Grendel

“And now, by some lunatic theory, they throw on golden rings, old swords, and braided helmets. They wail, the whole crowd, women and men, a kind of song, like a single quavering voice. The song rings up like the greasy smoke and their faces shine with sweat and something that looks like joy. The song swells, pushes through woods and sky, and they’re singing now as if by some lunatic theory they had won. I shake with rage.” 

After Grendel raids Hrothgar’s meadhall, the survivors build a funeral pyre on which they burn the remains of the dead. Grendel reacts to the ritual with anger and irritation; he cannot understand the impracticality of the humans, who destroy valuables in the process, nor can he comprehend the celebratory nature of the ceremony. The funeral gives the humans some sense of closure and understanding of the experience of death, and their song enrages Grendel because it proves that his attack did not seriously enough impact them.

“It filled me with joy, though it was all crazy, and before I knew I could do it, I laughed. They jerked away and stood shaking, looking up.

‘The spirit’s angry,’ one of them whispered.

‘It always has been,’ another one said. ‘That’s why it’s killing the tree.’” 

Grendel’s first human encounter was fraught with misunderstanding and fear. He was still very young when he became trapped between the two tree trunks in which the Dane warriors found him, and he did not understand that he was fearsome to behold. The humans demonstrated fear’s role in exclusion and discrimination, as their fearfulness was a reaction to Grendel’s appearance, not to his behaviors and intentions.

“Inside the hall I would hear the Shaper telling of the glorious deeds of dead kings—how they’d split certain heads, snuck away with certain precious swords, clanging boldly with noble speeches, sighing behind the heroes’ dying words. Whenever he stopped, thinking up formulas for what to say next, the people would all shout and thump each other and drink to the Shaper’s long life.”

When Grendel spied on the Danes, he witnessed the effect of the Shaper’s words on the humans. The people seemed unaware that the songs are formulaic and predictable, and because the Shaper said what the audience wanted to hear, he received their respect and admiration. This experience foreshadows the appearance of the second Shaper, whose artistry far surpasses that of the first. 

“There was nothing to stop the advance of man. Huge boars fled at the click of a harness. Wolves would cower in the glens like foxes when they caught that deadly scent. I was filled with a wordless, obscurely murderous unrest.”

In the epic poem Beowulf, the Grendel is a straightforward villain who represents evil, and his assaults are simply a manifestation of his evil origins. In Gardner’s novel, Grendel has many complex reasons for harassing the Danes, including emotional motivations like revenge. This passage shows Grendel’s empathy for the forest creatures whose lives are disrupted and his anger toward the human interlopers. His remarks deepen his characterization as a sensitive soul with a rich inner world.

“Thus I fled, ridiculous hairy creature torn apart by poetry—crawling, whimpering, streaming tears, across the world like a two-headed beast, like mixed-up lamb and kid at the tail of a baffled, indifferent ewe—and I gnashed my teeth and clutched at the sides of my head as if to heal the split, but I couldn’t.”

Grendel remembers that when a new Shaper appeared at the meadhall, Grendel noticed that he was blind. This detail is ironic; though the Shaper could not see the physical world in front of him, he saw the Danes’ desires and delivered it to them in poetry and song. The Shaper’s words affected Grendel deeply, demonstrating that he has more in common with the Danes than perhaps he realized.

“‘He reshapes the world,’ I whispered, belligerent. ‘So his name implies. He stares strange-eyed at the mindless world and turns dry sticks to gold.’”

Grendel’s recognition of the Shaper’s power to transform “dry sticks to gold” angered him. This knowledge challenged Grendel’s previous assumptions about the workings of the world, drawing attention to the humans’ foolishness and emphasizing just how “mindless” life can be. Grendel now confesses that though he knew that the Shaper manipulated the humans with his art, he himself could not help but also be manipulated, which gave rise to his sense of powerlessness.

