Summary Of The Novel 'Grendel' By John Gardner

John Gardner’s novel, Grendel, takes place in the fourth century A.D. in Denmark. The novel is about Grendel, a monster that lives in a cave with his mother who is unable to communicate with him due to her lack of ability to speak, and fails to fit in among humans, causing him to live a secluded life. Grendel was written in order to help people understand the very nature of mankind. Summary: In the very first chapter of the novel, Grendel is being introduced as any ordinary monster you could imagine, rage filled and rowdy. He describes to the reader an encounter with a ram that, despite being yelled at and violently threatened, ignores him and continues on with his ram-like activities. After throwing a rock and screaming towards the sky in
Through Grendel, he shows that it makes you feel desperate for conversation with nearly anything. Grendel asks the sky, “‘Why can’t these creatures cover a little dignity?” but “the sky says nothing… The sky ignores me, forever unimpressed” (6). Although he makes a little gesture towards the sky, he continues talking to inanimate objects throughout the novel because it seems to him that those are the only things he has left to communicate with. Once again, yearning for conversation, he asks the stars, “‘Why can’t I have someone to talk to?... The Shaper has people to talk to… Hrothgar has people to talk to’” (53). Seeing that Grendel adds the Shaper and Hrothgar into his words with the sea, shows us how lonely he feels, taking in mind that two of his biggest enemies are able to have that sense of community. Being left with no one, not even his own mother, drives Grendel insane, leaving him with his own mind to reason with. Moreover, John Gardner depicts how, through the novel, the very existence of mankind lies in the stories they pass along with each other and the existence of things that inspire them. Grendel is listening to the Shaper play his harp while singing and hears the shaper tell stories of “how they’d fought me” and “‘Woe to the man… who shall not through wicked hostilities shove his soul down into the fire’s hug… he can never turn away! But lucky the man who, after his death day, seek the Prince, find peace in his father’s embrace’” (54) The song of the Shaper is used to inspire the men to get into Heaven to rest for all eternity with the Prince of Heaven, giving them hope to strive to do good in life. Grendel, is told by the dragon, “‘The exile, captivity, death they shrink from—the blunt facts of their morality, their abandonment—that’s what you make them recognize, embrace! You are mankind, or man’s condition’” (73). John Gardner, as