Free Grendel Essays: Social Commentary :: Grendel Essays

Authors often have to choose between concentrating on either bandage or social commentary when writing their novels in John Gardeners Grendel, the plot becomes is a secondary consideration.   Grendels exploits provide the reader with a clear understanding of the self-coloured opinions the author carries and can be seen clearly as a narrative supporting nihilism in its many forms. The reader easily perceives the blatant spectral subtext in the guise of corrupt priests and the foolish faithful. The notion of the old being wise is unacceptable to Gardener along with any notion of hero idolization. at bottom his novel, Gardner expresses his views concerning religion, soundness and nature. Religion plays a large role in Grendel. Priests do not want to perform their services with come out the proper payment, which, in turn, allows the rich the or so access to religion and God. The citizens of the village are also confusingly polytheistic and monotheistic. When praying to thei r king graven image does not decrease the frequency of Grendels visits, they retreat to begging any god of which they have known for help. This reveals their faith to be not faith at all but rather faith that will remain faith as long as it can be proven. A proven religious faith is contradictory term, for it can only be placed in a religion that cannot be proven lest it is true faith no longer. Grendels interludes with the genus Draco portray, at their onsets, the dragon as a worldly, wise creature with much to share. The dragon haughtily informs Grendel about his vast store of knowledge as he teases him with how much he knows. As Grendels interests are piqued, the dragon expends the cumulative result of his travails do how much youve got, and beware of strangersMy advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it (Gardner page ). Although the dragon serves as a vessel to point out the necessity of Grendel and makes some pointed observations about mankind, all his respectability is lost with those two short sentences. The author is making an observation about materialism and the falsehood of wisdom always accompanying age. After all his years of intense scrutiny, the dragon can only grasp from human- and animalkind alike that possessions are the key to lifes existence. Nature against parliamentary law is also discussed in Grendel. The fact that citizens surrounded with religion and social status could be so easily overtaken by nature (Grendel) gives a sense of chaff to the reader.