Beogrend

Samuel Garcia
Dual-Credit English
3rd Period
Beowulf/Grendel - Grendel

      The portrayal of Grendel in John Gardner’s novel is different than Burton Raffel’s translation of Beowulf. Grendel appears to be a humanoid; neither specify exactly what Grendel is. Only small hints are given. Grendel stands walks the earth on two, is hairy, and somewhat mad.
      The poem portrays Grendel as a mindless monster. In Beowulf "the monster stepped on the bright paved floor, crazed with evil anger; from his strange eyes an ugly light shone out like fire" (Beowulf line 725),   would make one think that Grendel has a limited thought process and perhaps relies on basic instinct.
        This is a great contrast to Gardner’s depiction of Grendel toward the beginning of his novel. In it he walks aimlessly yet peacefully among nature. When he crosses paths with a female deer she stares at him with horrific disbelief, before she runs off. Through the poem’s depiction of Grendel, one would assume that Grendel would have ruthlessly killed the poor doe. Yet, in Gardner’s novel, Grendel is not upset that she ran away but the reason for her action. He states, "Blind Prejudice" (Gardner p.7) for the reason. If only she knew he has, “never killed a deer… and never will." (Gardner p.8)
      Gardner also depicts Grendel as somewhat a lost entity. His solitude allows him to think about his role among the living. One question he plagued his mother was "why are we here?" (Gardner p.11) The dragon directly tells him, "You are mankind, or man's condition" (Gardner p.73), though Grendel had no clue to the meaning of these words. Grendel leaves the dragon with all the answers he sought with no comprehension to their meaning.
        Grendel is further portrayed as an evil, mindless monster during the event of his demise in Raffel’s translation of Beowulf. The poem says, "Then his heart laughed; evil monster,   he thought he would take the life from each body… the gluttonous thought of a...