As Grendel is enjoying himself raiding the mead hall and even ties a tablecloth around his neck as a napkin, he coincidentally tries eat another man who turns out to be Beowulf. Beowulf was awake the entire time, watching Grendel’s every step to learn the methods he uses. As they are fighting, Grendel has a hallucination of Beowulf having wings and spitting fire. This can be related back to the dragon because we do not know if the dragon is a creature in his mind or a living creature. Grendel imagines Beowulf coming before he even knows that he exists, just like the dragon. It is possible that both are just in his mind and imagination. In addition, Beowulf is the representation of christianity because if he were to die nobody would have known much about it, but him living opens the world to religion. Grendel tells Beowulf that it was merely an accident that he has defeating him. Grendel “accidently” slipped on blood which gave Beowulf the chance to take control, if it was not for that, Beowulf would have never won. Poor Grendel suffers a terrible death, he loses a lot of blood after Beowulf ripped out one of his arms. Grendel then runs off into the forest and imagines himself on a dark cliff. His final words seem to be directed to the mechanical animals since they gather around him as he dies. Metztli Garcia
Grendel finally summons the courage to approach Hrothgar's kingdom, and he does so negligent of the threat they pose on him. After many months of holding back, he barges with enthusiasm in through the front door of the kingdom while they are all mostly in a deep sleep (because of all of the mead they consumed in the last hours), first grabbing a napkin to keep himself "clean". After tearing apart the first man, (who drenches Grendel's entire body) he approaches Beowulf, who is not comatose as Grendel assumes. This is where Grendel commits a cloddish blunder, and eventually, brings upon himself his own demise. His excitement overrules his rationality, while he is too thrilled to think clearly. After having his own arm ripped out of it's socket, having his forehead gashed open, and being humiliated publicly, Grendel, full of fear and rage escapes from his worst nightmare. He feels death creep upon him, he feels himself being sunken into the chasm, and as the darkness envelopes him, he utters his final words to the surrounding creatures "Poor Grendel has had an accident, So may you all." I think he hopes for them to have an accident so that they all too may not forgo the great suffering he did while he was alive, but then again, only he and the humans are that conscious of what goes on around them. And if Grendel were to have been less learned and cognizant of the world around him, he would've probably been able to enjoy life just as the animals do. I feel that Grendel was gifted the most unfavorable aspects of the humans, since he was as ugly as a decomposing carcass and as aware of it as the humans were. With these attributes, and having nobody to understand him or talk to, what joy could he find in life... -Julian
This chapter starts off with Grendel’s bloodthirsty rampage through the mead hall. Instead of gorging on human flesh like a normal monster, Grendel uses a table cloth as a napkin to keep it classy. After eating several men, he accidentally stumbles upon Beowulf. Beowulf was waiting for Grendel and managed to catch him off guard. Beowulf’s powerful grip surprised Grendel and lead to the only fight that Grendel has ever been fearful in. Grendel plans to kick beowulf when he least expects it. Though, when Grendel attempts this act, he slips on some blood and ends up loosing the fight with beowulf crashing and weighing him down. Beowulf then forces Grendel to sing for him before brutally ripping off his arm. Grendel flees to the forest and cries for his mother. Sadly his mother does not and Grendel dies. This battle was also the analogy for Christianity taking over the Paganistic religion that was believed in then. Beowulf was both the enemy of Grendel and Hrothgar in the way that he was the symbol of Christianity. Since Hrothgar is nothing without Grendel and vice versa, Beowulf was the inevitable destruction made for the both of them.
Lets recap (as in go over stuff I forgot to say in the previous chapter). Beowulf goes to heorot, meets the king, sees that hrothgar's kingdom is falling apart, and then shuts up unferth like a boss. Grendel finally gets up and goes to heorot despite feeling nervous. He gets their, kills all the geats, and then is tricked by Beowulf. At this point Beowulf becomes something else, the dragon. I believe this represents full circle, Grendel has clung to the dumbest philosophy of all time and now it comes back to bite him in the butt. Grendel started out wanting to leave a mark with his life, he wanted to break the mechanical pace of life and have an experience, instead he meets the dragon and, being his young self, clung to that philosophy of nihilism which the dragon gave him despite being introduced to like three other philosophies including existentialism. This nihilistic tint on life did the exact opposite to Grendel, it made him not care enough to go out and make something of his life, instead someone else, the shaper made it for him. So the dragon, the one who introduced Grendel to nihilism, takes the form of Beowulf in showing how useless nihilism was to him and thus killing him. All in all I have one thing to say, Grendel is a *ahem* d00Fus
Chapter twelve reveals Grendel’s experience during and after his one-sided fight with Beowulf. When Grendel barges into the hall he finds the Geats drunk and sleeping. He believes them to be easy prey. Unsuspecting, as Grendel bends down to grab Beowulf, the hero springs up, very much awake, and grabs Grendel’s arm. Beowulf’s hold on Grendel is so much more powerful than any strength Grendel had experience on what he calls “middle earth”. “Middle Earth” refers to what the humans of the time knew as the physical world. When Grendel describes Beowulf as being beyond the physical world, he could be referring to the spiritual part the universe, such as heaven or hell, which Beowulf symbolizes because Beowulf is the arrival of Christianity. This coincides with Grendel’s next hallucination, where Beowulf sprouts two wings and fiery eyes. The wings of Beowulf could be related to the wings of the monotheistic god or his angels, which were often depicted in the bible as possessing either a literal wing used for flying or some metaphorical wing that protects the people. This image could also be referencing the devil, who at one time was an angel and is probably related to fire as he is part of hell. Based on Grendel’s knowledge of the world, he knows his sight is an illusion and tries to drive it out of his mind. He comes to realize that everyone hopes for their own, personal view of the world to be correct, but in times of catastrophe such Grendel’s experience right now that the view could be altered by a false hallucination. As Grendel slips on a pile of blood, he feels himself falling into a dark bottomless space, and trying to stay in the world by grasping