Comparing Grendel And Marry Shelly's Monster

Improved Essays
Contrast and Compare Essay
John Gardner’s Grendel and Marry Shelly’s the Monster

Just like you and me, we all have feelings. Weather we feel hungry, upset, frustrated, excited, lonely, or misunderstood. However, we sometimes people forget that even other beings have feelings. We aren’t the only ones who can feel lonely or misunderstood. John Gardner’s “Grendel” and Marry Shelly’s “Monster” are the perfect examples of how we go based off of what we see and not how the person or being is, someone great once said “Never judge a book by its cover, judge it by the quality of its context”. So both these characters are the main examples of how we judged and made them feel lonely and misunderstood. Both Grendel and the monster are very much like

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Those characters are the Shaper and Beowulf. The Shaper had an affirmative impact on Grendel because he made Grendel question everything that he had learned from the dragon. Every time Grendel heard the music of the Shaper, he would almost be under a spell. The music that the Shaper played made life seem hopeful; as a result, Grendel would begin to believe that life was worthy of his time whenever he would hear the Shaper play, which was relatively often. The Shaper was somewhat the opposite of the dragon, because although he and Grendel never spoke in person, he gave him ideas that life was not as bad as the dragon made it seem.…

    • 1142 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Gardner’s novel, Grendel, is about much more than the story of a classic epic told through the eyes of its monster. Instead, it dives into complex ideas about the balance between order and disorder, sanity and insanity, and the quest for an individual to find his or her purpose in the world. In her article titled “John Gardner’s Order and Disorder: Grendel and The Sunlight Dialogues”, Judy Smith Murr discusses such ideas, focusing most strongly on the representations of order and chaos in the novels, and how they fuse together to produce varying effects. A second article, “‘You improve them, my boy!’ :…

    • 870 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author also describes how Grendel makes his home a hell on earth, also characterizing him as a demon. Power is seen in Grendel because of all the panic he creates. Satan, from Paradise Lost, is similar to Grendel in the way of being able to change peoples’ mindsets and possess fear in them. Another way Grendel and Satan from Paradise Lost can be compared is that they both have the same motives.…

    • 815 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Greed And Envy In Beowulf

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Grendel is driven by envy and is triggered by the sounds of human joy. The dragon is only following its nature when it goes into the cave and rests on the hidden treasure. The author clearly presents greed and envy as innate qualities of these two monstrous beasts and directly associates both of them with evil. Ultimately, both monsters are defeated by Beowulf who is depicted as a good servant of God throughout the story. Once again suggesting that faith in God will prevail.…

    • 505 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Transition In Frankenstein

    • 1723 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Explore the ways in which Shelley explores the transition of the monster between Chapters 11 and 17 In the beginning in Chapter 11, the monster is portrayed as an infant or a baby. “[He] knew and could distinguish nothing”, this demonstrates his lack of awareness for his surroundings mirroring the actions and mind-set of a new-born. They have no ability/are not alert of their capability to hear, see, speak and smell. As a result they are highlighted as vulnerable.…

    • 1723 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Prolonged isolation affects essentially all parts of a person’s existence, compassion through the companionship of other humans is necessary for a person’s development and stability. Incidentally, in Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein,” the creature protagonist is abandoned at the start of his life. The reader then learns of the many struggles the creature faced in his forced isolation and the effect it has had on the creature. The creature yearns for companionship to cure his loneliness. Shelley displays how this isolation shapes the creature and influences his actions.…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The deviations occur when considering the writer each one. In the book, Grendel’s perspective is shown. In John Gardner’s adaptation, the leading theme is “humanity”. Grendel is shown as a lonely adolescent going through…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The dilemma, however, is that no matter where Grendel goes, he will surely continue to be feared and despised. Grendel is cursed with the misfortune of being different. This misfortune is one of many causes of Grendel’s evil tendencies. Grendel even asks the stars, “Why can’t I have someone to talk to? . . . The Shaper has people to talk to, Hrothgar has people to talk to” (Gardner 53).…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Monsters The Frankenstein and Grendel novels, both contain the stories of some of literature’s most famous monsters. The characters in these stories exist to remind the world of the pain that stems from rejection and of the consequences of that pain. Grendel and the “Monster” from Frankenstein explored the realms of men in search of acceptance from them and were both met with cruel rejection. Although their stories were written during different time periods, both characters share many characteristics, story elements and overall themes.…

    • 1404 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grendel's Tragic Hero

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Grendel is a victim of fate and circumstance in that…

    • 760 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Grendel, by John Gardner, follows the story of a bestial creature named Grendel and his experiences with his human enemies. Undeniably, Grendel and the Danes are connected in some way, using each other in order to properly define themselves and explain their meaning in life. The mutual dependence of Grendel and the humans highlights the similarities between the seemingly two different species. However, when taking a closer look, Grendel and the humans are more similar than different. Grendel, despite his monster-like physical attributes, and maniacal actions towards humans, is more human than monster.…

    • 1638 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Grendel Character Analysis

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Grendel is at first, a creature who empathizes for his pain. It causes the reader to question the good and evil; whether the men are the heroes and Grendel is the monster, or if Men are the true horrors. Grendel is just a poorly misunderstood character, but due to the way society treated him, he slowly grew into the monster known as the Wreaker of Meadhalls. One can see that in the beginning, Grendel is a pathetic creature just looking for someone to understand him and to talk to him. But the men do not give him any of that; they abuse and misjudge him.…

    • 1570 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    "All men hate the wretched; how then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all living things! Yet you my created detest and spurn me, thy creature, to whom thou art bond by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of one of us." The monster explained to Frankenstein that he has no friends and was lonely and his quest in life was companionship and understanding. He said, "It is my loneliness that made me savage." Frankenstein heard his voice and it scared him; he saw his reflection and it frightened him.…

    • 1054 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 3 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    As humans, we tend to have unintentionally developed preconceptions in which we place entities into groups with other entities that share interests and understanding. In a world where these groups have unspoken norms, conventions, and regularities, people often tend to shy away from what they do not know or understand—that which they have no preconception of. Humans by nature assume and judge that which is different before ever actually attempting to understand not only what those differences are, but also recognizing how these differences could be a benefit to society. In the novels Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, each author presents the reader with figures that society deems different,…

    • 1400 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reading novels can lead to the encountering of interesting characters that invite an individual’s empathy and understanding. However, a person with limited knowledge or experience in a set of circumstances can defer them from the ability to empathise with others, leaving them frustrated towards a particular character. In “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime” written by Mark Haddon, explores the need to understand to a certain extent in order to empathise with others. Haddon, challenges readers to accept other’s opinions through viewing their unique perspective. Fundamentally, an individual will always come across characters that connections can easily be built with, whilst, there are other characters that will be questionable because…

    • 1063 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays