The Battle of the
(Monster) Brains:
Gardner’s Grendel vs.
Shelley’s the Monster
Back when monsters were really
coming onto the scene, post-Beowulf Grendel
but pre-Grendel Grendel, the
beginning of Gothic literature produced one of the most famous monsters in
literature and society today. This monster, of course, is Mary Shelley’s
Monster from Frankenstein (for crying
out loud, Frankenstein was the scientist!!) who was thought up during a walk a
few days after a scary-story writing contest between her husband, the also
famous Percy Shelley, and Lord Byron, while vacationing in Switzerland. The
fact that a woman, of all people in the world, created such a terrifying
(though that word isn’t the one that would be used these days in reference to
the ménage of body parts somehow coming together to create a sentient creature)
monster was in itself controversial at the time of Frankenstein’s publication in 1817. Mary not only completed this
feat, but she imagined a monster that was compassionate, naive, and strikingly
intelligent. Now, there’s quite a bit in those qualities that John Gardner’s
portrayal of Grendel can relate to.
After the
Monster first woke upon his creation, he was so confused by the world around
him. Grendel experiences this same confusion when he first ventures out into
the world beyond his underwater fortress, young, still proud. Both are innocent
upon creation, regardless of the circumstances of their genesis. They begin to
wander and roam, not realizing that their appearance may scare some people
off—but hey, it’s not their fault they didn’t have a mirror to look into first.
The both of them begin to realize that there’s a whole world previously unknown
to them, though the Monster begins from a point much further behind than
Grendel does, as Grendel already knows language and the fundamentals of his
cave-life and whatnot.
They both
start learning more about general things in reference to the world—the Monster
learning language and certain literature from the DeLacey family/Victor’s
pocket books, Grendel from the Dragon and his own contemplations. They begin to
struggle while their respective intelligences grow, and, as is typically the
case, they feel more alone in the world. The Monster realizes what a family is
from watching the DeLaceys, and his unhappiness is rooted deeper with each
passing day. Grendel, though he may never realize it himself, wishes he could
approach the humans and gain acceptance by them, then ultimately love—exactly
what the Monster consciously wishes. Both have experiences with speaking to
blind old men, who can’t see the grotesqueness of their appearance, making them
the perfect vessels that would (hopefully) then result in the acceptance of the
other humans. The Monster ends up being beaten with a walking stick by Felix,
certainly not the best of reactions, while Grendel finds himself amused with
Ork’s strong devotion while pretending to be the Great Destroyer and silently
creeps off. The latter, though he could’ve attempted to use Ork’s blindness to
his advantage while appealing to Ork’s pathos and ethos, instead chickens out.
Both
monsters end up on a pathway to revenge. The Monster gets pretty pissed once
Victor begins to create a bride like he begged for, then disassembles the parts
and refuses to begin again. For this, the Monster pledges to kill everyone Victor
loves. Grendel, meanwhile, seems to still be bitter at the whole axe-throwing
incident with Hrothgar, along with the simple happiness of the humans, and the
fact that they have the company of each other. His destructive tendencies are
less organized and thought-out than the Monster’s, but then again he seems to
be the more childlike of the two, as his mother was never able to teach him
anything like the DeLaceys unknowingly taught the Monster.
The
monsters simultaneously misunderstand and are misunderstood by their creators,
setting their entire lives up for a downward spiral when their personal
searches for happiness yield the opposite: an existence given over to loneliness.
