'Brushstrokes Of A Gadfly': An Analysis

This is because the humans constantly attacked him and this made it easier for Grendel to be persuaded by the Dragon. Without mankind attacking, Grendel would not have so easily succumbed to the Dragon's words. One reason why mankind is most liable for Grendel's transformation is because of them constantly attacking Grendel. The guards found Grendel outside the meadhall and started to attack him. Grendel then grabbed a guard and backed away.

The relentless hostility Grendel experiences from humans plays a pivotal role in his journey towards becoming the antagonist depicted in the latter parts of the novel. Initially, Grendel's approach towards

Unfortunately grendel is not a happy creature, he feels useless and doesn't know what to do with his life, doesnt know why he even has life and that bothers him quite a lot. Also he wants to be friendly and known as a kind creature but humans are not letting him do so. For example when he entered the mead hall declaring “mercy, and peace” humans just came at him attacking, in his eyes he is just doing what he had to do to survive. Although he does kill for no reason on occasion it is usually animals.

After being trapped in between two trees, Grendel finds himself contemplating about the importance of his existence and the existence of others. He has come to the conclusion that the world has no meaning and all the things he experiences are not true. He believes that the only thing that he can truly count on is his existence and the beliefs he alone possesses. When speaking about the overall nature of humans, Grendel speaks of how he disapproves of their values and how they view the world. He doesn't understand why they spend time admiring the different seasons, and shows no remorse over the fact that he is a murderer.

In Beowulf, Grendel is described as “A fiend out of hell” (9) and a descendant of Cain's clan immediately giving the reader the vision of a beastly being, maybe even causing some to say monster. While in Grendel we are able to see this “monster” as having the same characteristics of emotions, conscience, and even see him observe and not fight. It seems as if Grendel is always fighting and plotting to kill the human race in Beowulf, but in Grendel we are able to see him observe and question the humans and him question why he is so different. The humans fear Grendel because of the fact that they have never seen anything like him before and immediately attack him and ostracize him. Grendel

Though he does not actually remember how he’d learned it, John Gardner’s Grendel speaks a language which is similar to that of the human characters in the book and is, therefore, able to understand them. During Grendel’s first encounter with humans, he pleads to them for assistance when he is caught and wounded in a trap. The leader of the humans is Hrothgar who eventually becomes king of the Danes. When Grendel’s cry for help is mistaken for a cry of attack, the humans attack Grendel and wound him more painfully than flesh could be wounded. The first intelligent, speaking beings, with some similarity to himself, which Grendel has encountered, have attacked instead of helped him. It is in this moment that Grendel forms his first opinions of existence; the outside world does not seem to embrace good as he does. In a one-way conversation he has with his mother after the incident (Chapter 2), Grendel says, “ the world resists me and I resist it. That’s all there is. The mountains are what I define them as.” In the statement, “ the mountains are what I define them as”, Grendel starts to form a belief of a sort of reality which does not actually exist. Life is meant to be lived as the owner wishes to live it; it is what you

Grendel is a historical character that has two different sides of the film Grendel is the enemy of Hrothgar and the Danes, Beowulf has been called by Hrothgar to slay the beast Grendel has no threat towards beowulf. In Part-1 Grendel is only a kid at the beginning while his father is being killed by Hrothgar, Hrothgar thinks that Grendel shouldn’t be killed even though his Danes don’t see him. As Grendel grew up he doesn’t know how to speak but he does know what hes up against except towards Beowulf. Part-2 Grendel is with his mother and he hears Hrothgar and his people shouting and having a good time, As it gets louder it is effecting Grendel more and more then Grendel come up, Starts killing his people before Beowulf gets there.

This led Grendel to have conversations with two very influential people who made Grendel into Grendel which were the shaper and the dragon. The shaper told Grendel a bunch of lies and Grendel knew that they were lies but they sound so good he let the shaper continue to tell them. The shaper told Grendel lies but the Dragon had the most negative effect on Grendel. The dragon act like he had some “power” and he knew everything so he told Grendel how the humans felt about him. The Dragon got a lot of humor from Grendel’s face when he found out how they felt. After hearing that Grendel didn’t want to scare the humans anymore but dragon encourages him to. Once he left from his talk with the dragon he felt uselessness until he realized he had some kind charm which protected him from getting hurt. Being invincible caused him to get a little cocky in a sense he said, “I am Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls Wrecker of Kings!” (Ch.6, pg.80) Though he could destroy any humans all he ever wanted was a

