Grendel's 'Free Will In The Epic Poem Beowulf'

Everyone follows a set of routine, as if the society is a factory and humans are the machines to production. Some may know what they are trying to achieve, but many others just obey the pattern of society blindlessly. The novel Grendel by John Gardner reiterates the epic poem Beowulf through the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel; Gardner challenges different philosophical beliefs of human civilization as he depicts Grendel’s chaotic state of mind due to Grendel’s internal and external conflicts. The novel portrays a clash of belief presented by Grendel’s personal experience and his observation of human society; throughout the novel, Grendel seeks to understand his position in the world, as he struggles to discover the purpose of life. Ultimately, Grendel chooses to believe that life is pointless, though this belief dies along with his death.

He puts the entirety of his trust into a man whose sole purpose is to manipulate those around him. This act shows Grendel’s desperation to find answers and the vulnerability hidden behind his beastly appearance. He falls for the magic in the Shaper's words. The way he so easily persuades the Danes, he persuades Grendel. "And I, Grendel, was the dark side, he said in effect. The terrible race God cursed. I believed him. Such was the power of the Shaper's harp!" (Gardner 51) Grendel is to be the monster, cursed by God, and sentenced to a life of misery and isolation. This is evident in Grendel’s relationship with his mother. There is the language barrier that separates two similar creatures. Just as the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, where a magnificent building could never be finished because of a “curse” given by God, the relationship between mother and son, a relationship just as magnificent, is prevented from developing. Grendel is alone, and he is fully aware of why, yet he still questions it, " 'Why can't I have someone to talk to?' I said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness" (Gardner 53). He is not satisfied, and because of this, comes to hate the God who cursed him; slowly falling victim to

My point that Grendel’s pre-destined path of evil is proven in lines 1260-1276 where we learn the history of the bible story Cain and Abel, and see where Grendel’s roots lie. “And from Cain there sprang/ misbegotten spirits, among them Grendel, / the banished and accursed… (Lines 1265-1267). Once again I feel sympathy for Grendel because it seems he did not have a choice but to be the “enemy of mankind.” (Line 1275) Good could never come from these people of Cain because they fell from the grace of god, but it appears that Grendel never directly did anything to deserve this fate, he was a victim of circumstance and was trapped in his monstrous position. Grendel did not kill Abel, yet he suffers for Cain’s behavior.

John Gardner explicitly conveys the motif accident to indicate that fate controls all creatures’ destiny. In the last chapter of Grendel, the major difference between Beowulf and Grendel appears at where Grendel totally attribute his failure in battle to “accident” (169). Grendel thinks that Beowulf is just a human, and he can beat Beowulf or at least flee away. But Grendel still loses in the battle due to an accident that he slips on a puddle of blood. Grendel expresses his word to Beowulf or fate with a sense of irony. He could get away from this situation, but an accident happened and it brings everything back to the predestined path which predicts that Grendel will lose and die. Accident is a thing that is not planed or out of expectation which is supposed to lead Grendel out of the control of fate, but it ironically traps Grendel in the story. Further, John Gardner mention accident in Grendel’s last few words which says that “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, (so) may you all” (174). These words to the animal and also to the readers can be either taken as a curse or

In Grendel, the dragon tells us that fate is, in fact, totally decided ahead of time:

He feels he is destined to be cursed and shunned by humanity. As the chapter goes on, Grendel becomes to be angered at the humans and at God. “It was a cold-blooded lie that a god had lovingly made the world and set out the sun and moon as lights to land-dwellers, that brothers had fought, that one of them was saved, the other cursed” (pg 55). This “presence” was beginning to consume Grendel. Thoughts of confusion and rage were going back and forth in his head.

A Twist of Fate for the Great Hero Beowulf Fate seems to be an ongoing theme in the works of Boethius and Beowulf. Whether it is a belief of Christian providence or pagan fatalism, the writers of these works are strongly moved by the concept of fate and how it affects the twists and turns of a person’s life. Fate is most often seen as the course of events in a person’s life that leads them to inevitable death at some time or another.

In contrast to the Danes of “Beowulf”, Grendel searched for his very reason of existence by asking the questions “Why?” and “How?” for answers. Grendel started off in the book struggling with finding meaning in his life while watching the people clearly doing things that gave their lives meaning. He became upset as he saw that he couldn’t deter their spirits no matter what he did and started to feel jealous of their self-found purpose. He realized that through various ways the people attained meaning. In response to his confusion over their self-discovered purpose, Grendel started listening to the Shaper’s words when he spoke to the people shaping their very beliefs which confused Grendel even more on the meaning of life. After listening to the Shaper for a while, readers can see Grendel in a state of contradiction. He started off killing people as a simple, bestial monstrosity but in the end he is shown as quite intelligent and capable of choosing whether to kill or not. Soon, Grendel started seeking answers to his questions from a dragon. The dragon’s very philosophy on life was that there is no meaning of life which started to influence Grendel. Upon Grendel’s persistent questions of “Why?”, the dragon told him “You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme…You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves

Anyone who defends Grendel or his behavior is guilty of agreeing with a terrible crime and sin in the sight of many. Grendel had but one mission and one purpose: to terrorize and murder. He fulfilled it well.

An epic story is one that combines elements of supernatural powers and heroic deeds with plebeian troubles. In Beowulf , the unknown author paints a typical yet magnificent tale that is one of the great epic chronicles of the Middle Ages. Like the poems of Homer, Beowulf possesses terrible monsters, men with supernatural powers, the search for glory, and deadly defeats. However, this medieval account brings a new element into the folds: the association between established religious forces and personal choices. The concepts of predestination and fate intertwine in this work with the idea of free will.

The poem does not give this insight of what happens before, or from Grendel's point of view. Seeing this scene in the movie gives the audience a better understanding of why Grendel and also his mother attack the Danes. Later in the movie Beowulf says, "He's no more human than you and I", which is true. If the Danes didn’t kill Grendel's father, the outcome of the story could have possibly been changed because Grendel would have had a different life and not seek revenge on the Danes, specifically the one who Grendel had seen kill his father. In the poem Grendel fights Beowulf, rather than avoiding Beowulf most of the time in the movie. In the poem, Grendel is seen as an evil monster that kills and eats the Hrothgar warriors and cannot be penetrated by weapons, rather than just human, or troll, like the movie. When the battle with Grendel occurs in the poem, it is said that Beowulf had cut off his arm to defeat him. While in the movie, Grendel finds himself stuck hanging, and must cut off his own arm to escape from Beowulf and his men. Both the movie and poem result in the death of Grendel, eventually leading to the revenge of his mother.

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

He thanks God for him allowing the suffering to end, for Grendel to be beaten and ending the war between men and the monsters. The idea of fate is brought up again later on in the poem as well. In his battles he says that fate will decide who will win the battle, in the fight with Grendel, his mother and as well as the Dragon: "I won't shift a foot / when I meet the cave-guard: what occurs on the wall / between the

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

Instances of fate are scattered throughout Beowulf. Something seems to be in control of Beowulf's life, and it drives him to achieve things that no one else has ever been able to achieve. Though he is a mere mortal, he defeats monsters even when it seemed like he was doomed to failure. Further, he rises to the level of King of the Geats even though he is not directly in line by birth to do so. Whether Beowulf is meant to be a Christian piece or a pagan one or not a religious piece at all, Beowulf becomes the