Grendel

monster that harasses the mead-hall of King Hrothgar, leader of the Danes. Beowulf presents the monster, Grendel, as a horrific beast but by the 20th century, after hundreds of years of storytelling, his character seemingly evolves into a young, confused boy with psychological issues. The novel Grendel, written in 1971 by John Gardner, is a first person account from Grendel’s viewpoint. Grendel presents a different perspective than that in Beowulf because Gardner dives deeper into the psychology…

Beowulf and Grendel: Modern Storytelling Readers in the new age need more than simply black and white detailed heroes or villains that simply symbolize a battle between what they deem good and what they deem evil within their stories. They demand heroes with vulnerabilities, to see how the characters learns valuable lessons and how they change from beginning to end, how certain characters affect their character through their journey, and a plot that really excites the viewer through emotional…

uses Beowulf and Grendel to embody the forces of good and evil. Beowulf and Grendel each have characteristics that represent either force. Since Beowulf has many heroic characteristics, he is considered to be the work 's hero. Putz defines a hero as, “...someone who is willing to sacrifice his life for someone and that is what Beowulf does in every battle” (Putz 1). According to Bloom, the characteristics that make Beowulf a hero are his strength,…

“Malignant by nature, he never showed fear” (Heaney 137). Grendel, a disfigured, murderous beast roams the shadows of Heorot with his “monstrous hell bride” (1259) of a mother. To the people of Heorot, they are both outcasts, forbidden from living a normal life amongst civilization. This has been the case for as both Grendel and his mother have lived on the Earth, due to a God-cursed history leading to the birth of Grendel. That curse has led both of Heorot’s monsters to be separated from…

When people who have read the novel Grendel and hear his name, they have connotations such as evil, monstrous, and emotionless. The character in John Gardner’s novel is more developed than the character in the epic poem Beowulf because of the compassion he evokes in the reader, the use of first person point of view, and the way he is portrayed by other characters in the story. Due to the use of first person point of view throughout the whole Novel, Gardner gives the readers an insight of…

there is always a stronger opponent out there and some day that opponent is going to be the one to end their lives. I argue this because you see characters like Grendel, Hrothgar, Beowulf and Beowulf’s men face their own mortality. To begin with, the character Grendel is one of the first characters to experience his own mortality. Grendel is a demon who terrorizes King Hrothgar’s mead hall because he hears the king’s men singing songs about God which angers…

the exploits of bloodthirsty monsters, more specifically, Grendel. Grendel enjoyed murdering danes within the mead hall of Herot. He ravaged the danes relentlessly with no repercussions for decades. This was done as he is an outcast due to being a descendant of the biblical evil character of Cain. As a result of his ancestry, Grendel had been “banished by God” (20). He was being punished for Cain’s murder of his brother, Abel. Grendel…

battles in the story, one with Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and a dragon. Beowulf prepared differently for each battle, and each battle had a different outcome, except that Beowulf killed each of the three monsters that he had fought. Beowulf went to Heorot to fight Grendel, the monster that had been terrorizing the Danes, because he thought that he was the only one that could kill the monster and decided to prove that he could kill Grendel. Before the battle with Grendel, the Geats that…

Gardner allows us to understand the motivations and fears of Grendel, who was the main antagonist in Beowulf, in his novel Grendel. As the story elucidates the emotionally scarring events that lead Grendel into an existential crisis, the reader is captivated and led through reflecting on their own actions and how events in their own past may have influenced them as well. Grendel by John Gardner guides the reader through the story of Grendel and his war with Hothragar over the last 12 years.…

rescued from damnation by Grendel (395-396). Of course King Hrothgar and Beowulf have known each other since childhood, but Beowulf gives the people hope, or at least relief in that they do not have to deal with Grendel anymore now that he has presented himself to Heorot. Beowulf leaves the conflict between him and Grendel to fate, and he does not consider that “this Grendel envisions himself as something of an innocent victim” (Bauers).When Beowulf meets and fights Grendel, Beowulf sets out to…