John Gardner's Grendel-Good Or Evil?

Grendel, the main character and antagonist of John Gardner’s book “Grendel”, is most certainly evil. Much of the textual evidence can point to Grendel possessing evil. Gardner does seem to show Grendel being evil, but also points out the evilness of the world making us question Grendel. Is he really evil when looking at the so called “protagonist” of this story? Of course, there may be contrary belief that Grendel does not possess an evil nature, but when using a standard principle in the world we live in today, evil can be found in abundance in this book. One piece of evidence that can indicate Grendel’s possession of evil is his relationship with Unferth starting in chapter 6. During this chapter Grendel realises that he has been charmed …show more content…
This can be seen once when he talks about how his killing them gives their lives purpose. At the end of chapter 6, once Unferth is left at the meadhall, he says “I laid him at the door of Hrothgar’s meadhall, still asleep, killed the two guards so I wouldn’t be misunderstood, and left”. He explains himself that he wants them to see him as a monster. He doesn’t want to be seen as the kind creature that left Unferth, he wants to be seen as the monster who killed the two guards. With this point of view, there will of course be an opposing argument. Some may say that this is what he has always known. He may have never been taught to act any differently. This may very well be true, but that doesn’t necessarily make it any more right than if a kid was raised to steal food his whole life. When that kid were to get caught he can’t just plead his case saying that he was raised stealing food; it would still be wrong. So just because he may not know any differently doesn’t make it less evil. Another argument that may arise is that he is just reflecting Hrothgar’s nature. Though Hrothgar may be seen as the protagonist, he is not necessarily all good either. When looking at it, him and Grendel really aren’t all that different. After all, they are both killing people. The only difference between the two is that Hrothgar is a human and …show more content…
One especially noticeable aspect that is present through every part of the book is Grendel’s loneliness. When looking at whether or not he has a presence of evil an argument may be brought up that his behavior isn’t evil because it spawns from his loneliness or something else that may have happened to him in his life. That’s just like saying that it’s okay for someone who has had a hard life to turn to drugs or alcohol to try and turn it around or feel good for once. Just because it spawns from something, doesn’t make it right or okay. However, just because he has this presence of evil doesn’t mean that we can’t sympathize for him. Gardner constantly uses his loneliness as a way for us to feel sympathy for him. He has been alone all his life. He can’t talk to his mom or the people. He has nobody, and Gardner really plays this into every aspect of the book so we can take pity on him because everyone has felt alone at some point and nobody likes it. It seems that Gardner also plays this loneliness as a sort of punishment throughout the book. We can look at his raids throughout the book, for example. During some of the raids he seems to be almost joyful, but in turn, this joy later turns to more loneliness once he finishes and leaves. A reader can also sympathize with this when looking back at their own lives and seeing how an action may have lead to the unwanted loneliness brought upon