“And as for Hrothgar, if he was serious about his idea of glory—sons and sons’ sons giving out treasure—I had news for him. If he had sons, they wouldn’t hear his words. They would weigh his silver and gold in their minds. I’ve watched the generations. I’ve seen their weasel eyes.”

This passage reveals Grendel’s cynical view of human motivations. He mocked Hrothgar’s idealism, believing that Hrothgar’s descendants will appreciate their ancestor more for the inherited wealth than for his honorable warrior legacy. This cynicism anticipates Grendel’s encounter with the fatalistic dragon, as recollected in Chapter 5, during which Grendel learned about true nihilism.

“His eye burst open like a hole, to hush me. I closed my mouth. The eye was terrible, lowering toward me. I felt as though I were tumbling down into it—dropping endlessly down through a soundless void. He let me fall, down and down toward a black sun and spider, though he knew I was beginning to die. Nothing could have been more disinterested: serpent to the core.” 

During his encounter with the dragon, Grendel learned that his life meant nothing to the dragon. The dragon’s lack of concern for Grendel contrasts with Grendel’s mother’s care and protectiveness of him, and it emphasizes Grendel’s sense of isolation. Unlike Grendel’s mother, the dragon may have been able to communicate with Grendel through language, but the dragon did not care for him, which compromised the value of their communication. The image of the spider foreshadows the Stranger’s arrival in Chapter 11.

“They only think they think. No total vision, total system, merely schemes with a vague family resemblance, no more identity than bridges, and say, spiderwebs. But they rush across chasms on spiderwebs, and sometimes they make it, and that, they think, settles that! I could tell you a thousand tiresome stories of their absurdity.” 

The dragon expressed his frustration with humans, explaining that his impatience stemmed from his belief that humans lack self-awareness. The dragon’s omniscience contrasts with the dearth of knowledge that he believed afflicts all humans. The image of the spiderweb suggests the fragility of the human learning experience; it irritated the dragon that humans appear to put so much faith in such a fragile belief system.

“Nothing was changed, everything was changed, by my having seen the dragon. It’s one thing to listen, full of scorn and doubt, to poets’ versions of time past and visions of time to come; it’s another to know, as coldly and simply as my mother knows her pile of bones, what is.” 

Grendel reflects on how, after his encounter with the dragon, the exchange changed his life. The dragon’s nihilistic attitude towards the ideas that gave Grendel a sense of meaning and purpose unnerved Grendel and led him to live completely differently than before. From that point onward, Grendel behaved with impunity, understanding that the Shaper would immortalize his role in the human experience in whatever way the Shaper desired, regardless of the truth. This impunity was a freedom that comes at a price, however, and Grendel lost his innocence and idealism as a result of the exchange with the dragon.

“‘No more talk!’ he yelled. His voice broke. He lifted his sword to make a run at me, and I laughed—howled—and threw an apple at him. He dodged, and then his mouth dropped open. I laughed harder, threw another. He dodged again.”

Grendel’s apple fight with Unferth suggests his belief that all human attempts at heroism are absurd. By tossing apples at Unferth, Grendel humiliated the warrior, belittling Unferth’s attempts to challenge Grendel and thereby become a hero worthy of memorial; the would-be heroic battle was only a playful exchange that risked neither life nor limb. Grendel’s unwillingness to be part of Unferth’s heroic narrative revealed his increasingly nihilistic disposition.

“He lives on, bitter, feebly challenging my midnight raids from time to time (three times this summer), crazy with shame that he alone is always spared, and furiously jealous of the dead.”

This description of Unferth demonstrates Grendel’s profound effect on one human warrior’s life. Just as Grendel feels alienated and singled out, so he singles out and humiliates Unferth. Grendel’s deliberateness in sparing Unferth was deeply ironic; Grendel’s mercy, in fact, now persecutes Unferth, who would prefer to die while defending the meadhall so that his name is forever linked with heroic selflessness. The sophistication of this vengeance speaks to Grendel’s uncommon intelligence but also his uncommon spite.

