82 pages • 2 hours read
John GardnerGrendel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
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Chapter Summaries & Analyses
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BetaChapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary
From his vantage point near his mere, Grendel sees a goat coming toward him and he scolds it, trying to chase it away. The goat continues to climb, and Grendel shoves it down the mountainside and throws a rock at it, splitting its head. The goat continues to climb. Grendel kills it again and again, feeling under threat “by an animal already dead” (140), but it continues to climb.
In the town, the men continue their daily lives, working and eating, as the days get longer. Grendel hears an elderly woman “telling lies to children” (141) about a huge man who will cross the sea at some point and come to their land.
The Shaper is now very old and unwell. He receives visitors, including the king and queen, and they wait with him as death comes. His last words concern “a time […] when the Danes once again…” (144), and he dies before he completes the thought.
Elsewhere in the village, there is a woman who is married to a nobleman but who had a special relationship with the Shaper; Grendel has observed this woman for some time, and he calls her a “[s]oul of fidelity” (144) because the Shaper tried to romance her—to no avail. She now receives a messenger from the Shaper’s attendant, and she stands “as still as the dead man in his bed” (145) when she hears that the Shaper is dead.
Grendel is impatient with his existence in his cave. His mother’s relentless pacing irritates him, and he tolerates her unwillingness to let him leave the cave. When she sleeps, she clings to Grendel, making unintelligible noises. Grendel feels trapped, reflecting on “strange thoughts” now that the Shaper is dead. He goes through a series of emotional memories: he remembers his love for his mother when he was a baby and his first response to the Shaper’s songs. Grendel regrets letting the Shaper live.
Grendel goes to the Shaper’s funeral, upsetting his mother as he leaves the cave. The Shaper’s attendant plays the Shaper’s harp and sings one of the Shaper’s songs, which appears on the novel’s page in verse. The funeral pyre is covered in ice, but it catches fire instantly.
Later, Grendel wakes in his cave, fearful of a sound that comes from the sea and imagining “the goat still picking at the cliffwall” (149). The smell of the dragon lingers, and he is aware of his mother’s warning to “[b]eware the fish” (149). The chapter ends in another verse, this one belonging to Grendel and ending with a Latin phrase: “Nihil ex nihilo, I always say” (150). The Latin translates to “nothing comes from nothing,” an ancient philosophical maxim that all things must have a reason to exist.
Chapter 11 Summary
Fifteen strangers have arrived to the land of the Scyldings, and Grendel feels joyful. He watches their ship approach land, then observes their armor as they moor the ship and the coastguard greets them. The leader of the men appears “big as a mountain, moving with his forest” (153), and the coastguard demands information regarding the strangers’ ancestry. The leader asserts that they are Geats and that his father is Ecgtheow, a legendary man. The men have come to visit Hrothgar to speak of an “important errand.” The leader explains that he has heard about the attacks on the meadhall and that he has “advice” for the king. Grendel, still struck by the stranger’s appearance, notes that his “eyes slanted downward, never blinking, unfeeling as a snake’s. He had no more beard than a fish” (154).
Grendel senses that the leader is powerful and threatening, yet he feels excited by the man’s presence. He decides not to follow them to the meadhall as it is daytime, and he returns to his cave. There, he thinks about the men’s foolishness, noting that “[t]edium is the worst pain” (157). Grendel recalls the image of the dragon, questioning his own sense of agency as he realizes that he will go to the meadhall again, no matter the danger. Grendel’s glee intensifies as the sense of his own importance dawns on him; he knows he may not win the battle with the leader of the Geats, but the fact that they traveled all this way to advise Hrothgar is proof of Grendel’s impact.
Grendel goes to the meadhall to spy on the ceremonial “boasting” rituals, noticing that the Danes felt dishonored at the arrival of the Geats. The priests were also irritated, as the Geats’ presence challenges their predictions that “the ghostly Destroyer would take care of things in time” (159). Grendel decides to murder the leader of the Geats out of deference to the Danes.
In an attempt to undermine the Geats’ boasting, Unferth speaks directly to the leader of the Geats, asking him about a swimming race he lost to a man named Breca. The stranger tells the story of the race in a quiet voice, describing an underwater confrontation with nine sea monsters, which he killed. He then challenges Unferth, reminding him that his only claim to fame is his fratricide. As Unferth and the other men are silent, Hrothgar and Wealtheow make speeches about heroism and true nobility. Grendel notices that the leader of the Geats listens in a friendly way, likely aware that Hrothgar’s bloodline is a “doomed house,” no matter Hrothgar’s plans for his sons and strategies for peace amongst the other tribes. The young Shaper sings a song (appearing in verse on the page), and the Danes and the Geats prepare for sleep as Grendel notes that “[i]t is time” (166).
