Beowulf

Beowulf John Gardener’s novel, Grendel retells the epic of Beowulf from Grendel’s point of view. Grendel lives in a large cavern under a lake with his mother in Hrothgar’s kingdom. For twelve-years Grendel has been at “war” with Hrothgar, king of the Danes, intent “on destroying him—slowly and cruelly.” When Grendel first meets Hrothgar he has no plan to destroy him, but after watching Hrothgar and the other kingdoms systematically destroy each other while wasting so much Grendel turns on Hrothgar. While Grendel is the anti-hero he flourishes in the Danish world because he sees the weaknesses of the Danes. John Gardener is able to show the reader his view of human society through Grendel’s thoughts and observations of the social, religious, and psychological aspects of human life. Through Grendel’s observations of the Danes, Gardener makes mankind out as cruel, weakminded, and apathetic. In the epic of Beowulf the author portrays the social life of the Danes while talking about the feasts and stories of the men. The author also touches on the idea of the psychology of th eDanes when talking about the Shaper. In Grendel, John Gardener likewise writes about the social and psychological world of the Danes while beowulf, grendel, danes, shaper, humans, gardener, while, reader, grendel’s, religion, view, through, thoughts, hrothgar, because, about, world, war, social, shaper’s, people, life, yet, understand, stories, psychological, priests, portrays, point, past, out, one, kingdom, john, human, gods, go