John Gardner’s Grendel reflects on Grendel’s search for his identity and his place amongst a world of chaos. While Grendel’s 12-year war with Hrothgar and his people consumes him, Grendel’s physical and cultural surroundings shape his discernment and ultimately his fate. Grendel’s divided physical surroundings between animals and humans as well as the division in his cultural influencers, the Shaper and the Dragon, shape Grendel’s moral desire to discover the meaning of his life and Grendel’s psychological and internal battle concerning his need to kill.
Throughout Grendel’s story, he encounters both animals and humans, making up his physical surrounding and causing an internal dispute about which group to identify with and his desire to…show more content… Dragon had just finished talking to Grendel, resulting in Grendel saying, “I had become become something, as if born again. I had hung between possibilities before, between the cold truths I knew and the heart-sucking tricks of the Shaper; now that was passed: I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings” (Gardner 80). The Shaper who first mesmerized Grendel into believing his tales, no longer had an effect on Grendel’s decisions because Grendel took the Dragon’s advice to follow a path of evil, including the killing of Hrothgar’s people. The Dragon’s persuasive counseling does psychological damage because Grendel’s desire to kill humans is being pulling him away from the human race, the group that Grendel morally wants to be a part of in society. The Shaper’s words are different from those of the Dragon: “Two nights later I went back. I was addicted. The Shaper was singing the glorious deeds of the dead men, praising war. He sang how they’d fought me. It was all lies...I snatched a guard and smashed him on a tree, but my stomach turned at the thought of eating him” (Gardner 54). Upon hearing the Shaper’s songs, Grendel has an urge to kill yet doesn’t because true inclination to kill comes from the Dragon, not the Shaper, but the constant lies from the Shaper promotes Grendel’s
