Grendel In Beowulf

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Grendel In the beginning was the Word and the Word was Grendel, and the Word was with Grendel. He was young, curious and naive. Having no companionship, Grendel was drawn towards the strange humans. he, however, was not evil. After his encounter with the bull, he was a child no more, “I understand that the world was, a mechanical chaos of casual, enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears.” p22. with each human encounter, Grendel became more monstrous. thou, even in his final pages, was not evil. thorught the book, Grendel becomes darker but never loses all goodness. The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left [to himself] bringeth his mother to shame. Grendel has no one to teach him much of anything as a child. In Grendel’s case his mother in shamed before Grendel is even born. All of his cursed people seem to be reclusive, solitary beings leaving him with only her as company. She does not speak and shows her affection in odd ways; her hugs nearly suffocating him. He is curious of the world outside the cave. Unknowing of its dangers, he stays out longer and goes farther. “I played my way farther into the world… cautiously darting from tree to tree, challenging the terrible forces of night on tiptoe.” p16. When Grendel gets his…show more content…
Grendel plans raids, he goes after the queen in particular only then to let her live. He doesn’t kill Unferth to punish the warrior. Over the course of the book Grendel loses pieces of humanity and pieces of himself. He goes from being a misunderstood child to the monster he felt in the darkness. In the end, he considers his death an accident. He was no longer a thinking creature, but a mindless one. Grendel’s final complaint, “If you win it’s by mindless chance. Make no mistake. First, you tricked me, and then I slipped. Accident.” p171 “It was an accident…Blind, mindless, mechanical. Mere logic of chance.”

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