the roots of a great oak tree. This is a recurring motif in the novel which could symbolize Grendel struggling to stay alive as forces beyond Grendel’s control kill him. Beowulf then talks to Grendel about the arrival of fish, the symbol for Christianity, and his own version of the reality of the universe. Beowulf’s model is similar to Grendel’s because he talks about the inevitability of the entropy overcoming everythin. Later, on 171, when Beowulf says “you make the world by whispers”, he may be talking about the insignificance of Grendel’s small life compared to the larger world. Afterwards he forces Grendel to sing. Grendel’s song talks about how all human constructions will eventually be destroyed along with their civilization. When Beowulf pulls off Grendel’s arm, Grendel realizes that here he could actually die, just as Beowulf promised. As Grendel stumbles outside, he again sees the recurring motif of hanging onto oak-tree roots over a terrifying darkness. Here the void beneath Grendel could be the place where Grendel will go once he dies, as well as the final resting place of all deceased things. Grendel attempts to stay alive in the world by grabbing the roots of the tree hanging over the void, but Grendel’s life is just a struggle for meaningfulness against the ultimate evil described by Ork, which is that all life is eventually destroyed. Grendel’s final words, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, so may you all” holds two possible meanings. First, Grendel could be acknowledging the fact that everything dies, so after Grendel dies all of the animals around him will eventually go down the same path. Second, he describes himself feeling joy as he passes because he is breaking the mechanical tediousness of his life. Once the animals die, they too for once will be able to break their tedium and mechanical nature. So they, too, will be able to depart from the machinery of the world.
The wait is finally over. These new strangers, Beowulf and his men, stay the night hoping to encounter the murderous monster Grendel. Waiting all night for this moment, Grendel bursts into the mead hall ready for a fight. Instead the monster encounters a room full of drunken men who are in fact asleep. Excited at the idea of how easy it would be to kill all of these men, Grendel begins snatching them up. He easily “catches” and swallows the first, but when he goes for seconds, his next meal is awake. Due to a trap, which poor Grendel accidently walked into, Grendel finds himself in a heated brawl between both him and his attacker, Beowulf. Fighting desperately to stay alive Grendel with all his might tries to escape, but his attempt fails due to the fact that there was a discreetly placed puddle of blood in his way to the door. As Grendel is trying to escape Beowulf demands him to sing, this only confirms Grendel’s theory that Beowulf is insane. Like a young boy Grendel cries for his mother, begs for mercy, and escape, only once his arm is torn from his socket was Grendel able to leave. Repeatedly muttering “trick” “accident”, Grendel is able to stumble into the woods where he is greeted by his favorite nightmare, a dark chasm with twisted oak roots. His heart filling with terror, Grendel uses his final breaths to talk to his “mindless” friends. As we all know the battle between Grendel and Beowulf is a metaphor for when Christianity took over the wide spread Pagan beliefs. Already throughout the book of Beowulf we saw the forced influence of Christian beliefs on the Pagan ideals and morals. So now in a semi-physical sense, we can see how the beliefs changed when the “stick gods” truly did become just “sticks.” Hrothgar’s kingdom will now change since the “Pagan” monster Grendel has died and the Christian hero has risen to favor.
12. Finally Grendels reign of terror is coming to an end. Grendel musters up enough courage to enter Hrothgars kingdom. And when he does, he does what he had done in the original Beowulf book; he silently starts eating Beowulfs men. He become splattered with blood, and decides to wear a tablecloth as a sort of napkin for two reasons in my opinion. He does it to mock them and to show how easy it is to eat them. When theirs men scattered all over the floor, its funny how unprepared these men are. He’s waited all this time, and held back so much emotion; he can no longer refrain himself from acting rashly. And the other reason is to show that he isn’t a dumb beast. This is sort of like the beginnings of sophistication, seprating him from the beasts in the wild. When Grendel arrives at Beowulf, he sees disturbingly that he has been awake the whole time watching this unfold. This really scares me because even monster like Grendel wouldn’t just stand and watch someone he knows and cares about is being murdered right in front of him. Beowulf springs into action grabbing Grendel by the arm. Grendel has never in his life found something that could best him in might. Beowulf tosses him around like a toy, slamming him against the wall and smashing him through tables. After a thrashing, Beowulf does something that made me confused if he was the monster all along. He makes Grendel sing… what!? This shows what a sadistic and evil brute Beowulf is. The shaper did his job. He was able to turn a monster into a man. Grendel is put into a position he hasent been in in a while, calling for his mother to save him from harm, but this time she doesn’t come to his rescue. In the end, Beowulf rips Grendel’s arm off but I now see a difference than in Beowulf. In the book Beowulf, He tore Grendel’s arm off to help the people of Hrothgar’s kingdom. In Grendel, I only see him taking his arm for sport and to show he is the new alpha male in the area. With Beowulf ending the life of Grendel, I now feel so sympathy towards the misunderstood man trapped in a monsters body. ~Ben Moseley
Grendel FINALLY meets Beowulf and religion is painted ALL OVER these two. Beowulf arrives by sea, fish, Beowulf has the looks of a shark, fish, Beowulf constantly talks of fish during their encounter, fish. We all know what fish symbolize, none other than the lord and savior himself. Grendel on the other hand is a pagan. Not only does he despise religion, he also waits whenever the Danes call upon god to strike him down simply to make the point to us that gods aren't real. Apparently they are. Beowulf, or Jesus, or God, or whatever you want to call him, defeats this pagan monster, Grendel, and makes a point to us all that the lord triumphs over evil all the time. However, Grendel doesn't thinks so. He believes he was tricked and does appear to be by Beowulf. Grendel is fooled into thinking that Beowulf is asleep and is taken off guard when he realizes the man is not. Furthermore, Grendel slips on a puddle of blood as he tries to kick Beowulf, thus confirming his belief that it was all bad luck. Other than that, this deceiving business Beowulf has gotten into is very uncharacteristic. Is John Gardener trying to tell us that Beowulf, or maybe Jesus is FAKE??? Maybe, just maaayyyybbbeeee, Mr. Gardener is trying to tell us that gods really don't exist.
