Debbie Park Mrs. Vandergrift British Literature H. 18 November 2014 Consequences of Evil The novel Grendel, by John Gardner circumstances around a cynical beast, Grendel. Grendel is a beast whose sole priority is to destroy mankind. However, John Gardner adopts Grendel, an inhuman monster, to simply depict the flaws in men. Furthermore, Grendel also represents the destructive nature of greed and jealousy that pertains to all humans. Although Grendel is depicted as a nihilistic beast, John Gardner creates instances in which the reader sees heroicness and benevolence in Grendel, ultimately showing the correlations between Grendel and mankind. John Gardner depicts Grendel as a pompous and deplorable beast who is, however, akin to humans; Gardner indicates that Grendel is essentially human in form. Based on …show more content…
By inserting human emotions and empathy into Grendel, John Gardner, once again, portrays the correlations between Grendel and the humans. When Grendel first witnesses Wealhtheow, the Queen of the Danes, Grendel depicts her as “Beautiful, as innocent as dawn on winter hills... She tore me apart as once the Shaper's song had done” (100). Grendel claims that Wealtheow stirred an unknown emotion in him which could have been love, jealousy or admiration, all central characteristics of humans. In addition, Grendel portrays his human characteristics when he describes the Shaper. Grendel proclaims, “Yet he, the old Shaper, might make it true, by the sweetness of his harp, his cunning trickery. It came to me with a fierce jolt that I wanted it” (55). The Shaper confuses and eventually enrages Grendel when the Shaper produces a meaning behind life. Like all humans, Grendel wants to obtain meaning for his life; however, because of his nihilistic beliefs, he refuses to admit that there is a greater purpose in