Tiffany Chen, Period 7, 2/9/22

Literacy & Learning

Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or non-fiction covered in class.

After reading Beowulf and starting Grendel, I noticed the different ways Grendel is portrayed in the two pieces of literature. In Beowulf, Grendel is painted as a monster that only knows how to kill and then run back to his mother after realizing what he’s done, which contrasts with the emotional and self-aware creature we have seen thus far in Grendel. After reading chapters 2 and 3 of Grendel, we learn how sheltered from the outside world Grendel is and how dependent he is on his mother. This can be seen when Grendel gets stuck in the tree and yells for his mother to help him. This scene draws a comparison between Grendel and a child. Having been sheltered in his home for his entire life, he was not well-versed in the world that lay beyond the confines of his mother’s arms. Like a mother trying to keep the evils of the world from her child, Grendel’s mother strives to protect her son from the outside world by sheltering him inside their home and keeping him at her side. In chapter 1, we compared Grendel to a teenager when we analyzed this quote, “I asked the sky. The sky says nothing, predictably. I make a face, uplift a defiant middle finger, and give an obscene little kick.” Here, Grendel behaves like a teenager who is acting out after not given what they wanted.

Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

One thing I learned from Grendel is how powerful emotions can be. After hearing the Shaper’s song, Grendel is split by the poetry because it invokes strong emotions from him that he had not experienced before. He is fascinated by the beauty of the songs, but is frustrated at its falseness and lies about the past. The Shaper’s art also causes Grendel pain. The beauty of his music makes Grendel more aware of his ugliness as a monster, which makes him both angry at the Shaper and jealous of his ability. Emotions are the driving force behind a lot of the actions we take, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. Grendel most likely extracts revenge due to the Shaper’s lies by later killing the humans. Therefore, acknowledging and understanding our own emotions, as well as the emotions of the people around us, is important to allow us to build better relationships and communicate better. 

How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

In class, we talked about how Grendel is fulfilling what the humans said about him being a monster. This reminded me of what I learned in AP Psychology about stereotype threats. In Psychology, we read and analyzed a case study about whether women are worse than men at math. Through the studies performed in the case study, we realized that when women faced the threat of stereotype threat, they underperformed. For example, when told that there were no past gender difference in the math test they were taking, there was little to no difference in the scores received by both genders. However, when told that there was past gender difference in the math test they were taking, women did significantly worse than men. This displayed that because women carry the extra burden of being bad at math, they self-fulfilled the prophecy and performed worse, much like how Grendel fulfilled the prophecy of being a monster when in reality, he was not much different from the humans. This stereotype threat discouraged a lot of women from taking more advanced math courses and going into STEM fields. In relation to Grendel, Grendel will start believing that he is actually a monster when he is not actually a monster.