At one point or
another we’ve all talked to ourselves, whether your memorizing things for an
exam, trying to remember something or just trying to make sense of things. With
this in mind there are a variety of people that do this because of their mental
instability due to a sickness such as schizophrenia. According to googles
definition schizophrenia is a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a
breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion, and behavior, leading to
faulty perception, inappropriate actions and feelings, withdrawal from reality
and personal relationships into fantasy and delusion, and a sense of mental
fragmentation. Whenever I think Schizophrenia it instantly reminds of the movie
Beautiful Mind which is based on a true story about a mathematician named John
Nash, which had schizophrenia. A comparison can be made between Grendel and
John due to their mental instability and intelligence.
“in madness, I
thought I was the most important person in the world.”- John Nash At
an early age John Nash displayed symptoms of schizophrenia, he saw social
activities as tedious distractions from his books and experiments. Not only did
he enjoy math but also torturing animals which can be seen as sign of mental
stability. As he grew older more symptoms started to arise, one time he disappeared
for weeks from his lectures and showed up in the common room with a copy of the
New York times saying it contained encrypted messages from outer space that
were meant only for him. He was later then taken to a mental hospital where he received
the good ol’ shock therapy and psychiatric help. This is an interesting case
since he won a Nobel peace prize for his game theory paper.
“Why Can’t I have someone to talk to?” I Said. The stars said nothing, but I pretended to ignore the rudeness. “The Shaper has people to talk to,” I said. -Grendel p.53
While Grendel didn’t win any prices
for his lunatic theory it was very well thought out and it had some interesting
points about human behavior. Throughout the book Grendel displays a variety of
the symptoms that help make the conclusion that he has some sort of mental
instability. Grendel usually talks to himself about how angry he is at the
universe and how lonely he is. In the end we are all just trying to get the
stars to talk to us right?
I wonder if Grendel’s mental instability stems from his isolation from others throughout his life. When looking at cases of feral children, humans who lived isolated from human contact from a very young age, their isolation often leaves them with a host of mental impairments. Grendel grew up in a similar state to feral children. His mother was nonverbal and his only sources of communication where with himself. He had tried to communicate with other animals but he found their lack of consciousness impossible to overlook. This brings up the classic nature versus nurture argument, did the environment shape Grendel or is it simply in his nature, or is it a mix of both.
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