Grendel Psychoanalytic Analysis

In my opinion, the Dragon is Grendel’s biggest influence. It started with the Shaper’s songs in Chapter 3, the song made Grendel felt like he was torn apart by poetry, even all of them are lies but the Shaper made it all seem true. His mind was confused between the lies and the truth that he knew. With that problem, the Dragon is the one who explained everything he knew to Grendel. After Grendel talked with the Dragon and discovered the charm that the Dragon put on him, Grendel started to change himself into what that Dragon encouraged him to be “brute existent”. As a creature who living in the world for a long time, I think the Dragon knows that no matter how Grendel try to be friendly with human, human will never accept him as a friend so

Grendel in the novel knows he is a fright to people, he is danger. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with that, but at the same time is not proud of it, either. He does like the pain of others, preferably king Hrothgar and his men. He attacks his mead-hall, Heorot every evening. Grendel seems to be killing and torturing the Danes for fun, and they want revenge.

Grendel, when first meeting the wise and old dragon learned how the humans felt when he had confronted them. The Dragon explained that the fear is "how they feel when they see" him (Gardner 60). Grendel felt a little shame, so for the first time, considered how they, the humans, must have felt after seeing a strange creature. Out of guilt, he wants to no longer wants scare them for pleasure or for sport; he only wants to eat the occasional few, so they will not starve from overpopulation. His brief thoughts and consideration of the human 's feeling reveal how sensitive and "humane" he really was. Furthermore, early in the novel, Grendel learns of a man, known as the Shaper, who sings to entertain the folks in the Mead Halls. The Shaper sings of all sorts of stories and myths to give the people hope of something greater in the next life. He also sang of Grendel 's kind, which is "the terrible race God cursed" (Gardner 51). Grendel desperately wanted to believe this; he wanted to be part of the cursed creatures that are offsprings of Cain. This may give him some sort of purpose in life. Additionally, the human that he had a "relationship", which that affected him the most, was with Hrothgar 's wife, Wealhtheow. Grendel had seen Wealhtheow when her brother, Hrothgar 's rival, wanted to make peace, so he offered Wealhtheow as his peace offering. There was no real relationship that developed between them, but, like with the Shaper, Grendel got obsessed. Her beauty made him temporarily stop the slaughter of innocent humans. Her presence made him rethink about what he was doing. He felt that she was on a higher class and was greater than himself. All he wanted, at least for that moment, was to do anything to please her. His whole psyche changed for, and he began to stalk her constantly because he was hypnotized by her beauty.

When Grendel was younger, he was a curious creature who was intrigued but terrified of the outside world. The first person viewpoint of the story allows us to see how the way the humans treated Grendel took away his innocence and isolated him. Grendel’s innocence when he was younger is shown throughout the beginning of the story, “ One morning I caught my foot in the crack where two trees joined. “Mama!” I was out much later than I'd meant to be” (Gardner 18). Grendel is out exploring the world and got his foot caught in a branch and is crying for his mother. Seeing this event from

Always we portray Grendel as the monster and destructive character. However, in the novel by John Gardner that is a different case. We see Grendel as a emotional and sympathetic character. For example, Grendel states, “It wasn 't because he threw that battle-ax that I turned on Hrothgar. That was mere midnight foolishness... It wasn 't until later, when I was full-grown and Hrothgar was an old, old man, that I settled my soul on destroying him—slowly and cruelly” (Gardner 30). This quote is justifying that fact that Grendel is not such a monster and his actions were mere foolishness. So to elaborate even though Grendel maybe destructive he doesn 't do the things he doesn 't do these things for fun or to be devious he is just foolish. He really doesn 't want to actually hurt anyone. Another example that Grendel is not a monster is that he states in the novel, “And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war. The pain of it! The stupidity!” (Gardner 5). This quote is very straightforward and simple although we can get so much from it. For instance, this quote is conveying that Grendel hates fighting with the humans and he is suffering from it. This is because the war causes him to have so much pain with the humans. The last example that Grendel is not truly a monster is that Grendel states in the novel, “I would feel, all at once, alone and ugly, almost—as if I 'd dirtied myself—obscene.

When talking about Grendel, he pretty much goes through a few stages as a little kid and to how he is at the moment. As a kid, Grendel was mostly innocent when he pondered and wandered around his own world that was also an unknown for him, such as the universe. In his “prime”, he discovers a lake of fire snakes, that is full of danger and just treacherous. When he crosses this lake, it shows that he is going into adulthood, pretty much. Also how the encounters has been making impacts on Grendel and changing his personality. Like Beowulf, the shaper, and the dragon.

To begin with , Grendel seemed to be a creature of free will, there are a number of things to take into consideration ,the first and most important being a matter of his birth .Being born a monster put him at a disadvantage where his appearance was put before almost everything else . Grendel was often judged on his appearance as seen with the reactions of almost everyone who saw him . He often tries to choose his own fate but seems to hold

Grendel takes his loss out on the people, by hurting them. His actions speak for his words, “two nights later I went back. I was addicted. The Shaper was singing the glorious deeds of the dead men, praising war. He sang how they'd fought me. It was all lies” (Gardner 54). It is obvious Grendel suffers the physical pain of being alone, and he gets addictive to hurting others due to his sadness. The more Grendel hears about people getting along he hates them and wants to fight them, because he can not have that. Grendel actions speak louder than his words when conveys his anger against the world. In the quote Grendel portrays this is what he does when he says, “It's all I have, my only weapon for smashing through these stiff coffin-walls of the world” (Gardner 123). Grendel’s only thing he has is his power to beat things up and kill things that are happy unlike him. He is an upset person who is jealous of people that are

In their respective novels, the monster from Frankenstein and Grendel from the novel share many similarities as well as differences that can be seen throughout their separate novels. While the number of differences between the two novels are abundant, we will mostly be looking at how each of these two complex novels are similar to each other. In focusing on their similarities we look at how they both feel alone and isolated, they both want companionship, and they both are at times enticed by humanity.

