Grendel 2 Essay, Research Paper
Grendel
Thought out the novel Grendel searched for some reason to why he existed and often wonders what meaning was there to life. He turned too many for these answers. Man, his mother, and the dragon, but no one could give Grendel the answer he was looking for.
Grendels mother you would think would give Grendel all the answers he wanted. We all remember asking out moms a question that she didn t know the answer to, but of course she came up with an answer to make us happy even though it might have been untrue. Grendels mom did the exact opposite, not once giving him an answer. Instead whenever he asked, why are we here? Why do we stand this putrid, stinking hole? she would never speak and just wiggle her claws, which implored not to ask. This forced Grendel to turn to some one else for the answers he needed, so he turned to man.
Grendel became fascinated with man at an early age. He watched as their population grew, he watched the wars they waged, the celebrations they had at night where they all became drunk and foolish. He watched their senseless killing, their wastefulness, and he learned some new words from them. He seemed to look at man as his teacher and deep down it appeared that he wanted to became a man himself for they had found some kind of meaning. He did make a couple of futile attempts to befriend man. Often he approached the exiled, but in the end he had to eat them for they were treacherous. In Grendels last attempt to part of mans society, he staggered out into the open and up toward the hall with my burden, groaning out, Mercy! Peace! The harper broke off, the people screamed. Drunken men rushed me with battle-axes. I sank to my knees, crying, Friend! Friend! They hacked at me, yipping like dogs. I held up the body for protection. In the end man was to afraid of Grendel to befriend him, so they tried killing him and would have succeeded if Grendel gave them the chance. So now Grendel, not getting any answers from his mother or man if forced to go to the last person that can possible help him, the dragon.
The Dragon wasn t much help to Grendel either, he just further pushed Grendel to the idea of nothingness. He said that the stories the shaper, who Grendel grew to like and not kill him, told where pure illusion. The shaper only knew of the past and present, and the Dragon saw that nothing would come of it in the future. The only thing the Dragon did for Grendel was show him what he meant to mean. Which was as long as Grendel terrorized and killed man then he would be a factor to them. If he stopped the killing then he would mean nothing to them and he would be merely forgotten. The Dragon did give one final piece of advice to Grendel, Seek out gold and sit on it. That in sense was the only way Grendel was going to find meaning according to the Dragon.
When everything was all said and done, Grendel was still left with no answers, bring him to believe in this total idea of nothingness. So he goes on with his killing until he becomes the prey of Beowulf and is killed.