"What happened in Grendel was that I got the idea of presenting the Beowulf monster as Sartre, and everything that Grendel says Sartre in one mood or another has said, so that my love of Sartre kind of comes through as my love of the monster,...

Notes from Underground written by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Grendel written by John Gardner are both novels which contain characters who suffer immensely as the novel progresses. Notes from Underground is a novel about a man, deprived of beneficial...

Smother light, and the world becomes perfect. The sun cedes no mercy; it shines upon everything and everyone, unflinchingly exposing the flaws of humanity. Night on the other hand does not judge; it does not discern the beautiful from the ugly,...

In the novel Grendel, by John Gardner, the author associates each chapter with a different astrological sign, such as Aries, Gemini, and Sagittarius, not only to enhance the role of nature in the story, but also to better chronologize Grendel’s...

In 1971, John Gardner changed the way people think about the English epic Beowulf when he published his novel Grendel. In his retelling of the story from the monster Grendel’s perspective, he repeatedly makes references to the philosophy of...

In the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, Grendel is described to be an inhumane, evil monster said to bear a curse as he is a descendant of Cain. He attacks the Danes during the night as a reaction to the joy that he cannot empathize with. His home...

The ancient Anglo-Saxon epic poem of Beowulf describes his many heroic feats, one of which involves Beowulf slaying the notorious monster Grendel. Throughout Beowulf’s numerous adventures, the poem repeatedly stresses the Anglo-Saxon idea of wyrd,...

In John Gardner’s Grendel, a few key interactions between Grendel and other characters mark the paradigmatic shifts that spur his philosophical evolution. Despite Grendel’s self-proclaimed isolation, his response to these interactions demonstrates...