Journal 3

Grendel’s Attitude Towards Language and How it Changes Throughout the Novel

                In the beginning of Grendel, Grendel is secluded from the rest of the world, being stuck with his mother, who is mute and only able to mumble words or make grunting noises, in his underwater lair, so he wants to leave home and explore the outside world. Because he has lived with his mother, who shows no linguistic capabilities, Grendel has been feeling lonesome and wants to communicate his feelings to someone. To Grendel, language is his way of escaping from isolation. However, when Grendel does branch out of the cave, and encounters other creatures, such as the ram in chapter 1, the ram does not acknowledge Grendel because it doesn’t understand Grendel’s growling or moaning, sounds adopted from his mother. It makes Grendel furious that no one can understand him, even though he can understand others. Although Grendel wants to communicate with others, Grendel is forced express his deep frustrations and sadness in his internal monologues.  When Grendel encounters humans for the first time, though, he becomes infatuated with their ways and begins to study their actions, as well as their words. Throughout the story, Grendel acquires more language and becomes more understanding of language. However, even though Grendel believes that his language and the humans’ language are the same, the humans fail to understand Grendel’s attempts at words. Even though Grendel must now speak only from his consciousness, Grendel’s development of language drastically improves as he experiments with different genres and writing styles and learns how to apply lines and verses to communicate his story, similar to that of Beowulf.  By the end of the story, Grendel goes from having no linguistic abilities to having an almost poetic dialect.