Chapter 12 Summary
Grendel attacks the meadhall, entering as everyone is asleep. He eats a sleeping man, grabbing the arm of the Geat stranger when he realizes that the stranger’s sleep is a ruse. The stranger grips Grendel’s arm, shocking Grendel with his strength, and the pain causes Grendel to hallucinate: Wings appear on the stranger’s shoulders. The stranger forces Grendel’s arm behind his back and begins to whisper to Grendel, laughing as he talks about time, calls Grendel his “brother,” and refers mysteriously to “the hand that makes” (170). The stranger appears increasingly otherworldly to Grendel, who describes his words as “chilly fire” and says that “[f]lames slip out at the corners of his mouth” (170). Grendel cries for his mother as the stranger continues to whisper to him and slams Grendel’s head on a wall.
Grendel realizes that the stranger is “crazy.” He acknowledges the man’s strength and cunning, but he insists that the man was also “lucky” to have been able to trick him. The stranger rips off Grendel’s arm, interrupting Grendel’s ruminations, and Grendel screams, realizing death is imminent. Bawling for his mother, Grendel runs away. He finds himself at the edge of a cliff. Animals appear next to him to watch him die, so he smiles at them and tells them that “[p]oor Grendel’s had an accident” (174).
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
The last three chapters depict a literal winter, complete with inhospitable weather and a quieting of life in the wilderness, and a figurative winter that signals the approach of Grendel’s death. The tone of these final chapters reflects Grendel’s grim attitude toward humans and life in general, and he retains a kind of humor to the end. Throughout these chapters, Grendel no longer bothers to give humans the benefit of the doubt; instead, he believes that the stories they tell each other, even children, are all lies, and he no longer cares to discern the subtle differences that separate art from untruth. His final words term his death “an accident,” and he wishes a similar fate to “you all.”
The Shaper’s death in Chapter 10 portends Grendel’s own death, and it upsets Grendel, but he is unsure why. The novel communicates Grendel’s unease through the unsettling paradoxical imagery. His observations of a married noblewoman, whom the Shaper unsuccessfully tried to court, demonstrates that even the Shaper’s sacred role does not prevent him from pursuing other men’s wives. Further, his frozen funeral pyre bursts into flame, and other religious leaders demonstrate their faithlessness. The tone of disillusionment, and the contradicting notion of nothingness set against the vivid realities of life, suggest that the coexistence of competing philosophies feels exhausting to Grendel; he may in fact be ready for his impending death. He accepts now that everyone is doomed—himself, Unferth, Hrothgar and his greedy descendants, and even Wealtheow, whose innocence cannot protect her forever.
In Chapter 10, the motif of the zodiac continues; the Stranger is first identified with the astrological sign of Pisces with the warning, “Beware the fish” (149), which echoes the dragon’s advice to “beware of strangers!” (74). The reference is particularly poignant at the end of the novel and the end of Grendel’s life, as it emphasizes the cyclical nature of life and death and the dragon’s prediction that Grendel is a replaceable figure in the world of the men. (Indeed, in the original epic, Grendel is replaced; after his defeat, his mother takes his place as Beowulf’s next adversary—and, after her, the dragon.) As the stars have existed for all time, so they will exist long after Grendel’s death. While this notion might earlier have exacerbated Grendel’s existential anxiety, it now offers him a way to understand his place in a broader system. Grendel’s nascent awareness of this greater order inspires his almost manic joy when the Stranger arrives in Chapter 11; the resolution to his problems and his questions is near. Ironically, Grendel does survive the test of time, as a character immortalized in literature; broadening the theme of the redemptive power of art, this ironic immortalization evinces that the protagonist himself is redeemed by the novel in which he appears and lives forever.
The final chapter’s fight scene between the Stranger and Grendel shows the combatants in close proximity. Their wrestling in the meadhall carries a feeling of intimacy, though the imagery is violent and rife with pain. This closeness is ironic in light of Grendel’s longstanding sense of isolation, and their intimate relationship becomes clearer when the Stranger addresses Grendel as “my brother,” wounding Grendel and bringing him closer to death; if the Stranger is the murderous brother, then he, and not Grendel, is the descendant of Cain. The true nature of evil is, by this logic, more human than monstrous.
