Beowulf - The Psychology of Grendel

Psychologists often look to a persons chivalric and upbringing to explain the motivating for their actions as adults. Some authors canvas the development of their characters from youth to maturity date through the use of a Bildungsroman. John Gardner did this in his novel Grendel, a companion to the eighth century poem Beowulf. This plectron of structure allows the indorser to look for non just ace part of Grendels life- quantify, but the entireness of it. The reader sees Grendels development as a sheltered child, suffocated by his mother, to an adult facing death. This allows the reader to view the characters in distinguishable lights throughout the novel.\nThe first phase angle is his childhood, which he spends naively exploring, safe by any terrible thought (SparkNotes). The book begins in spring which symbolizes growth and reincarnation which is exactly what is happening when Grendel goes exploring, cover his rebellious side. Grendels wandering leads to a new f inding, his discovery of the lake of Firesnakes and life beyond. It is the first sign of wonderment and bravery and his first footprint toward adulthood. The second step, which is considered to have do Grendel an adult, happens when the bull attacks him, forcing him to realize that the cosmos follows no rules (SparkNotes). When I was a child I actually be intimated: Unthinking love as calm and stocky as the North Sea. that I have lived, and right off I do not sleep (Gardner). \nAs Grendel ventures merely and further remote from his mother, desire most teens tend to do, he goes through a time of depression. He exhibits the behaviors of a nihilist. A nihilist is someone who acts upon issue forth and absolute destructiveness to the world and oneself. Nihilists suppose that life has no meaning, purpose, or value. He screamed and begged for his mother to surveil and help him right away and it wasnt until he was nearly killed by the strange new creatures, called the humans , that she came for him. For both child there is a time when they get scu...