Isolation also plays a large role in the novel and serves to nurture Grendel. Being away from communication is not something one can be born with, so a state of isolation is a form of nurture. He has no method of communicating with his mother, and the humans reject him as a monster, so he is separated from the whole of the world and has no one but himself. Within the first chapter of the story, we see the disastrous effects of this isolation. Grendel not only talks to himself, but to things that are unable to respond, such as the sky and the trees. He narrates, “I shake my head, muttering darkly on shaded paths, holding conversation with the only friends and comfort this world affords, my shadow.” (8). He is so alone and abandoned that he has
