Time plays a major role in the novel Grendel. Grendel lived in the very turbulent time period of the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages was a time of much fighting and very little intellectual growth by the common people, a time in which the great majority of the people lived in poverty and were slaves in the feudal system; a time when religion and lords ruled the state, a time of much gloom, dispair, and uncertainty about the future by the general population. In a time like this, it is no wonder that heroes were created. They were the only hope and joy that many of the people had in their lives. In order to have heroes, there must also be monsters. That is where Grendel fit in. He played out his role as his time period allowed and as fate dictated. The dragon explains to the monster Grendel:
             "You improve them, my boy! Can't you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes t hem what they are for as long as they last. You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from--the blunt facts of their morality, their abandonment--that's what you make them recognize, embrace!..."1
             ...the men still drinking, getting louder and braver, talking about what they were going to do to the bands on the other hills....All the bands did the same thing....They would listen to each other at the meadhall tables,...and when one of them finished his raving threats, another would stand up and...tell what he planned to do. Now and then some trivial argument would break out, and one of them would kill another one....It was late spring....A man would roar, "I'll steal their gold and burn their meadhall!" shaking his sword...and I would glide to the next camp of men, and I'd hear the same....Then once around midnight I came to a hall in rui
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