The time has come, and Grendel knocks down the doors of the mead-hall. He believes that everyone was asleep and was happy to acknowledge that he was about to have a full-course meal by eating everyone in the hall. He grabs his first victim and swallow him like he has not eaten in ages. As he reaches for the second guy, he felt a strong grab upon his arm, and it turned out that it was Beowulf. He was wide awake, observing Grendel so he can prepare himself. "It was a trick!" As Beowulf tighten his grip on Grendel's arm, Grendel hallucinates and felt like he was falling in a deep hole. He attempted to grab on the roots of an oak tree. Also, he imagined Beowulf as a dragon. On page 172, Grendel states that he saw Beowulf stretch his blinding white wings and breath out fire. Also, he previously stated that Beowulf's grip was like a dragon's jaw on his arm. As he comes back to reality, Beowulf is close to ripping his arm from his body. He tells Grendel to sing songs for him. After the songs, Grendel realizes that his arm is detached from his body. He runs for the exit and escapes. Beowulf does not follow, and Grendel describes how he felt like he was standing on a dark cliff and how he was in an ocean. Sadly, Grendel dies but he knew he was going to be avenged by the dragon...
John Gardner has successfully transformed Beowulf from protagonist to antagonist. It starts with the empty stares, stealing the Danes’ honor, and taunting Unferth, but then he has to go and kill Grendel (spoiler alert: who knew?). How dare he kill our favorite monster, and like a total bully in the process! He starts by keeping his eyes open when Grendel raids the hall and grabbing Grendel’s wrist with the strength of thirty men. Apparently, he is the only one to have realized that the only way to kill Grendel is without a blade. They grapple and knock each other around the room until Beowulf pins Grendel to a wall, his arm behind his back, and forces him to sing praises for the wall. At first, it seems like just another bully tactic, but then the point Beowulf is trying to get across in his speech is discovered. He speaks of the rebirth of the world when Grendel is gone through “mind and matter.” “Time is the mind, the hand that makes… By that I kill you.” (170) As Beowulf talks, Grendel notices flames radiating off of Beowulf. Perhaps Beowulf’s words spark a vision of the dragon with their philosophy. Then, voila! Beowulf strikes his final blow and rips off Grendel’s arm, sending him running to his mere. Grendel continues to have more thoughts of voids and ocean swirls and stars and twisting tree roots that represent his spiraling into insanity as he grasps for a hold on the world as he reaches the point of his demise. He dies among the mechanical animals he has come to despise. Throughout the chapter, more references between Christianity and the fish arise with Beowulf (e.g., “shapes vague as lurking seaweed,” “but where the water was rigid there will be fish”), reinforcing the idea that Beowulf killing Grendel represents the turnover from Paganism to Christianity. Oh, and of course, this chapter’s zodiac symbol is Pisces, the sign of two fish. Clever, clever, Gardner, and his hidden messages…
The end of Grendel is devastating. Over all we see Grendel as a confused monster searching for a purpose in life. In Beowulf we see him as a vicious mechanical monster with no emotion. Beowulf in Beowulf is portrayed as a hero that is strong brave and courageous, but we see the opposite of this in the book Grendel Beowulf is just insane. When Beowulf kills Grendel I became annoyed with Beowulf because he is just killing Grendel for fame and honor. “(finger on harpstrings , hero-swords ,the acts , the eyes of queens).” Grendel hasn’t done anything to his people but if Beowulf kills him he will be sung about and be remembered in history as the man who killed Grendel. As Grendel slowly dies he states that he isn’t the only thing that’s going to die he mentions that everything will die sooner or later.
In this chapter, Grendel entered the mead hall for the feast he had been waiting for. When Grendel entered the mead hall, he filled with joy because the Geats were drunk and fast asleep, so he thought. He gobbled up the first few Geats without a problem, but then trouble struck. He realized that he had been tricked. The men were awake. This is the trick that would end with his death. The Battle between Beowulf and Grendel had begun. This could also be seen as a battle between pagans and Christianity. The arrival of Beowulf represents the beginning or Christianity and it’s beliefs while Grendel represents the old pagans’ beliefs and ways. As Grendel and Beowulf battled Grendel slowly came to the realization that he was going to die. When he tried to fight back he slipped and hallucinated that he was falling into a dark void, where he tried to grasp the twisted roots of an oak tree. Then something strange happened. As Beowulf, the man with the strength of thirty thanes, has Grendel’s arm pinned, he makes Grendel sing. This shows that Grendel’s hypothesis about Beowulf being insane was correct. As Grendel screamed for his mother, Beowulf ripped his arm off. Grendel stumbles out of the mead hall where he has his final realization that he is going to die as he again hallucinates that he is falling into a deep dark void, where he has to grab the roots of an oak tree. He keeps having these hallucinations because it is where it all started. The oak tree is what led him to his death, because this is where he first encountered and became interested in humans. Every time Grendel hallucinates he sees where his death began. His last words are, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, and so may you all.” By this it seems like he means that now that they killed him they have no meaning. Grendel gave the shaper stories to tell, made Hrothgar the king he was, and made the people how they were. Without him they have no meaning. They have no one to tell tales about and to try to work against. With no challenge, there is no improvement. Grendel’s death is majorly different in Beowulf than it is in Grendel. In Beowulf, Grendel looks like a hero who has saved the kingdom from being slaughtered by this supposed evil demon but in Grendel you see from the monster’s perspective and see how crazy and vicious Beowulf is. In Grendel the reader doesn’t see Grendel as the enemy, but Beowulf. This shows how great of a writer John Gardener is. He was able to completely change the point of view of the reader and juristically change the reader’s opinions on the characters. He really makes one pity poor Grendel.
