Journal 10

Grendel as the Narrator

                The creature Grendel was the main antagonist the epic poem, “Beowulf”, and is the narrator of the novel “Grendel” by John Gardner. In the Beowulf poem, humans look at Grendel as being a symbol of evil, the son of Cain, or something demonic; an outcast in the eyes of God, but, as we see in the book “Grendel”, Grendel is not a monster, but a character that is lost and trying to find himself.  In “Grendel”, Grendel was unexpectedly a monster that knew just about nothing about the human world. Gardner’s choice to make Grendel the narrator opens the reader’s mind into a world portrayed by a misunderstood monster. One reason Grendel was chosen was throughout “Grendel”, one could actually see Grendel’s growth rather than assume how he grew up.  For instance, Grendel, in “Beowulf” Grendel was shown to have no fear against anyone and have the confidence that he is a God himself. However, Gardner shows Grendel’s insecurities and fear towards other animals leading up to the fearlessness that Grendel shows later in the story. Another example of growth is where Grendel has an eye opening incident with the Dragon. When Grendel first meets the Dragon, Grendel is scared at first, but later grows to not being afraid of anything, least of all the Dragon.  With Grendel being a narrator, the story changes our view of Grendel; he shows human emotions, like fear.

                Making Grendel the narrator changes how we view the epic poem “Beowulf”. Seeing as Grendel is a monster, the way we perceive the word ‘monster’ throughout the story “Grendel” is affected. Grendel becomes more human than ‘monster’ in our eyes.  Throughout the story, Grendel yells words from the human language that he does not understand. Towards the middle of the book, readers have not only seen Grendel do monstrous actions like take someone’s life, but, we also see him display humanity by sparing people’s lives. After Grendel talks with the dragon, the story changes dramatically; Grendel understands that everything has a purpose in life, even himself.  With the story being told from Grendel’s point of view, we see a different side of Grendel that we wouldn’t have seen in “Beowulf”.

Anglo-Saxon Boast: Me and Madison

Grendel Pictures

Riddles

Sometimes treated with love and care,

at other times riddled with fang-brands,

I am the two-headed wedge that bares the pair’s number,

the paper’s partner and  imagination’s vehicle.

I am a part of every artist, aspiring or adept,

I stop moving, they stop breathing

Loved by many, near and far,

all across the reaches of the whaleroad,

I am the picture-story of the worlds of your creation,

I come in many cuts from many cultures

and feature figures from herculean-heroes and children-of-Loki

to hags-of-hell and four-leg-walkers,

I tell the tales of those without tongues

Through pictures without sound

Journal 8

Journal 8: Grendel Parody

                Grendel is considered a parody because it is a different version of an already told story. Grendel parodies the epic poem Beowulf. Grendel takes the monster from the poem Beowulf, and tells the story from the monster’s point of view as well as adding more history and character development to Grendel’s character. The same characters from Beowulf appear in Grendel and the same basic story that Beowulf has is told in Grendel, though it’s been changed to suit Grendel’s point of view. Grendel’s role in the story is still as the destroyer of the mead halls that Beowulf must defeat but instead of a faceless creature, Grendel is a thinking, caring creature that is more human than he thinks. Instead of the heroic, awesome larger-than-life man that Beowulf is portrayed as in the original poem, in the Grendel parody, Beowulf is cold, mechanical, and someone that Grendel is unsettled by. Other characters that Grendel interacts with are different in the parody than they are in the poem, like Unferth, who has a larger role in the parody than he does in the original poem. Grendel is a parody because it sort of mocks the original literature it was based off of. Grendel has more differences than similarities between itself and the poem Beowulf, but the similarities are what make Grendel a parody.      

Journal 6

Journal 6: Anglo-Saxon Poetry Themes

                The Anglo-Saxon poems “Beowulf”, “The Seafarer”, and “The Wanderer” contain many similar themes. The epic poem “Beowulf” is about an undefeatable hero that goes to another land to help slay a dangerous beast and save a nation from destruction. “The Seafarer” tells the story of a lonesome traveler that sets out to sea to find his fate.  In “The Wanderer”, the narrator also sets out to sea to find a new life after losing his family. Even though the narrators of all the works are unknown, the poems still a prominent theme. The theme the poems “The Wanderer”, “The Seafarer”, and “Beowulf” share is isolation. All three of these poems are related by that same theme and their reoccurring ideas.

                One thing two of the poems have in common is that both “the Seafarer” and “The Wanderer” are elegies. Elegies poems are sorrowful poems that reflect seriously on the past and the future. In the poem “The Seafarer” a man self-isolates himself on the sea. During his isolation he is filled with sorrow, pain and fear. The epic narrative poem “Beowulf” shows self-isolation whenever he fights his enemies. Beowulf does this so that he can achieve greatness by showing he alone can kill any monster.  In “Beowulf” the monster Grendel is isolated to his own mind and land. In the poem “The Wanderer” the narrator is isolated because everything pleasing on Earth disappears.  The narrator of “The Wanderer” is filled with regret and fear that no one is left to enjoy life with him. The theme of all these poems is isolation.

                 

Journal 3

Journal 3: Grendel’s Language

                Grendel’s attitude towards language is that language is important. As Grendel grows older, his appreciation for language increases and his language and storytelling get more and more complicated. At first, his language is simplistic, which makes sense since he’s only a child in the beginning of the story. As the story goes on, the language changes from simple writing to complicated, with Grendel telling the story with poems and small plays and using kennings, alliterations, and other word plays.

