Grendel, The Monster Narrator

                In the poem, Beowulf, the story is from the monster Grendel’s point of view.  In the poem, humans depict Grendel as this evil, devilish being. However, as readers read Gardner’s novel Grendel, the can see that he is innocent and somewhat naive.  Most readers would have not gotten this impression of Grendel if he were not the narrator, which may have been Gardner’s ultimate intention. By using Grendel as the narrator, it allows reader to enter a new world—the world through the eyes of Grendel. Reading a story from another character’s perspective is the best to way to fully understand the characters. Gardner allows readers to see the character without the intervene of another character, who, perhaps, can change the reader’s perception of a character as each character has their own relationship with each other, therefore having a bias to one perception— their perception.  As we read the story, we can see Grendel’s growth as a narrator. At the beginning, we see the fears and insecurities of Grendel; for example in the first chapter, the ram cries to the sky and the animals around the forest. As the story progresses, we also see his reasoning for murdering and dislike towards humans. We get to see all aspects of Grendel, from his true personality to his philosophies. If the story was told in any other point of view except for Grendel’s, like in Beowulf, then the story would lose some of its entirety as readers would not know emotional and physiological ways of Grendel, therefore making him the best candidate for being the narrator.

                Grendel ‘s monster status affects the way he tells the story greatly. Because he is a monster, he is unfamiliar with the way the humans talk and think; this is obvious as, at the beginning of the story, he yells and moans and starts to mock the humans, not knowing what his is saying.  In addition, he also kills humans relentlessly. However, as the story progress, readers see Grendel grow as both a person and narrator; he starts to have mercy on human life and begins to take great thought into his raids. He starts to kills all those who refers to themselves as heroes, however, he spares Unferth’s life—Unferth is only a mockery to the term hero. This is also exemplifies how Grendel has grown as a person and intellectually. Gardner shows this growth in Grendel when he argues with Unferth, as he uses the term “hero,” but defeats him mentally rather than physically as Unferth only wishes to claim the title “hero” but is not given the satisfaction.

Grendel being the narrator gives the story both evidence and purpose.  By making Grendel the narrator, this gives the readers a better understanding of the character. Poems like Beowulf tell the story of good and evil; however, it fails to tell the reason behind both cases. As people read the story Grendel, they expect Grendel to be the cruel some monster of evil doing just for the whim of it. However, making Grendel the narrator, readers were given the opportunity to understand Grendel’s motives. Grendel gets to tell his story through his own point of view, showing that there is more to the eye.