Monsters In Beowulf, Grendel, And The 13th Warrior

He is portrayed in the poem as a horrendous beast with human characteristics, but looking closer to the text, he is a human out-casted and raised to be a monster. Although Grendel is written as a monstrous villain who kills with no remorse, he is actually a complex human with a repressed anger exploding in bursts. Grendel is often described in a negative way. He is reffered to as a demon in the text “from Beowulf”

In Beowulf there are three archetypal types of monsters. Grendel, Grendel’s Mother, and The Dragon. Each one of the monsters symbolized a factor of Beowulf’s life. Grendel represents the sin in a man’s life. Grendel’s mother represents evil of the people in the anglo-saxon age.

When Grendel last words “Poor Grendel’s had an accident . . . So may you all” . These words are used as a curse because just like Grendel suffered from an accident everyone else will suffer to . For example , “It was an accident,” I bellow back. I will cling to what is true.

Many times throughout western literature, monsters are portrayed as a threat to the existence of humanity. In Grendel by John Gardner and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, this idea is skewed by the actions of their respective monsters. Both of these novels captivate the reader by having a monster narrate the story, which is uncommon in many works of literature. Although in Frankenstein the reader only witnesses the monster as a narrator once, it has a profound impact on the overall storyline of the book. In Grendel, the book is entirely narrated by Grendel, so the reader adapts to the idea of the main character being a monster.

One 8 feet tall, put together by multiple people's body parts, the other a giant, angry, man eating monster, the monster from Frankenstein and a monster named Grendel. Grendel is a fictional character first introduced in the novel Beowulf. He is the protagonist to Beowulf, exiled from civilization. Grendel was born an outcast from society then slowly became what he was always told he was, a monster. What makes Grendel such a successful villain is his lack of remorse for anything.

In Beowulf, Grendel the dragon is looked at in a very negative light, as an evil character. This is due to the strong descriptive words that the author uses, such as: “a powerful monster…in darkness…growled in pain” (pg.41 L. ). These words paint a clear picture of Grendel, and it supplies you a feeling for how evil the beast truly is. The epic states that Grendel was “spawned in that slime” (pg.41 L.), giving a very dark image of what he was conceived into. Grendel is a character of true evil.

1. What exactly makes Grendel a monster? The story of Grendel promotes both sympathy and empathy to the reader, instead of the idea of him being a monster from the perspective of Beowulf. With Grendel narrating the story, his behavior and thought processes can be logically explained and justified.

Grendel vs Grendel Grendel, the horrid, gross, quarrelsome demon who had no concept of the english language or feelings, the beast of burden who slaughters men with no remorse. Writtened as a damned hel spawn of his wicked mother, known throughout the land as an emotionless entity whose pleasure derives from the pain of others. As portrayed as in the Epic Beowulf (Heaney). However on the other side of the spectrum we have the Grendel in the movie Beowulf and Grendel (Gunnarsson, S.) Again portrayed as a thing that derives pleasure from the pain of others and a thing that acts somewhat like a human from time to time.

Monsters and enemies have been in books and stories for a long time. Monsters usually play the role of the “bad guy”, that tries to stop or defeat the main character from completing his task. The monsters in the poem represent and show that there are many fearful enemies that you have to defeat and save your town from if you want to be a hero. The monsters in the poem reinforce the heroic code because the missions Beowulf had to do always reinstated how fierce and dangerous the monsters that Beowulf had to defeat were. They showed how brave and strong Beowulf had to be to defeat these monsters and prove himself as a hero.

Megan Garza Writing 2 Professor Donelan 14 October, 2015 Grendel, The Monster? Is Grendel a monster or a human in a demonic disguise? While reading Beowulf this is one of the questions one should consider.

The common characteristics of what makes a monster have remained constant throughout society: evil, isolated, violent. Monsters have no regards for social normatives, and cause chaos and destruction wherever they go. Grendel is no exception. In Beowulf, Grendel manifests every characteristic of a stereotypical monster. He is considered inherently evil, and is an outcast; he roams alone and commits devilish atrocities whenever he pleases.

Grendel, or Anxiety? In today’s society, we face many monsters that cause us to become fearful and weak when faced with a challenge. In the epic Beowulf translated by Burton Raffel, Grendel is a miserable monster who causes pain upon faultless people, and is motivated by their pain. Today’s monsters may not be actual creatures, but they do cause the same terrifying effects on people, symbolizing evil in our society.

This is the beginning of Grendel falling directly into the role that the dragon said he would need to fill. Grendel’s murderous tendencies completely reflect the monstrous side of his personality and the more he kills the more he grows insane, separating from rational, humanistic thought. “I am swollen with excitement, bloodlust and joy and a strange fear that mingle in my chest like the twisting rage of a bone-fire... I am blazing, half-crazy with joy” (168). It is clear that, by the time Beowulf arrives, Grendel has embraced the fact that he is required to be evil, despite the fact that he previously claimed he would oppose that destiny.

Introduction to Theme A theme is a meaning that goes beyond the plot, something less about events and more about significance, and it allows people to draw a conclusion from a book or story. The theme I will be focusing on is Monsters, which seeks to identify key data connected to the stories of monsters to identify characteristics of a monster within Greek myth. Monsters in Greek myth are often uncivilized, meaning that they exude behaviors which are savage and inappropriate. Monsters which are uncivilized are present in The Essential Homer, but I will specifically be focusing on uncivilized monsters in “Book 9” of The Odyssey.

In Beowulf Grendel is described first as “A powerful monster, living down in the darkness…” (Keach. 12) The author starts out simple but then indepthly describes where Grendel comes from “Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild marshes, and made his home in a hell not hell but earth,”