Topic: What is Grendel’s attitude towards language? How does it change throughout the novel?
Grendel’s attitude towards language is a complex relationship that cannot be described by just a few words. It can easily be described as a love-hate relationship, but his view on language runs much deeper than such simple words. His view of language comes with a information that must be known before anything else can be understood.
Grendel’s first experience with human language is not one of good. He finds himself trapped in a tree, calling for his mother. Grendel says “The sounds were foreign at first, but when I calmed myself, concentrating, I found I understood them: it was my own language, but spoken in a strange way.” Grendel’s language is somewhat primeval. He can speak like men, but for some reason they do not understand him. There was a point in the story where Grendel hears the song of the Shaper, and is attracted to it. When he arrives at the meadhall to listen, Hrothgar’s men attack. “Drunken men rushed me with battle axes,” he says. As a result, he is scared, and wants the men to understand that he has come with no meaning of harm. “I sank to my knees, crying, `Friend! Friend!' They hacked at me, yipping like dogs.” This language boundary causes Grendel to seem as a threat to Horthgar’s community.
Most of the speaking voices that Grendel hears are male. He hears the dragon, the Shaper, Hrothgar, Unferth, and Beowulf, All of which promote war, abuse, anger, and harm by their language, which could explain his abusive nature. Grendel’s mother is at first the only female, and she does not speak like humans. He states “She’d forgotten all language long ago, or maybe had never known any.” Although Grendel’s mother does not speak, her language comes in the form of actions. For instance, she responds to Grendel’s despair by holding him close to her. Because of this language barrier, Grendel sees himself as superior to his mother. Wealtheow is Grendel’s only source of real feminine language. Her form of language is very calm, peaceful, and motherly, for she is the one who creates a truce between two arguing people. Grendel finds himself very attracted to her beauty and her offers to the world. He attempts to kill her, but decides not to. This could be a result of her feminine language, which was against war, seeping into his core, and changing his views.
At the start of the book, Grendel loves language. He finds himself fascinated by it. As the story progresses and he hears more masculine language, he begins to use more foul language. The feminine language begins to seep in, and he becomes a little more sensitive. At the end of the book, he speaks in 3rd person, which is not very sophisticated, and common in the language of young children. When he is dying, he states that “Grendel had an accident, so may you all.” It appears that Grendel sunken back to the pre-language cave of his mother, a place he tried to avoid all along.