From the novel Grendel (Gardner, 1971), Grendel is one of the three antagonists along with his mother and the dragon. Grendel has the combination of human and beast; he emerge in a society that mocks and threats him these scenes features racism and class level in the nineteenth century. Grendel is an individual who pleased to coexist with humanity, but also the murderous brute who kills for no reason. Grendel hears noises from the meadhall as he scramble through the woods. The twelve years of war causes Grendel to attack Hrothgar’s meadhall, and coldheartedly ravages the reckless community; this reflects to the African Americans who risked their lives protesting for their rights. Grendel, the grotesque of the society has many diversities to his character; he characterizes race, culture, and power. John Gardner uses the society to emphasis Grendel as the binary figure, who is the Otherness. Grendel’s desperation of fitting in the Danes society makes him a boundary dweller who portrays to slavery in the nineteenth century and racism in the twentieth century.

Grendel is not a physical being, monster, or human, but a symbol of the darkness within man. When Beowulf’s men join the fight against Grendel, they soon realize that “no blade on Earth, no blacksmith’s art, could ever damage their demon opponent” (53). Grendel is incapable of being completely destroyed, as even after he is defeated, his arm remains with the Danes. That swords, even well crafted swords, cannot even damage Grendel is not a testament to his strength, but how ingrained in society he is. Swords and physical weapons cannot destroy the maliciousness within society, which Grendel represents.

Grendel, is thus seen as the descendant of an individual who epitomizes resentment and malice in Beowulf. The author states Grendel lives in exile and is seen as “mankind’s enemy”(Raffel, 22). Grendel is the representation of all that is evil and he is declared to be the “shepherd of evil and the “guardian of crime”(Raffel, 33) by the Danes in Beowulf. The author describes Grendel to be an evil, cruel, apathetic creature who’s pleasure lies in attacking and devouring Hrothgar’s men. The author describes Grendel’s malice by painting a gruesome picture of Grendel’s countless attacks on the mead hall in which he exhibits Grendel as a heartless, greedy, and violent being who mercilessly murders the men at the mead hall by tearing them apart, cutting their body into bits and drinking the blood from their veins. The author describes Grendel’s greed by stating Grendel’s thoughts were as “quick as his greed or his claws”(Raffel, 21). He describes Grendel’s as having eyes that “gleamed in the darkness and burned with a gruesome light”, swift hard claws and great sharp teeth which paints a picture of Grendel’s frightening appearance in the reader’s mind. In contrast to the traditional story of Beowulf, Grendel in John Gardner’s novel, Grendel is not depicted as a monster but as an intelligent creature capable of human thought, feelings and speech. John Gardner portrays Grendel as an outcast

This story supplies the humans with a way to make sense of Grendel as a monster, something both inherently different from them and evil in comparison, yet still

During his encounter with the Dragon, Grendel does not wholly understand what he is being told and calls the Dragon a liar for the majority of the scene. He tells Grendel that he [Grendel] is humanity, in the sense that he makes them plot and scheme, and he is the cause for their evolution. Grendel denies this, refusing to embrace such an idea even though it makes sense. The Dragon puts an enchantment on Grendel that prevents him from being harmed by the humans’ weapons, and this development makes Grendel all the more eager to torment the humans and break his

Grendel is a monster. He has instincts that he cannot overcome. It is almost a kind of creature nature that tells him what to do. He does not have a solid reason for killing these humans brutally other then fact that they started this war with him. When asked why, Grendel asks why not. "How, if I know all this, you may ask, could I hound

Grendel, because of his lineage from Cain, was exiled from the human world. This causes Grendel to not be able to fully think through his actions. He kills the Danes and fights Beowulf because of the deep emotion of loneliness that overcomes him. If the reader looks only at Grendel as a monster or demon, he will be considered evil and therefore Beowulf is honored as a great hero. By seeing Grendel more humanely the reader can see him more as a human rather than a monster. The circumstances that Grendel has grown up in has caused him to act out with evil tendencies. “I tried to tell her all that had happened, all that I’d come to understand: the meaningless objectness of the world, the universal bruteness. She only stared, troubled at my noise. She’d forgotten all language long ago, or maybe had never known any.” (Gardner 28) This quote shows how little communication Grendel had with anyone in the outside world. He was not able to express any of his thoughts due to the fact that his mother was incompetent and did not speak. “Why can’t I have someone to talk to? I said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness.” (Gardner 53) Those who believe Grendel is evil do not acknowledge the whole reason that there is a hateful relationship between Grendel and the Humans. The failure to communicate lead to confusion and fear which lead to the attacks made by Grendel or the humans. If Grendel was not as isolated in his