Suspense In Grendel

In the novel Grendel by John Gardner, the reader sees Grendel encounter many unexpected people and events. Gardner’s writing style throughout the novel incorporates the building of suspense at certain points, and its purpose is to make these encounters unexpected to the reader. This specific passage takes place when Grendel sees new visitors arrive who later turn out to be a group of men led by Beowulf who have come to help the locals get rid of Grendel once and for all. This passage builds suspense through shifts in tone, shifts in Grendel’s positioning and movement, and the use of shorter sentences towards the end of the passage. The tone in the passage does not stay the same throughout as it experiences three shifts which work together …show more content…
These short sentences quicken the pace of the passage, leaving the reader little information and context to make inferences about the rest of the text, thus building suspense. After Grendel tells the reader through inner dialogue that he has made it down to the “rocky sea-wall”, the first very short sentence shows up (23-24). The words “low tide” written as a sentence at this point do not tell the reader what is actually happening, but achieve the goal of setting the scene to accompany the ominous tone at this point (24). The last two lines of the passage contain two more short sentences that leave the reader with suspense. The first, “the sky grew light at my back” (29) portrays that something unexpected will hit Grendel in the future as Grendel cannot necessarily see what is happening behind his back. Additionally, it stands alone instead of being combined with the last line of the passage “Then I saw the sail.” (29-30) The break between these two sentences that could have been combined to make more grammatical sense represents the increase in pace and stimulates anticipation within the reader to find out what Grendel is seeing as they are no longer getting any inner dialogue from him. The quickened pace and choppiness of these last few short sentences conveys foreshadowing of an event that the reader is not certain …show more content…
The suspense built in this passage is significant to the rest of the novel, as the leader of the group that arrives is Beowulf and the assailant of Grendel in the end. The suspense makes this tragic event even more unexpected for the reader, and thus increasing its emphasis and power. The shifts in tone dictate Grendel inner emotions and feelings even when the reader does not know them explicitly. Changing positions of Grendel throughout the passage foreshadow taking initiative yet uncertainty of that initiative by Grendel standing up and going outside just to make himself small again. Lastly, the short sentences at the end of the passage quicken the pace and lack the context the reader needs to determine the outside setting and who the glorious heroes really