In a society that is driven by violence, why would a fictional book about a monster that does nothing worse than Arnold Schwarzenegger, in one of his action films, stir up controversy? Children of any age can turn on the T.V. or radio and either see or hear something related to violence. Even the racist, bigot, rapper Eminem can clog up the radio stations with his senseless profanity and threats to create harm to women or homosexuals, yet a senior in high school should be kept from reading an educational book based on the famous poem, Beowulf?
             Grendel is a book written to tell the story of Beowulf, in the monsters point of view. This book teaches lessons that are of use to the people who read it. It shows how Grendel reaches out to human beings for affection, because of the affection he does not receive from his mother. Grendel is not as bad a character as everyone makes him out to be, he is just immature, sensitive, and unsure of himself. The quote in Chapter 1, "...my brains raging at the sickness I can observe in myself" helps prove that Grendel notices he is angered by the fact that he doesn't know himself, which is causing his "sickness". The quote also proves that he needs to find himself and his camu, which basically says, the only thing you can be sure of is your essence and faith in God. He has no faith in himself, let alone god, and in his journey throughout this book he tries to find himself. In a way Grendel is like every human being in the world; we are all on a long journey, a.k.a. life, just trying to find ourselves, but instead of reaching his goal, Grendel's journey ends horribly. The book also concentrates on nihilism, which is everything in the world gone bad, like a sort of flip on society. I don't feel as if it was written to bring people down, but on the other hand to make the reader realize his of her life isn't so bad and they should think more optimistic.
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