In chapter 12, the day has at last arrived, Grendel faces his death. It started off with him being his monstrous self eating many men. He decided to try and eat Beowulf but didn’t know he'd be the one to kill him instead. Beowulf cuts Grendel’s arms off and has him bleeding and suffering. Grendel went back to his mere where he dies with the animals he was always with. He disliked them because they couldn’t come to the realization that everything surrounding them was so mechanical and things were always the same with no actual positive excitement. Beowulf decided to kill Grendel for the glory and pride in being able to say he was the one to get rid of the monster. He decided to say his last words to the other creatures suffering from the mechanical ways of life. Stephanie Medina
As expected Grendel dies in this chapter. This chapter seemed so sad because Grendel thought that he would win his fight against Beowulf but unfortunately he didn't. It began with Beowulf slamming Grendel's head into a wall that was close by and commanding Grendel to sing. This then led to Grendel's arms being ripped off which in the end was the cause of Grendel's death. Afterwards he thrn lies surrounded by animals and says his final words.
Dear Amy, In Chapter 12, Grendel bursts the door with his finger tips into the meadhall. Feeling excitement, bloodlust and joy, Grendel marches to the meadhall with a desire to kill all the men. But to his surprise, he finds everyone asleep. Grendel thinking his plan will be easier, shows an ironic mannerism of wrapping a napkin around his neck. Grendel grabs a sleeping man and tears his head off, and sucks on the blood. As Grendel seizes the wrist of another sleeping man, who happened to be Beowulf, is ambushed. Beowulf had tricked Grendel to believe he was asleep. Beowulf locks his hands in the monster's arms. In this scene, Beowulf is described as a dragon. This alludes to a story of Christianity, where Beowulf is represented as the white dragon, who defeats the red dragon in a battle, and sends the red dragon to hell. This marks the first origins of Christianity in medieval history. While, Grendel feels his arm coming apart, Grednel is caught in his mind between illusion and reality. He feels his mind slipping into illusion, and he tries to get himself back in reality. Many times in this chapter, he slips into an illusion, seeing Beowulf as a dragon, and then an angel. While Grendel is trying to slip right back into reality, Grendel feels distraught, because he knows he will die especially since he is losing consciousness. What really makes Grendel sad is that after he dies, there will be no history of Grendel, meaning he will never live again. By not living again means that people will not talk about Grendel, instead people will talk about tales, cite poems, and sing tales about the great Beowulf who defeats Grendel. Grendel who feels his pain numbing, feels himself slip to an illusion of falling into a dark chasm. Gathering all his strength, Grendel tries to gain his sanity back, telling himself that Beowulf is just a man, not an angel or a dragon. Beowulf who is getting into Grendel’s head stats whispering in Grendel’s ear. Beowulf whispers to Grendel about the truth of Christianity. The truth of Christianity is according to Beowulf is that things die and will be reborn again. While Beowulf tells this, it reminds Grendel of the dragon, as if Beowulf is the dragon, or Beowulf is repeating what the dragon had told him. Grendel who feels he is betrayed by the Shaper’s own words of Christianity, complains he had been tricked and it was an accident. Gendel who is getting out of his mindless mechanical cycle, hears Beowulf tell him, that you make the world by whispers like the Shaper. Beowulf makes Grendel sing of the badness of walls. In which the walls represent Christianity. Because Christianity is like a wall because it can be hard to overcome, and will always deflect whatever comes its way. And that reality is reality and that he cannot create reality. At this point, Beowulf rips Grendel’s arm off from his shoulder. Grendel runs back to his cave begging for his mother to help him, but she does not come to help him. Beowulf didn’t get the better of Grendel because he had a better philosophy, according to Grendel. The White Dragon represents Christianity and the red dragon represents the devil. As it all came sense to Grendel, he feels joy and relief as he is about to die. Animals gather around and watch with mindless, indifferent eyes, as Grendel dies. The animals act mechanically, making Grendel feel better that he himself was not mechanical like them. But instead of feeing joy, Grendel feels his own terror as he is about to die. Grendel’s last words are “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, So may you all.” Grendel is blessing and cursing them of their mechanism. And at last, we hear the last from Grendel as he dies. THE END! Sincerely, Dylan Tsung
In the final chapter, Grendel has his showdown with the stranger Beowulf. He succumbs to his almost mechanical urge to face the men in the meadhall, only to find out that Beowulf is expecting him. Beowulf continues in his role as the bringer of Christianity, appearing as more than what he is. Grendel in his less lucid moments imagines him as an angel, or a (the?) dragon. Beowulf is described as having a grip like a dragon’s jaws, sounding like chilly fire, and speaking about the dust from the dragon chapter. He also continues to hang above the chasm from the first chapter, and the “black sun and spiders” from his talk with the dragon, but now they are given meaning as death. Even as Grendel dies, Beowulf espouses his philosophy, quite different from the dragons’. The dragon saw everything as having to die, and Beowulf speaks of everything as being born again.
