Grendel Discssion

Grendel's progression throughout John Gardner's novel Grendel is that of an increasingly evil character. During Grendel's childhood, he was innocent and had not killed anyone. Yet, as soon as he started maturing and venturing out of the cave he was in a fight with humans. Although this is a traumatic incident where Grendel was attacked by humans unprovoked it does not excuse Grendel from purposely continuing to kill humans. Later on Grendel had met the wise old sharper that had told a story about Cain and Abel, through the story Grendel had matured , because he had realized that he descends from Cain and is always on the side of evil. After, Grendel has matured he had met a red dragon and had lost his conscience after the meeting with the dragon. The red dragon told Grendel that there was no reason to stop scaring humans and that it is fine to continue to scare them. Through the dragon's words Grendel matured into an evil monster with no conscience. The dragon out a charm on Grendel that made him impossible to injure from normal humans and this had led Grendel to continue his onslaught on the humans without much worry. Grendel started waging war against Hrothgar and the Danes; what started as an accidental confrontation between the monster and the humans soon turned into a war. Even people that were frightened and helpless were killed for sport and pleasure. Grendel ate many humans, but the humans always gave him an upset stomach, which shows that he does not kill humans for food, but for the pleasure of seeing them frightened. When Beowulf and the Geats had come to help the Danes out, Grendel was overjoyed, because he figured that he had more people to kill. Grendel had progressively become more and more evil as he matured, and even killed people on the day of his death. He had died after he had waged his twelfth and final war on the humans. He was descended from Cain, which is very significant, because it signifies that Grendel's cursed by God and inclined to homicide like his ancestor. As he's naturally at odds with Christian civilization, whoever opposes or destroys him would be sanctified. Although Grendel came from evil origins, he was not evil when he was younger, he had progressively turned evil after battling humans and hearing the words of the wise old sharper and the wise old red dragon.

Perseus and Theseus Discussion

I have noticed that in the ancient Greek tales of Perseus and Theseus both the main protagonists had showed clear signs of arrogance and overconfidence. Dictys's brother Polydectes, the king of the island had fallen in love with Danae, but Perseus did not like him and protected his mother from him. Dictys decided to send Perseus away in disgrace, so he devised a plan. His plan was to invite guests and to make them each bring a horse as a gift under the pretext that he was giving them to Hippodamia, the tamer of the horses. Perseus did not bring a horse, but he told Dictys to name a gift that he could bring instead; this action showed Perseus's arrogance since he was very confident that he could bring any gift that Dictys wants. Dictys told him the head of medusa and Perseus agreed. Instead of showing humility and apologizing Perseuses was very overconfident in his abilities and thought that he could easily slay medusa. Though the journey to confront medusa was long and dangerous Persues was very arrogant and continued forth on his adventure. Finally, he cut off medusa's head, a journey that no mortal dreamed of. Without Perseus's arrogance and overconfidence, he would have never undergone the dangerous journey to obtain medusa's head for somebody that he despises. Later on Perseus discovered a savage giant snake that was attacking Ethiopia. Perseus was very confident of his abilities after he managed to cut off Medusa's head, and he decided to battle the monster snake. Although Perseus had beaten the giant snake, he showed clear signs of overconfidence and arrogance, since he did not make any plans or strategies when he considered fighting the snake, instead he immediately begun fighting the snake with no preparation. Without Perseus's overconfidence and arrogance he may have never attacked the giant snake, just like most other men would not at the time.
                    Furthermore, Thesues also showed visible signs of arrogance and overconfidence on his adventures. The King Minos of Crete had his son killed by assassin in Athens., so he demanded his son's assassins, but the king of Athens did not know who the they were, so he gave up Athens to the king of crete. King Minos ordered that in nine-year intervals Athens would send seven courageous youths and seven beautiful maidens to Crete to be devoured by the minotaur. Eventually Theseus volunteered to take the place of one of the youths and went to Crete with no weapons; this action clearly shows his arrogance and overconfidence, because he had signed up to fight a monster that everybody wants to avoid. Furthermore, Theseus had decided to go to Crete bare-handed, even though many youths have died against the minotaur. Theseus eventually saw the minotaur and then he started to fight it; this action clearly showed Theseus's overconfidence since he had no hesitation when he attacked a monster that has killed many humans. Even though he eventually he stabbed the minotaur in the throat with a sword, Theseus's decision to go enter the maze in the first place shows clear signs of overconfidence.