“He clasps hands delicately over his head, points the toes of one foot—aaie! horrible nails!!—takes a step, does a turn:

Grendel is crazy,

O, O, O!

Thinks old Hrothgar

Makes it snow!”

The image of Grendel, a monster, executing a dainty pirouette and his recitation of a nonsensical rhyme reflect an absurdity of which Grendel is now aware. He accepts that his existence actually defines the existence of Hrothgar and his people, but this knowledge disturbs him and instills in him an inner chaos. This passage is also notable for its dark humor, revealing Gardner’s own attitude toward notions of absurdity and existence.

“My chest was full of pain, my eyes smarted, and I was afraid—O monstrous trick against reason—I was afraid I was about to sob. I wanted to smash things, bring down the night with my howl of rage. But I kept still. She was beautiful, as innocent as dawn on winter hills. She tore me apart as the Shaper’s song had done.”

Grendel has a particularly vivid memory of first seeing Wealtheow, who was then betrothed to Hrothgar. Her stirring beauty disrupted Grendel’s sense of stability in a disordered world, and Grendel’s sensitivity to beauty frustrated him now that he was aware of the world’s absurdity. His controlled response, manifested in his stillness, contrasted with the inner irrational turmoil that Wealtheow’s beauty and the Shaper’s song inspired in him. In this moment, Grendel experienced the complexity of the human condition, revealing his humanity alongside his monstrous nature.

“Rewards to people who fit the System best, you know. King’s immediate thanes, the thanes’ top servants, and so on till you come to the people who don’t fit at all. No problem. Drive them to the darkest corners of the kingdom, starve them, throw them in jail, or put them out to war.”

Grendel recounts spying on Hrothulf, Wealtheow’s nephew, and his advisor. The advisor instructed Hrothulf on how to be a good leader, preparing the young man for a role that appeared to be his due. However, the advice lacked compassion and demonstrated the cold pragmatism that characterizes some governments in both the pre-Christian world of the novel and the contemporary world of the novel’s readers.

“She understands the fear for his people that makes a coward of him, so that, that night when I attacked her, he would not lift a finger to preserve her. And his fear is one he cannot even be sure is generous; perhaps mere desire that his name and fame live on.”

As the novel’s narrative finally shifts fully into the present, Grendel observes Wealtheow’s awareness that her husband Hrothgar cares less for her than for his people, due to his ambition to be remembered as a generous king. Grendel is unsurprised at Hrothgar’s willingness to risk his queen’s life; Grendel has low expectations of humans and believes that their ambitions will always override any sense of honor or kinship. This experience foreshadows Grendel’s death and his acceptance of its inevitability; he is aware of his own role in human ambitions and accepts that he must die for their stories to exist.

“Such is His mystery: that beauty requires contrast, and that discord is fundamental to the creation of new intensities of feeling. Ultimate wisdom, I have come to perceive, lies in the perception that the solemnity and grandeur of the universe rise through the slow process of unification in which the diversities of existence are utilized, and nothing, nothing is lost.”

These words belong to the old blind priest, about whom Grendel cannot “make up [his] mind” (133). Grendel’s ambivalence toward the priest and toward the depth and authenticity of the priest’s religious devotion is notable; it evinces Grendel’s uncertainty about the nature of truth and other existential matters, an uncertainty that persists beneath the surface of his nihilism. This ambivalence also suggests that Grendel is not entirely without hope, despite the knowledge he gained from the dragon and despite his awareness of the meaning behind his own existence.

“THIRD PRIEST: ‘Lunatic priests are a bad business. They give people the willies. One man like him can turn us all to paupers.’”

The priests’ conversation appearing in the form of dramatic script adds to the surreal nature of the exchange. As the priests talk frankly amongst themselves about “lunatic priests,” the conversation’s dramaturgical presentation breaks the fourth wall, a theatrical convention involving a figurative, invisible wall separating actors from audience. In this case, the priests are the actors, and their script reveals that they lack the actual faith implicit in their livelihood. Because their faith is a performance, they truly are actors, feigning a belief to maintain social control.

