Analytical Essay on Grendel
Below I am providing you with 5 essay topics. The first four are all based on an interview with John Gardner. You are also free to create an essay topic of your own choice. Either way, you are expected to use textual evidence from the novel to support your argument. You may choose to analyze any other theme, motif, etc. and/or scene. CHOOSE ONE (or create your own topic).
1. “The human dramas that interest me—stir me to excitement and, loosely, vision—are always rooted in serious philosophical questions. That is, I’m bored by plots that depend on the psychological or sociological quirks of the main characters—mere melodramas of healthy against sick—stories that, subtly or otherwise, merely preach…most of fiction’s great heroes are at least slightly crazy…So, when I write a piece of fiction I select my characters and settings and so on because they have a bearing, at least to me, on the old unanswerable philosophical questions. And as I spin out the action, I’m always very concerned with springing discoveries—actual philosophical discoveries. But at the same time I’m concerned—and finally more concerned—with what the discoveries do to the character who makes them, and to the people around him.” Discuss a great philosophical questions in Grendel. Is it ever answered? Does Grendel come to terms with it? Does the reader?
2. “When you tell the story of Grendel…you’ve got to end it the way the story ends— traditionally, but you can get to do it in your own way. The result is that the writer [and the reader] come to understand things about the modern world in light of the history of human consciousness; he understands it a little more deeply….” Does the ending to Grendel help the reader understand the modern world more deeply? How so?
3 “…there is no way an animator, or anyone else, can create an image from Grendel as exciting as the image in the reader’s mind: Grendel is a monster, and living in the first person, because we’re all in some sense monsters, trapped in our own language and habits of emotion. Grendel expresses feelings we all feel—enormous hostility, frustration, disbelief, and so on, so that the reader, projecting his own monster, projects a monster that is, for him, the perfect horror show. ” Is Grendel more human than even he understands? Does this unspoken conflict create sympathy and/or empathy in the reader? Do we come to understand, even excuse Grendel because we see ourselves — our inner monster — in him?
4. Select a scene from the novel and analyze it, addressing its importance to the overall meaning of the novel. May I suggest one of the following:
a) The opening scene in chapter one when Grendel curses at the ram, the sky, the animals and addresses the absurdity of life.
b) chapter 2 as he hangs from the tree and understands “that the world was nothing. . . .that, finally and absolutely, [he] alone exists”
c) The scene in chapter 6 when he kills a man, on purpose for the first time
d) The scene in chapter 10 when Grendel kills the goat
5. Topic of your own choice. You may analyze the religious motifs throughout the novel. Pose a thematic question. Compare and contrast Grendel in the Epic Beowulf and the Grendel that we meet in the novel. You may choose to analyze a scene and explore its significance to the novel as a whole.
Good luck!
Here are two sample essays from a couple of years:
apliteraturemlec 