                At first, Grendel doesn’t really worry about language. Grendel doesn’t bother with complicated language because he isn’t very philosophical at his age. Language isn’t important to him since he doesn’t really pursue intellectual thought here, but as he starts to question himself and be influenced by those around him, he grows, and his language grows with him. The Sharper and the Dragon are some of his great influences that help shape his language. Lingering around the humans also affects his language since he becomes interested in their culture. Language is a big part of human culture, particularly the Danes’ since they glorify their scribes and Sharpers for their wisdom and words.

Journal 2

Journal 2: Contemporary Hero Essay

                Grendel is the narrator of the novel “Grendel” and tells an epic story of Grendel’s life. From Grendel’s beginnings to when he jumped off a cliff and died, Grendel was a character as epic and dynamic as Beowulf as he is depicted in the original poem “Beowulf”. There aren’t many characters that are as memorable or will last as long in history as either Grendel or Beowulf, but there are some that are great contenders. For me, one of those contenders is a famous character from a Japanese manga (comic book) named Naruto Uzumaki.

                Naruto Uzumaki is the hero and main protagonist from a manga called “Naruto”. Of all the contemporary manga, “Naruto” is by far the most popular, and he has become a symbol of Japanese manga in general, since he is so widely known even people who’ve never even read a manga before know who he is or what his manga is about. “Naruto” tells the story of a ninja boy named Naruto who has a demon fox inside him. Naruto is on a personal mission to become the best ninja in his village and has to go through many battles to do this and defend his village from attacking ninja villages. The evil that Naruto has to face are the various villages and organizations that want to either destroy his village, take the demon fox from Naruto (which would kill him), or kill people dear to him. There are many enemy countries, headed by hidden villages, in “Naruto” who all have their own agenda that sometimes conflicts with Naruto’s village. The organizations he face either come from the hidden villages or are separate, with the most prominent organization being the Akatsuki, who want Naruto’s fox.

                The reason why Naruto confronts the hidden villages and people like the Akatsuki is because of Naruto’s dream. The best ninja in the village becomes the leader, and in Naruto’s village, that person is called the hokage. The hokage is responsible for protecting the village and everyone in it, so with that responsibility plus Naruto’s personal protectiveness, Naruto has plenty of reason to confront the enemy. The people of the village and his friends are who Naruto confronts this evil for. The virtues that Naruto represents are caring, never giving up, perseverance, friendship, vitality, youth, and doing your best to overcome seemingly impossible odds.       

Journal 1

Beowulf vs Harry Potter

                Beowulf is the archetype of the dragon slayer, the hero that faces death to save a threatened community, and as the martyr, he has something in common with the fictional protagonist of the famous children’s novels Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. Both Beowulf and Harry are martyrs, though they view their responsibilities differently. They grew up in entirely different worlds, and their reason for becoming martyrs are different, as well as the outcome of their stories, but they both slay their respective dragons and save their communities.

                In the epic Beowulf, Beowulf is a Scandinavian hero that comes to help the king of Danes defend his mead-hall from the hell-thane Grendel. Beowulf slays him, then Grendel’s mother attacks, trying to get revenge, but is also defeated. Beowulf returns home victorious and becomes King of Geats, but, fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon and is fatally wounded. Beowulf faces death multiple times and finally dies in battle, facing a threat to his community. Beowulf is proud of his duty and responsibility as hero and as king and gladly goes into battle for his people. Beowulf is proud because he has grown up in a society where heroes are exalted and people believe in concepts like lof, so he has no problem with dying in battle as he thinks he should. He dies protecting his people and is buried in a grand fashion, and his story is told forever more, just as he wished it.

                The protagonist of Harry Potter, on the other time, is nowhere near as proud. In the Potter series, Harry is a young British wizard that is burdened with being the Chosen One, the one who is to defeat the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Harry spends his seven years at Hogwarts facing Voldemort and the many other threats that stem from Voldemort, and is killed in the final battle, the Battle of Hogwarts, but returns to life. Harry faces death throughout his life and dies in battle, protecting his wizarding community from the threat of the Dark Lord. Harry doesn’t really like his duty as the Chosen One, and he would much rather be a regular wizard than the one destined to kill Voldemort, and shies away from the fame that having this responsibility gives him. This is because Harry did not grow up in anything remotely like his home-away-from-home, Hogwarts; instead, he was abused and neglected by his hateful muggle family.  Though Harry does die protecting his new-found community, he comes back to life, unlike Beowulf.

                Harry Potter and Beowulf’s similarities seem to end with their martyrdom. While both Harry and Beowulf die in battle protecting their people from their archetypal dragons, Harry revives himself, whereas Beowulf is buried. Both Harry and Beowulf are exalted by their people for their deeds, and both are just as legendary. While Harry doesn’t really like his responsibilities, Beowulf is proud of it. These differences are results of the way they grew up. While Beowulf grew up learning that doing this and becoming the hero was one of, if not the highest honor, Harry grew up being abused for what his was and wasn’t even aware of it until he was eleven years old. While Beowulf willingly accepted his duties and become a martyr, Harry had no choice, and disliked his responsibilities.  Regardless of these differences, Beowulf and the archetype he represents reminded me of Harry Potter and his battle with Voldemort.

                Despite the differences between Harry and Beowulf, they both follow the same archetype of facing danger and slaying an evil to save their community. Even though the two of them are different in age, maturity, ethnicity, location, as well as in beliefs, values, acceptance of their duties, and outcomes of their battles, they both follow the archetype with Beowulf killing Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon to save the Scandinavians, and Harry defeating Voldemort to save the Wizarding World. These two heroes will both be remembered for their deeds and the characteristics they share and differ on.