Empathizing With a Monster In the novels Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, and Grendel by John Gardner, there is a character that is vividly portrayed. This character is the monster Grendel, a non-human being portrayed in two separate ways. The Anglo-Saxon's view Grendel as evil; there's no arguing that point. The Anglo-Saxon view is highly original and different because "In Anglo-Saxon society one of the principal contaminants was the warrior code, which was so deeply …showed first 75 words of 1009 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1009 total…Grendel was not necessarily born malicious but was perceived that way and therefore became that way, when he was not received as a normal being, as he would have liked. For that reason, the reader realizes Grendel dies a miserable, lonely child at heart who just wanted to be loved. He was not an evil demon; he was not a killer; he was an outcast looking for the sense of belonging that he never received.