John Gardner’s 1971 novel Grendel is a retelling of the story of Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon epic poem from the 6th century, from the perspective of the villain, the monster Grendel. In Grendel, the monster Grendel is an anti-hero, challenging the conventions of traditionally heroic behavior as he tries to understand the world in which he lives. In 1982, an animated Australian film adaptation of the novel called Grendel Grendel Grendel was released in major cities in America, appealing primarily to art house moviegoers.

The events of the novel are nonlinear, and the characterization of the protagonist is vivid. The novel also reveals rivaling philosophies as Grendel tells his side of the story and describes his encounters with other creatures and with humans. Grendel is a deep thinker and a sensitive feeler, and he describes his state of adult existential anxiety with self-deprecating humor, poetry, and, at times, a violent rage that befits one of mythology’s most dreadful monsters.

The American novelist Gardner lived from 1933 to 1982, and many of his novels, including Grendel, concern philosophical ideas and the inner worlds of his characters. He is an alumnus of the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, and he went on to teach fiction writing at several American universities including Oberlin College and Binghamton University. Gardner died in a motorcycle accident close to his home in Pennsylvania when he was 49 years old.

This Study Guide on Grendel references the 1989 Vintage Books paperback edition. For more information on the original text, see the SuperSummary Study Guide, Beowulf.

Plot Summary

The novel’s narrative is nonlinear; most of the first eight chapters’ narrative follows the past-tense recollections of Grendel, a monster who has grown up in a cave with a mother who loves him but cannot speak his language. By the eighth chapter, the narrative catches up to the present and follows Grendel to the end of his story.

The novel opens with Grendel’s bitter allusion to a 12-year-long war, which the reader soon learns refers to Grendel’s habitual terrorization of a human community who years ago provoked his spiteful wrath. Grendel recalls his first encounter with humans: One day, as a very young child, he encountered a group of human warriors, called Danes, in the wilderness. During this encounter, he learned that he was terrifying to the humans. His efforts to communicate with the humans failed, and he shouted for his mother in fear. The encounter set the tone for all of Grendel’s future dealings with the Danes, as he began to hate the humans and their leader, King Hrothgar, in particular.

Grendel tells the reader that he discovered a bloodthirsty side to his personality and that and he began to attack the Danes and to raid their meadhall in order to exact some revenge on them for scaring him and making him feel like an outcast. During these raids (which he still carries out), he kills and eats humans, demonstrating to the survivors that he is a truly dark force.

However, Grendel recounts that after he began the raids, though he relished his power over the humans, he found that the episodes didn’t sit completely right with him. He began to wonder about the meaning of life and the reason for his own existence, and he responded to a summons from a terrifying but erudite dragon, who tried to teach him the ways of the world. From the clairvoyant dragon, Grendel learned that he exists primarily to create meaning for the humans he now terrorizes. This knowledge changed Grendel; though he remains as sensitive to beauty and to art as always, his existential anxiety thereafter took a nihilistic turn.

Grendel’s new perspective changed his feelings about the song of the Shaper, a bard who entertains and reassures King Hrothgar and the Danes in equal measures with poetry and music. Grendel also reminisces about spying on the Danes and learning their corrupt ways. These and other experiences now combine to create an atmosphere of unrest and confusion for Grendel as he seeks an expression for his frustration at his own existence.

The narrative finally catches up to the present; the narrator Grendel is no longer talking about his past but taking action in the present. When a Stranger arrives from Geatland, having traveled over the sea to help King Hrothgar with the issue of the nighttime marauder, Grendel feels an incongruous but powerful sense of happiness: Though the Stranger’s arrival means certain death for Grendel, it is also validation that Grendel’s life is meaningful. The Stranger and Grendel battle in the meadhall, and the novel ends as Grendel, mortally wounded, refers to his own death as “an accident.”