“In my cave, the tedium is worse, of course. My mother no longer shows any signs of sanity, hurrying back and forth, wall to wall, sometimes on two legs, sometimes on four, dark forehead furrowed like a new-plowed field, her eyes glittering and crazy as a captured eagle’s.”

Grendel’s sense of ennui and isolation intensifies as his mother’s descent becomes more pronounced. Though Grendel attributes her erratic behavior to age-related cognitive changes, it is possible that her growing discomfort foreshadows the changes that the Stranger will bring. Because Grendel’s mother is characterized as a more primitive creature than her sophisticated son, she is in closer touch with the natural forces that portend the Stranger’s arrival; the simile of the eagle, well as her switching between the more human bipedal gait and the four-legged crawl, emphasizes this connection.

“I am not the only monster on these moors.

I met an old woman as wild as the wind

Striding in white out of midnight’s den.

Her cloak was in rages, and her flesh it was lean,

And her eyes, her murdered eyes…

Scent of the dragon.

I should sleep, drop war till spring as I normally do.

When I sleep I wake up in terror, with hands on my throat.

A stupid business.

Nihil ex nihilo, I always say.”

After the Shaper’s funeral, Grendel is restless, and he appears to miss the Shaper’s presence despite the bard’s lies. Grendel’s discomfort grows, as evidenced by his encounter with a human monster he describes in verse form, and the tone of this section of the novel is foreboding. His use of the Latin phrase, which means “nothing comes from nothing,” has a layered significance. The phrase is an ancient philosophical maxim that all things must have a reason for their existence; such a thesis provokes the existentially wounded Grendel, who fears either that he has no purpose or that his purpose is merely to be prop in the self-glorifying mythology of the Danes. Moreover, as he questions his current situation and what the future might bring, Grendel’s philosophical ruminations suggest his anxiety that he himself is nothing, having come from nothing.

“He had a strange face that, little by little, grew unsettling to me: it was a face, or so it seemed for an instant, from a dream I had almost forgotten. The eyes slanted downward, never blinking, unfeeling as a snake’s. He had no more beard than a fish.”

Grendel sees the Stranger for the first time, comparing him to cold-blooded, scaly creatures like a snake and a fish. He recognizes the Stranger and the threat that the Stranger brings, and this recognition “unsettles” Grendel. Readers familiar with the epic poem Beowulf will recognize the Stranger as the eponymous great warrior hero; that the reader and Grendel can share an experience of recognition enhances Grendel’s human qualities, which include his vulnerability and fear of death.

“What glee, that glorious recognition! (The cave my cave is a jealous cave.) For even my mama loves me not for myself, my holy specialness (he he ho ha), but for my son-ness, my possessedness, my displacement of air as visible proof of her power.”

Though the Stranger’s arrival lethally threatens Grendel, he is overcome with a maniacal joy at his foe’s appearance; Grendel realizes that the Stanger’s arrival proves Grendel’s existence and his meaning to others. Though Grendel’s mother has been a reliable source of love and protection for Grendel (until age interfered with her ability to soothe him), Grendel feels as if her love is filtered through her own self-interest and, therefore, is less pure and less personal to Grendel. The Stranger’s interest in Grendel, in contrast, is for Grendel’s sake only, which fills Grendel with a sense of meaning he has not experienced before.

“Now he’s out of his bed, his hand still closed like a dragon’s jaws on mine. Nowhere on middle-earth, I realize, have I encountered a grip like his.”

During the final battle, the Stranger’s strength is otherworldly, and the threat to Grendel’s life is clear. The comparison of the Stranger to a dragon recalls the dragon from whom Grendel learned the ways of the world. This reference to the dragon brings the novel’s events to a full circle; the dragon advised Grendel to “beware of strangers!” (174), and this is the warrior whom the dragon prophesied will slay the dragon himself.