As Grendel is enjoying himself raiding the mead hall and even ties a tablecloth around his neck as a napkin, he coincidentally tries eat another man who turns out to be Beowulf. Beowulf was awake the entire time, watching Grendel’s every step to learn the methods he uses. As they are fighting, Grendel has a hallucination of Beowulf having wings and spitting fire. This can be related back to the dragon because we do not know if the dragon is a creature in his mind or a living creature. Grendel imagines Beowulf coming before he even knows that he exists, just like the dragon. It is possible that both are just in his mind and imagination. In addition, Beowulf is the representation of christianity because if he were to die nobody would have known much about it, but him living opens the world to religion. Grendel tells Beowulf that it was merely an accident that he has defeating him. Grendel “accidently” slipped on blood which gave Beowulf the chance to take control, if it was not for that, Beowulf would have never won. Poor Grendel suffers a terrible death, he loses a lot of blood after Beowulf ripped out one of his arms. Grendel then runs off into the forest and imagines himself on a dark cliff. His final words seem to be directed to the mechanical animals since they gather around him as he dies.
ReplyDeleteMetztli Garcia
Hi
DeleteGrendel finally summons the courage to approach Hrothgar's kingdom, and he does so negligent of the threat they pose on him. After many months of holding back, he barges with enthusiasm in through the front door of the kingdom while they are all mostly in a deep sleep (because of all of the mead they consumed in the last hours), first grabbing a napkin to keep himself "clean". After tearing apart the first man, (who drenches Grendel's entire body) he approaches Beowulf, who is not comatose as Grendel assumes. This is where Grendel commits a cloddish blunder, and eventually, brings upon himself his own demise. His excitement overrules his rationality, while he is too thrilled to think clearly. After having his own arm ripped out of it's socket, having his forehead gashed open, and being humiliated publicly, Grendel, full of fear and rage escapes from his worst nightmare. He feels death creep upon him, he feels himself being sunken into the chasm, and as the darkness envelopes him, he utters his final words to the surrounding creatures "Poor Grendel has had an accident, So may you all." I think he hopes for them to have an accident so that they all too may not forgo the great suffering he did while he was alive, but then again, only he and the humans are that conscious of what goes on around them. And if Grendel were to have been less learned and cognizant of the world around him, he would've probably been able to enjoy life just as the animals do. I feel that Grendel was gifted the most unfavorable aspects of the humans, since he was as ugly as a decomposing carcass and as aware of it as the humans were. With these attributes, and having nobody to understand him or talk to, what joy could he find in life...
ReplyDelete-Julian
This chapter starts off with Grendel’s bloodthirsty rampage through the mead hall. Instead of gorging on human flesh like a normal monster, Grendel uses a table cloth as a napkin to keep it classy. After eating several men, he accidentally stumbles upon Beowulf. Beowulf was waiting for Grendel and managed to catch him off guard. Beowulf’s powerful grip surprised Grendel and lead to the only fight that Grendel has ever been fearful in. Grendel plans to kick beowulf when he least expects it. Though, when Grendel attempts this act, he slips on some blood and ends up loosing the fight with beowulf crashing and weighing him down. Beowulf then forces Grendel to sing for him before brutally ripping off his arm. Grendel flees to the forest and cries for his mother. Sadly his mother does not and Grendel dies. This battle was also the analogy for Christianity taking over the Paganistic religion that was believed in then. Beowulf was both the enemy of Grendel and Hrothgar in the way that he was the symbol of Christianity. Since Hrothgar is nothing without Grendel and vice versa, Beowulf was the inevitable destruction made for the both of them.
ReplyDeleteAdam
Lets recap (as in go over stuff I forgot to say in the previous chapter). Beowulf goes to heorot, meets the king, sees that hrothgar's kingdom is falling apart, and then shuts up unferth like a boss. Grendel finally gets up and goes to heorot despite feeling nervous. He gets their, kills all the geats, and then is tricked by Beowulf. At this point Beowulf becomes something else, the dragon. I believe this represents full circle, Grendel has clung to the dumbest philosophy of all time and now it comes back to bite him in the butt. Grendel started out wanting to leave a mark with his life, he wanted to break the mechanical pace of life and have an experience, instead he meets the dragon and, being his young self, clung to that philosophy of nihilism which the dragon gave him despite being introduced to like three other philosophies including existentialism. This nihilistic tint on life did the exact opposite to Grendel, it made him not care enough to go out and make something of his life, instead someone else, the shaper made it for him. So the dragon, the one who introduced Grendel to nihilism, takes the form of Beowulf in showing how useless nihilism was to him and thus killing him. All in all I have one thing to say, Grendel is a *ahem* d00Fus
ReplyDeleteif I said Alex I wouldn't be lying
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ReplyDeleteChapter twelve reveals Grendel’s experience during and after his one-sided fight with Beowulf. When Grendel barges into the hall he finds the Geats drunk and sleeping. He believes them to be easy prey. Unsuspecting, as Grendel bends down to grab Beowulf, the hero springs up, very much awake, and grabs Grendel’s arm. Beowulf’s hold on Grendel is so much more powerful than any strength Grendel had experience on what he calls “middle earth”. “Middle Earth” refers to what the humans of the time knew as the physical world. When Grendel describes Beowulf as being beyond the physical world, he could be referring to the spiritual part the universe, such as heaven or hell, which Beowulf symbolizes because Beowulf is the arrival of Christianity. This coincides with Grendel’s next hallucination, where Beowulf sprouts two wings and fiery eyes. The wings of Beowulf could be related to the wings of the monotheistic god or his angels, which were often depicted in the bible as possessing either a literal wing used for flying or some metaphorical wing that protects the people. This image could also be referencing the devil, who at one time was an angel and is probably related to fire as he is part of hell. Based on Grendel’s knowledge of the world, he knows his sight is an illusion and tries to drive it out of his mind. He comes to realize that everyone hopes for their own, personal view of the world to be correct, but in times of catastrophe such Grendel’s experience right now that the view could be altered by a false hallucination. As Grendel slips on a pile of blood, he feels himself falling into a dark bottomless space, and trying to stay in the world by grasping the roots of a great oak tree. This is a recurring motif in the novel which could symbolize Grendel struggling to stay alive as forces beyond Grendel’s control kill him. Beowulf then talks to Grendel about the arrival of fish, the symbol for Christianity, and his own version of the reality of the universe. Beowulf’s model is similar to Grendel’s because he talks about the inevitability of the entropy overcoming everythin. Later, on 171, when Beowulf says “you make the world by whispers”, he may be talking about the insignificance of Grendel’s small life compared to the larger world. Afterwards he forces Grendel to sing. Grendel’s song talks about how all human constructions will eventually be destroyed along with their civilization. When Beowulf pulls off Grendel’s arm, Grendel realizes that here he could actually die, just as Beowulf promised. As Grendel stumbles outside, he again sees the recurring motif of hanging onto oak-tree roots over a terrifying darkness. Here the void beneath Grendel could be the place where Grendel will go once he dies, as well as the final resting place of all deceased things. Grendel attempts to stay alive in the world by grabbing the roots of the tree hanging over the void, but Grendel’s life is just a struggle for meaningfulness against the ultimate evil described by Ork, which is that all life is eventually destroyed. Grendel’s final words, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, so may you all” holds two possible meanings. First, Grendel could be acknowledging the fact that everything dies, so after Grendel dies all of the animals around him will eventually go down the same path. Second, he describes himself feeling joy as he passes because he is breaking the mechanical tediousness of his life. Once the animals die, they too for once will be able to break their tedium and mechanical nature. So they, too, will be able to depart from the machinery of the world.
