Modern Mythology 2024
Research Paper: Grendel
After reading the poem Beowulf, I realized that Grendel and the other monsters were depicted as murderous, evil, and outcasts of god. Beowulf, the protagonist and the hero of god would eventually kill Grendel. When reading the story, there was something that caught my attention. According to the passage it states, "After fifty winters pass, Beowulf, now an old man, faces his final task: He must fight a dragon who, angry because a thief had stolen a jeweled cup from its hoard of gold". After reading this, I had a lot of questions. Shouldn't the thief be punished for stealing? Why bother looking for the dragon? Does Beowulf care if his men die? Is pride, glory, and rewards his ultimate goal? Is Grendel and the other monsters really that bad? As I thought about this, I remembered another story we covered in class where in Stone Blind, Perseus shares similarities to Beowulf. Since this is a research paper, I decided to read the first half of the story Grendel by John Gardner and look through his perspective. What I found about Grendel was that he never encountered a human before until he reached the human world after he swam through a pool of firesnakes. Later as he arrives at a world unknown to him, he is rescued by his mother after getting attacked by a bull and a group of men. Afterward, he observes the human from a tree out of curiosity, witnessing human’s true nature, watching two opposing sides where leaders threaten each other about their father, bloodline and revenge. He also found out that humans were wasteful as they fought, killed animals, and left it rot. In addition, he saw betrayal between allies, stealing, and adultery/rape being committed. These made him incredibly disgusted by what he saw and couldn't comprehend why the way humans act. Since humans could be blessed while his kind couldn't, he felt ashamed of himself and his beast-like characteristics. Later on in the story, he asks the dragon for advice, who then tells him to ignore human philosophy and morals. As he adopts his belief, his hate against humans grows. Therefore, I believe that he ended up waging a 12-year war with the humans out of jealousy and thought it was unfair that he couldn't be blessed because of what his ancestor had done.
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