Grendel by John Gardner
Chapter 2 Part 2

 

Grendel wakes in the darkness to catch his first glimpse of men. Surprisingly, they speak Grendel’s own language, though it sounds strange. The men baffled as to what this strange creature in the oak tree might be. At first they think Grendel is a kind of fungus, but then they decide he must be a tree spirit.They further resolve that the spirit is hungry, that it eats pig, and that they must feed it. Grendel overjoyed at the prospect of the food, and he laughs out loud. The humans take this laugh a sign that the spirit is angry, and they starts to attack Grendel.Grendel tries to communicate with the humans, but they do not understand his words. As Grendel watches them plan their attack, he realizes that the humans are no dull-witted animals, but thinking, pattern-making beings, and therefore more dangerous than any creatures he has far encountered.Just as Grendel feels he will fall to the humans, his mother arrives to save him.

I really liked how John Gardner describes the mother. It saids "She came roaring down like thunder, screaming like a thousand  hurricanes, eyes as bright as dragonfire, and before she was within a mile of us, the creatures(humans) had leaped to their horses and galloped away." The similie it is used helps image the mother.

Grendel wakes up in his mother’s cave. He tries to share his revelation about the nature of existence with her, but she only stares blankly at him. Grendel becomes more and more agitated at his mother’s unresponsiveness, and she reacts by rushing to embrace her son. Grendel is sickened with fear, and feels he is suffocating in his mother’s mass.

Grendel by John Gardner
Ch.2 Part1

 

 

After reading chapter 1, Chapter 2 takes us an unspecified number of years into the past to tell the story of Grendel’s first exposure to the human world.

 

 

In his youth, Grendel explores his vast underground world with childlike abandon. He is always alone, as the only other creatures in the caverns, aside from his mother, are strange, unspeaking beings that watch Grendel’s every move but never interact with him. One night, Grendel arrives at a pool of firesnakes. He thinks that snakes are guarding something. After a moment of hesitation, he dives into the pool. When he breaks the surface of the water he finds himself, for the first time, in moonlight. Grendel did not go  further the first night, but as time passes he ventures farther and farther out into this strange new world.

 

One day, lured out to the upper world by the smell of a newborn calf, Grendel finds himself painfully trapped in a tree. He bellows for his mother, but she does not come. Then he saw black shaped bull appeared. Grendel’s screams, comes charging at him, its horns ripping Grendel’s leg up to the knee. Grendel realizes that the bull has struck too low and will always strike too low, the bull is a creature of blind instinct. Grendel knows that if he can twist his body away, he will be able to avoid the bull’s thrusts. This event caused him to know that world is nothing  but a chaotic mess of casual, brute violence. The bull continues to attack Grendel, but Grendel ceases to pay attention. Nothing seems to matter anymore, and eventually Grendel falls asleep...