Grendel Vs Beowulf Essay

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In the story of Beowulf there are lots of points that are not elaborated on in comparison to Grendel. Grendel gives much more of a story than Beowulf. The story Beowulf seems to be lacking so much detail in comparison to Grendel. Beowulf however from John Gardner’s perspective was shaped by a shaper, which could be a metaphor for the way man has selectively twisted their own story. However seemingly if you put together the plots of each story they are basically two halves of the same circle. They complete each other in the general overall story of Beowulf. Now in Grendel we as readers are given a part of the story not seen before in the regular Beowulf story. On pages 31-38 of Grendel we get an aspect of mans history from Grendels point
In Beowulf we as readers are not given any sort of background of the humans. When characters are mentioned we are given a brief overview of their family history. Another example would be on pg. 83 of Grendel when Unferth’s encounter with Grendel is mentioned. In Beowulf we as readers have to infer why Unferth was jealous of Beowulf’s prowess. Grendel is a much more detailed description of the story of Beowulf. There is still some bias in both stories because of the points of view they are told in. Grendel is told in the first person obviously since it’s told in the view of the monster while Beowulf is told in third person. However as much as this translation tries to tell a more in depth story, it cannot. This is through no fault of the translator, but of the story itself. However Grendel is just a story of Beowulf put into a different perspective. By no means is Grendel part of the original story from the original manuscript. It’s very interesting to see how much thought was put into Grendel. Grendel was believable more in this age because of the many portrayals of the beast having human qualities. In our era we have Vampires, werewolves, Frankenstein, and lots of Disney movies. Grendel had a very interesting perspective, and gave very valuable