìÖdarkness had dropped, Grendel/ Went up to HerotÖThe monsteris/ Thoughts were as quick as his greed as his claws.î This passage from Beowulf expresses and explains how Grendel shows his thoughts differently then the people of Herot. Sure, it was at complete opposites of the continuum, but crazy enough as it seemed to be, that is the way Grendel expressed himself. When he slaughtered those thirty men in Herot, it gave Grendel great joy. However, next morning when the remaining residents of Herot found !

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Approximate Word count = 2260
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English