*applause*
DeleteThe wait is finally over. These new strangers, Beowulf and his men, stay the night hoping to encounter the murderous monster Grendel. Waiting all night for this moment, Grendel bursts into the mead hall ready for a fight. Instead the monster encounters a room full of drunken men who are in fact asleep. Excited at the idea of how easy it would be to kill all of these men, Grendel begins snatching them up. He easily “catches” and swallows the first, but when he goes for seconds, his next meal is awake. Due to a trap, which poor Grendel accidently walked into, Grendel finds himself in a heated brawl between both him and his attacker, Beowulf. Fighting desperately to stay alive Grendel with all his might tries to escape, but his attempt fails due to the fact that there was a discreetly placed puddle of blood in his way to the door. As Grendel is trying to escape Beowulf demands him to sing, this only confirms Grendel’s theory that Beowulf is insane. Like a young boy Grendel cries for his mother, begs for mercy, and escape, only once his arm is torn from his socket was Grendel able to leave. Repeatedly muttering “trick” “accident”, Grendel is able to stumble into the woods where he is greeted by his favorite nightmare, a dark chasm with twisted oak roots. His heart filling with terror, Grendel uses his final breaths to talk to his “mindless” friends. As we all know the battle between Grendel and Beowulf is a metaphor for when Christianity took over the wide spread Pagan beliefs. Already throughout the book of Beowulf we saw the forced influence of Christian beliefs on the Pagan ideals and morals. So now in a semi-physical sense, we can see how the beliefs changed when the “stick gods” truly did become just “sticks.” Hrothgar’s kingdom will now change since the “Pagan” monster Grendel has died and the Christian hero has risen to favor.
ReplyDelete~Shelby
12. Finally Grendels reign of terror is coming to an end. Grendel musters up enough courage to enter Hrothgars kingdom. And when he does, he does what he had done in the original Beowulf book; he silently starts eating Beowulfs men. He become splattered with blood, and decides to wear a tablecloth as a sort of napkin for two reasons in my opinion. He does it to mock them and to show how easy it is to eat them. When theirs men scattered all over the floor, its funny how unprepared these men are. He’s waited all this time, and held back so much emotion; he can no longer refrain himself from acting rashly. And the other reason is to show that he isn’t a dumb beast. This is sort of like the beginnings of sophistication, seprating him from the beasts in the wild. When Grendel arrives at Beowulf, he sees disturbingly that he has been awake the whole time watching this unfold. This really scares me because even monster like Grendel wouldn’t just stand and watch someone he knows and cares about is being murdered right in front of him. Beowulf springs into action grabbing Grendel by the arm. Grendel has never in his life found something that could best him in might. Beowulf tosses him around like a toy, slamming him against the wall and smashing him through tables. After a thrashing, Beowulf does something that made me confused if he was the monster all along. He makes Grendel sing… what!? This shows what a sadistic and evil brute Beowulf is. The shaper did his job. He was able to turn a monster into a man. Grendel is put into a position he hasent been in in a while, calling for his mother to save him from harm, but this time she doesn’t come to his rescue. In the end, Beowulf rips Grendel’s arm off but I now see a difference than in Beowulf. In the book Beowulf, He tore Grendel’s arm off to help the people of Hrothgar’s kingdom. In Grendel, I only see him taking his arm for sport and to show he is the new alpha male in the area. With Beowulf ending the life of Grendel, I now feel so sympathy towards the misunderstood man trapped in a monsters body.
