The Twelve Traps in John Gardner's Grendel

W~THEN John Gardner's Grendel appeared in 1971 it was greeted by a chorus of praise from reviewers, critics, and readers. Since then diverse interpretations of this fascinating work have been proposed. indeed are we meant to make of Grendel, Gardner's reworking of the monster who, in Beowulf, harries King Hrothgar and his thanes for twelve years until overcome by the Geat hero, Beowulf? In various interviews and in his own writings Gardner gave many indications of what he set out to do when writing Grendel. On one level Grendel, creature of two minds, represents conflicting parts of Gardner himself: was conscious that what I was about to do (or dramatize, or seek to get clear) was an annoying sometimes painful disharmony in my own mental experience, a conflict between a wish for certainty, a sort of timid and legalistic rationality, on the one hand, and, on the other, an inclination toward childish optimism, what I might now describe as an occasional flickering affirmation of all that was best in my early experience of Christianity.2 Here we recognize the basis for Grendel's predicament: his stubborn clinging to skepticism and cold, hard reason, while constantly tempted by belief. In an interview with Joyce Renwick and Howard Smith, Gardner makes the same point while hinting at his structuring of the conflict: The novel Grendel, it seems to me, is about reason and faith. Grendel is again and again given the opportunity of believing in something which western civilization has held up as a value.3 On several occasions Gardner enlarged on his structuring of this conflict: What Grendel does is take, one by one, the great

Art · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · History · Themes in Literature Analysis

• The Evil Behind the Mask

  Open Access•Jennifer Farrell, Jennifer Kelso Farrell•The Journal of Popular Culture•2008

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