This time however, he is swept away by a person name the Shaper, who Grendel is ultimately scared of, because of the fact that the shaper is very good at changing the view of people very easily. During this same period, Grendel started to become more violent as well, first by attacking the humans. Grendel didn’t like the way Hrothgar lived and made the Mead Hall and in response, Grendel started to attack it at night. He killed anyone and everything that came into his sight, and even ate the humans. Grendel now became a real threat to the humans, which inevitably changed his status from sinister to pure

Grendel was a being sung about in the songs of the shaper, who twisted tales to fit his own means. In the song Grendel was made out to be a wretched monster, without intellect, who only sought to kill. This wasn’t the case entirely. Grendel was determined to enter society, to be a part of their gatherings, instead at every turn he was chased away, cursed, and attacked. He was only a monster to those in the mead hall, a beast who could never be a part of them. Society shunned him and, again, he was alone. Left to struggle with determining who he was and what his place was in the world. He had no self-identity, no idea as to who or what he was meant to be. Grendel seemed to only want to be accepted into society, to interact in their songs and gatherings. He would often ask, “Why can’t I have someone to talk to”. (Gardner 53) He had no friend to speak to, no companion to share in his woes. He became bitter, jealous, and enraged. His false portrayal and constant rejection never stopped him from adapting to society, evidently it did turn him down a dark and vengeful path. Just as it did for the Monster. When Frankenstein attempted to join society, he was rejected and chased out due to his differences, but he wasn’t as interested in joining the society as Grendel was. The monster was content staying away from humans until he happened upon the family of

Up until the end of Chapter 7, Grendel’s actions are influenced by the dragon.  He believes nothing matters, there is no good or bad, and everybody eventually dies. The people of Heort know Grendel as a monster and a killer and he lives up to his reputation. He says he can crush all the men in meadhall in a single night. Grendel states, ”My enemies define themselves...on me” (91).  But Grendel starts to question himself and realizes he needs humans as much as they need him.  Grendel thinks, “What will we call the Hrothgar-Wrecker when Hrothgar has been wrecked?” (91). While Grendel is thinking about what life will be like without him and the men of the meadhall, Wealtheow’s beauty charms Grendel. He says, “She was beautiful, as innocent as

He no longer has the undertone of a child, rather, more of a man going through hard times. He believes that the gods had defied him a “rejection of the gods that, for (his) part, (he’d) known all along to be lifeless sticks” (Gardner 52). Later when Grendel talks to the dragon, the dragon reminds Grendel of his true self, that “nothing interests him (except) excitement, violence.” (Gardner 67). While to an extent, this is true, there are some parts to this that isn’t true, otherwise Grendel could not be a dynamic character. Grendel has changed from a impressionable and inquisitive cynical monster in the beginning, to a grieving child of Cain, longing for purpose. From this, he then transitions into a very aggressive monster, attacking ruthlessly but not without thought. After Grendel meets Beowulf, another character that his once again influenced his thought killing him, he slowly dies and finally understands everything he’s gone through. His last lines “Poor Grendel's had an accident," (He) whispers. "So may you all.” is not exactly a curse, but a blessing (Gardner

In the beginning of Grendel, Grendel’s feelings towards the humans are more or less indifferent. He attacks humans from the mead hall but this is only in order to feed himself, he doesn’t perform needless killings unlike the humans do. Soon Grendel comes in contact with the Shaper where he hears him performing a son. Grendel is negatively

His mother is no longer able to mentally function as she never interacts with Grendel, and the humans he interacts with fear him, so he gets no real interaction from anyone. Consequently, Grendel describes himself as only existing and everything else is just imagination. Isolation takes a toll on the mentally of most people, so it isn’t illogical to assume that Grendel is breaking down from his seclusion. He is arguing with himself over his own thoughts as shown on page 3 of the novel: “Not, of course, that I fool myself with thoughts that I'm more noble. Pointless, ridiculous monster crouched in the shadows, stinking of dead men, murdered children, martyred cows. (I am neither proud nor ashamed, understand. One more dull victim, leering at seasons that were never meant to be observed.) ‘Ah, sad one, poor old freak!’” (Gardner 6). The reader gets insight on Grendel’s perceptions of himself. He is in conflict with the definition of existence. Grendel strongly believes that he has always been permanently an outsider; Grendel is unnatural, he is a killer since he has slaughtered numerous humans, and a creature that needs not exist at all. His mother’s muteness plays a major role as it was his fate to be isolated. Grendel, as the monster, must never feel affection since he is not a human, or “loving creature.” In the novel, Grendel visualizes moments where he doesn’t even know who