ReplyDelete~Ben Moseley
Grendel FINALLY meets Beowulf and religion is painted ALL OVER these two. Beowulf arrives by sea, fish, Beowulf has the looks of a shark, fish, Beowulf constantly talks of fish during their encounter, fish. We all know what fish symbolize, none other than the lord and savior himself. Grendel on the other hand is a pagan. Not only does he despise religion, he also waits whenever the Danes call upon god to strike him down simply to make the point to us that gods aren't real. Apparently they are. Beowulf, or Jesus, or God, or whatever you want to call him, defeats this pagan monster, Grendel, and makes a point to us all that the lord triumphs over evil all the time. However, Grendel doesn't thinks so. He believes he was tricked and does appear to be by Beowulf. Grendel is fooled into thinking that Beowulf is asleep and is taken off guard when he realizes the man is not. Furthermore, Grendel slips on a puddle of blood as he tries to kick Beowulf, thus confirming his belief that it was all bad luck. Other than that, this deceiving business Beowulf has gotten into is very uncharacteristic. Is John Gardener trying to tell us that Beowulf, or maybe Jesus is FAKE??? Maybe, just maaayyyybbbeeee, Mr. Gardener is trying to tell us that gods really don't exist.
ReplyDeleteCameron
DeleteThe time has come, and Grendel knocks down the doors of the mead-hall. He believes that everyone was asleep and was happy to acknowledge that he was about to have a full-course meal by eating everyone in the hall. He grabs his first victim and swallow him like he has not eaten in ages. As he reaches for the second guy, he felt a strong grab upon his arm, and it turned out that it was Beowulf. He was wide awake, observing Grendel so he can prepare himself. "It was a trick!" As Beowulf tighten his grip on Grendel's arm, Grendel hallucinates and felt like he was falling in a deep hole. He attempted to grab on the roots of an oak tree. Also, he imagined Beowulf as a dragon. On page 172, Grendel states that he saw Beowulf stretch his blinding white wings and breath out fire. Also, he previously stated that Beowulf's grip was like a dragon's jaw on his arm. As he comes back to reality, Beowulf is close to ripping his arm from his body. He tells Grendel to sing songs for him. After the songs, Grendel realizes that his arm is detached from his body. He runs for the exit and escapes. Beowulf does not follow, and Grendel describes how he felt like he was standing on a dark cliff and how he was in an ocean. Sadly, Grendel dies but he knew he was going to be avenged by the dragon...
ReplyDeleteJohn Gardner has successfully transformed Beowulf from protagonist to antagonist. It starts with the empty stares, stealing the Danes’ honor, and taunting Unferth, but then he has to go and kill Grendel (spoiler alert: who knew?). How dare he kill our favorite monster, and like a total bully in the process! He starts by keeping his eyes open when Grendel raids the hall and grabbing Grendel’s wrist with the strength of thirty men. Apparently, he is the only one to have realized that the only way to kill Grendel is without a blade. They grapple and knock each other around the room until Beowulf pins Grendel to a wall, his arm behind his back, and forces him to sing praises for the wall. At first, it seems like just another bully tactic, but then the point Beowulf is trying to get across in his speech is discovered. He speaks of the rebirth of the world when Grendel is gone through “mind and matter.” “Time is the mind, the hand that makes… By that I kill you.” (170) As Beowulf talks, Grendel notices flames radiating off of Beowulf. Perhaps Beowulf’s words spark a vision of the dragon with their philosophy. Then, voila! Beowulf strikes his final blow and rips off Grendel’s arm, sending him running to his mere. Grendel continues to have more thoughts of voids and ocean swirls and stars and twisting tree roots that represent his spiraling into insanity as he grasps for a hold on the world as he reaches the point of his demise. He dies among the mechanical animals he has come to despise. Throughout the chapter, more references between Christianity and the fish arise with Beowulf (e.g., “shapes vague as lurking seaweed,” “but where the water was rigid there will be fish”), reinforcing the idea that Beowulf killing Grendel represents the turnover from Paganism to Christianity. Oh, and of course, this chapter’s zodiac symbol is Pisces, the sign of two fish. Clever, clever, Gardner, and his hidden messages…
ReplyDelete—Haven
The end of Grendel is devastating. Over all we see Grendel as a confused monster searching for a purpose in life. In Beowulf we see him as a vicious mechanical monster with no emotion. Beowulf in Beowulf is portrayed as a hero that is strong brave and courageous, but we see the opposite of this in the book Grendel Beowulf is just insane. When Beowulf kills Grendel I became annoyed with Beowulf because he is just killing Grendel for fame and honor. “(finger on harpstrings , hero-swords ,the acts , the eyes of queens).” Grendel hasn’t done anything to his people but if Beowulf kills him he will be sung about and be remembered in history as the man who killed Grendel. As Grendel slowly dies he states that he isn’t the only thing that’s going to die he mentions that everything will die sooner or later.
ReplyDeleteIn this chapter, Grendel entered the mead hall for the feast he had been waiting for. When Grendel entered the mead hall, he filled with joy because the Geats were drunk and fast asleep, so he thought. He gobbled up the first few Geats without a problem, but then trouble struck. He realized that he had been tricked. The men were awake. This is the trick that would end with his death. The Battle between Beowulf and Grendel had begun. This could also be seen as a battle between pagans and Christianity. The arrival of Beowulf represents the beginning or Christianity and it’s beliefs while Grendel represents the old pagans’ beliefs and ways. As Grendel and Beowulf battled Grendel slowly came to the realization that he was going to die. When he tried to fight back he slipped and hallucinated that he was falling into a dark void, where he tried to grasp the twisted roots of an oak tree. Then something strange happened. As Beowulf, the man with the strength of thirty thanes, has Grendel’s arm pinned, he makes Grendel sing. This shows that Grendel’s hypothesis about Beowulf being insane was correct. As Grendel screamed for his mother, Beowulf ripped his arm off. Grendel stumbles out of the mead hall where he has his final realization that he is going to die as he again hallucinates that he is falling into a deep dark void, where he has to grab the roots of an oak tree. He keeps having these hallucinations because it is where it all started. The oak tree is what led him to his death, because this is where he first encountered and became interested in humans. Every time Grendel hallucinates he sees where his death began. His last words are, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, and so may you all.” By this it seems like he means that now that they killed him they have no meaning. Grendel gave the shaper stories to tell, made Hrothgar the king he was, and made the people how they were. Without him they have no meaning. They have no one to tell tales about and to try to work against. With no challenge, there is no improvement. Grendel’s death is majorly different in Beowulf than it is in Grendel. In Beowulf, Grendel looks like a hero who has saved the kingdom from being slaughtered by this supposed evil demon but in Grendel you see from the monster’s perspective and see how crazy and vicious Beowulf is. In Grendel the reader doesn’t see Grendel as the enemy, but Beowulf. This shows how great of a writer John Gardener is. He was able to completely change the point of view of the reader and juristically change the reader’s opinions on the characters. He really makes one pity poor Grendel.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 12, the day has at last arrived, Grendel faces his death. It started off with him being his monstrous self eating many men. He decided to try and eat Beowulf but didn’t know he'd be the one to kill him instead. Beowulf cuts Grendel’s arms off and has him bleeding and suffering. Grendel went back to his mere where he dies with the animals he was always with. He disliked them because they couldn’t come to the realization that everything surrounding them was so mechanical and things were always the same with no actual positive excitement. Beowulf decided to kill Grendel for the glory and pride in being able to say he was the one to get rid of the monster. He decided to say his last words to the other creatures suffering from the mechanical ways of life.
