Grendel - john gardner The reader gets a peak inside the mind of Grendel, the beast from Beowulf. Essay analyzes the feelings, actions, and thoughts of the creature.

<Tab/>Grendel the lonely, childish, sensitive beast, views the world as a meaningless waste of time he must be put through year after year. Grendel can neither love, or be loved, though he secretly yearns for both. Knowing that the whole world is numb and ridiculous, Grendel often becomes angry at small things, and questions everything. "Why can't these creatures discover a little dignity?"(6) <Tab/>In the …

…lonely beast, and he doesn't know what to do with himself, or how to live his life without being miserable. To him, it is just a never-ending cycle of hatred, death, and frustration. "The pain of it! The stupidity!" (5). This is in reference to his "twelfth year of my idiotic war." (5) That is all Grendels life is to himself, a war which he wishes not to fight in, a war in which he cannot win.