ReplyDeleteStephanie Medina
As expected Grendel dies in this chapter. This chapter seemed so sad because Grendel thought that he would win his fight against Beowulf but unfortunately he didn't. It began with Beowulf slamming Grendel's head into a wall that was close by and commanding Grendel to sing. This then led to Grendel's arms being ripped off which in the end was the cause of Grendel's death. Afterwards he thrn lies surrounded by animals and says his final words.
ReplyDeleteDear Amy,
ReplyDeleteIn Chapter 12, Grendel bursts the door with his finger tips into the meadhall. Feeling excitement, bloodlust and joy, Grendel marches to the meadhall with a desire to kill all the men. But to his surprise, he finds everyone asleep. Grendel thinking his plan will be easier, shows an ironic mannerism of wrapping a napkin around his neck. Grendel grabs a sleeping man and tears his head off, and sucks on the blood. As Grendel seizes the wrist of another sleeping man, who happened to be Beowulf, is ambushed. Beowulf had tricked Grendel to believe he was asleep. Beowulf locks his hands in the monster's arms. In this scene, Beowulf is described as a dragon. This alludes to a story of Christianity, where Beowulf is represented as the white dragon, who defeats the red dragon in a battle, and sends the red dragon to hell. This marks the first origins of Christianity in medieval history. While, Grendel feels his arm coming apart, Grednel is caught in his mind between illusion and reality. He feels his mind slipping into illusion, and he tries to get himself back in reality. Many times in this chapter, he slips into an illusion, seeing Beowulf as a dragon, and then an angel. While Grendel is trying to slip right back into reality, Grendel feels distraught, because he knows he will die especially since he is losing consciousness. What really makes Grendel sad is that after he dies, there will be no history of Grendel, meaning he will never live again. By not living again means that people will not talk about Grendel, instead people will talk about tales, cite poems, and sing tales about the great Beowulf who defeats Grendel. Grendel who feels his pain numbing, feels himself slip to an illusion of falling into a dark chasm. Gathering all his strength, Grendel tries to gain his sanity back, telling himself that Beowulf is just a man, not an angel or a dragon. Beowulf who is getting into Grendel’s head stats whispering in Grendel’s ear. Beowulf whispers to Grendel about the truth of Christianity. The truth of Christianity is according to Beowulf is that things die and will be reborn again. While Beowulf tells this, it reminds Grendel of the dragon, as if Beowulf is the dragon, or Beowulf is repeating what the dragon had told him. Grendel who feels he is betrayed by the Shaper’s own words of Christianity, complains he had been tricked and it was an accident. Gendel who is getting out of his mindless mechanical cycle, hears Beowulf tell him, that you make the world by whispers like the Shaper. Beowulf makes Grendel sing of the badness of walls. In which the walls represent Christianity. Because Christianity is like a wall because it can be hard to overcome, and will always deflect whatever comes its way. And that reality is reality and that he cannot create reality. At this point, Beowulf rips Grendel’s arm off from his shoulder. Grendel runs back to his cave begging for his mother to help him, but she does not come to help him. Beowulf didn’t get the better of Grendel because he had a better philosophy, according to Grendel. The White Dragon represents Christianity and the red dragon represents the devil. As it all came sense to Grendel, he feels joy and relief as he is about to die. Animals gather around and watch with mindless, indifferent eyes, as Grendel dies. The animals act mechanically, making Grendel feel better that he himself was not mechanical like them. But instead of feeing joy, Grendel feels his own terror as he is about to die. Grendel’s last words are “Poor Grendel’s had an accident, So may you all.” Grendel is blessing and cursing them of their mechanism. And at last, we hear the last from Grendel as he dies. THE END!
Sincerely,
Dylan Tsung
In the final chapter, Grendel has his showdown with the stranger Beowulf. He succumbs to his almost mechanical urge to face the men in the meadhall, only to find out that Beowulf is expecting him. Beowulf continues in his role as the bringer of Christianity, appearing as more than what he is. Grendel in his less lucid moments imagines him as an angel, or a (the?) dragon. Beowulf is described as having a grip like a dragon’s jaws, sounding like chilly fire, and speaking about the dust from the dragon chapter. He also continues to hang above the chasm from the first chapter, and the “black sun and spiders” from his talk with the dragon, but now they are given meaning as death. Even as Grendel dies, Beowulf espouses his philosophy, quite different from the dragons’. The dragon saw everything as having to die, and Beowulf speaks of everything as being born again.
ReplyDelete-George