Grendel - John Gardner

In Grendel, John Gardner seeks to comment on the human condition and the destructive nature of biological urges to fight. There are two important aspects that establish the criticism of human nature. First is Grendel's position as a monster and outsider develops him as an external actor to the situation ensures that he cannot be categorized under human nature, thus having the ability to comment on these ideas. An important aspect of the novel is also the ideas the Grendel develops either watching humanity or even theorizing on humanity.

            In Grendel, Gardner takes the villain from the epic Beowulf and turns him into a nihilistic protagonist, who is not living in the world, but rather is on the outside looking in. From the beginning of the novel, Gardner portrays Grendel as a creature that is quite different from not only humans but all the other creatures in general. Being a creature that has no real agency or empathetic views towards the world, Grendel is a commentator on the human condition. Gardner does this through multiple examples. Firstly, he portrays Grendel as a victim of his own circumstances. Born into a hard life of loneliness and despair, Grendel is forced to turn toward the dragon for help,  but yet it causes him to go into further depression over his situation, the dragon agonizes Grendel by claiming,  “’I know everything, you see,' the old voice wheedled. 'The beginning, the present, the end. Everything. You now, you see the past and the present, like other low creatures: no higher faculties than memory and perception. But dragons, my boy, have a whole different kind of mind.' He stretched his mouth in a kind of smile, no trace of pleasure in it. 'We are from the mountaintop: all time, all space. We see in one instant the passionate vision and the blowout’”(Gardner, 45). Here we see Grendel suffering from the same anxiety he was curious about in the first place, the dragon furthers Grendel’s ultimate desperation by only reinforcing the desolation Grendel already knew. Secondly, he humanizes Grendel. Throughout most of the novel we see Grendel as an arrogant protagonist who is bored with life, similar to Salinger’s Holden from Catcher in the Rye, through this portrayal we see a different view of Grendel, one that accounts for his actions and attempts at explaining his predicament to the readers. This portrayal of a cocky, witty yet lonely protagonist evokes pity and a very strong response from the audience. Gardner best explains Grendel’s life through the final chapter in the novel. Grendel’s death at the hands of Beowulf culminates the ideas that were strung together through the rest of the novel. Upon facing his fate, Gardner quotes Grendel, in agony, in which he claims “'Poor Grendel's had an accident,' I whisper. 'So may you all” (Gardner, 192). Here we see a phrase in which Grendel recognizes his loneliness but he also sees that while the universe is predetermined, as the dragon would claim, it is also chaotic and embracing the life you have is uniquely valuable. Grendel’s ‘advice’ to the other characters is based on the fact that they must create meaning for themselves and have their own ‘accident’.

For a Lamb - Richard Eberhart

            For a Lamb, a poem beautifully written by Richard Eberhart, seeks only to emphasize realism as well as purity and innocence in the natural process. The use of symbolism in both stanzas of the poem creates a contrast between both the role of innocence in the natural process but also the beauty in death as an entity. Ebehart uses the lamb and daises symbolize innocence and highlight the uncorrupted beauty in nature. In the poem, For a Lamb, Richard Eberhart uses symbolism to form the idea of innocence and nature as a unifying process free of corruption.

            The symbolism of the poem allows Eberhart to highlight the innocence of the natural process as well as a putrid, yet beautiful lamb. Eberhart’s description of the lamb beginning in the first line starts soft, describing the hill in a subdued tone, considering he seeks to describe a decaying lamb. The next line perhaps shows this most prominently, Eberhart writes, “Propped with daises. The sleep looked deep”, (Eberhart, 2). Here, the serenity of nature highlights the beauty in the natural process of death, regardless of the nature of the lamb. The mellow description of this rotting carcass is symbolic of the natural process of life and death. The description of the serene environment also gives the feel of tranquility. This is seen what Eberhart explains the face of the lamb, saying, “The face nudged in the green pillow” (Eberhart, 6). The softness of the “green pillow” shows how beautiful and calm nature can be even in the most destructive stage, which in this case is death. This serenity is contrasted with the idea of rotting and exposure to death in the next line. Eberhart states “But the guts were out for crows to eat” (Eberhart, 7). The crow, being the symbol of darkness and death, contrasts with the idea of the lamb. The lamb represents purity and innocence but also has Christian undertones as its special significance in the bible. In this instance, the contrast between the crow and the lamb is significant because it symbolizes the natural processes of life and death and how both are necessarily beautiful because they remain uncorrupted through the lamb’s innocence. Another recognizable symbol that plays a role in this contrast is the repetition of daises. Daises in general are representative of innocence as well. This further builds the idea of innocence being pivotal in nature. The role of innocence in death is ultimately used to maintain the idea that even death can be beautiful because it is natural and uncorrupted.

            In this poem, Eberhart seeks to develop the idea of nature being perfect regardless of its destructive nature. The description of the putrid lamb highlights the grotesque tendencies of natural processes but also maintains that these processes can be beautiful because they are simply natural. This seemingly comments on not society’s intervention into nature but also nature being free of humanity’s harmful stranglehold that disrupts these processes, regardless of whether or not they are potentially harmful or have positive affects.

The Strength of God

            Winesburg, Ohio highlights the role of religion and God throughout the novel. The most prominent example of the role of religion is in the chapter the ‘Strength of God’. This story details the role of religion and how truth are both affected and necessarily intertwined with one another. The nature of Anderson’s criticism relies on the idea of God as a monolithic entity and whether that notion of an absolute truth. Anderson uses Reverend Curtis Hartman to highlight how an individual would be affected by the omnipresence of God. Anderson also uses irony and contrast to show the effects of a Godly truth on individuals and how they can ultimately be negatively affected by society even though they retain a religious base. This is explicitly shown by Reverend Hartman’s internal struggle with Kate Swift.

            Anderson creates a binary and interesting dichotomy between the religious and non-religious nature of human culture. In the begging of the chapter, when describing the ultra-religious Reverend Hartman, Anderson describes him as “He was forty years old, and by his nature very silent and reticent. To preach, standing in the pulpit before the people, was always a hardship for him and from Wednesday morning until Saturday evening he thought of nothing but the two sermons that must be preached on Sunday” (Anderson, 110). Anderson creates this binary as a mutually exclusive system in which  here must necessarily be a trade-off between religion and non-religion. First Anderson claims “In reality he was much in earnest and sometimes suffered prolonged periods of remorse because he could not go crying the word of God in the highways and byways of the town” (Anderson, 113) This depiction of Reverend Hartman as entirely religious creates a stark contrast to the description given later in the novel. The description that is eventually given contradicts the idea created in the beginning. This shift is to a corrupted view of religion and a focus on unholy activities such as peeping on Kate swift. The negative affects are shown when Reverend Hartman eventually smashes a window but surprisingly remains somewhat resolved, Anderson writes, “ Reverend Curtis Hartman turned and ran out of the office. At the door he stopped, and after looking up and down the deserted street, turned again to George Willard. “I am delivered. Have no fear.” He held up a bleeding fist for the young man to see. “I smashed the glass of the window,” he cried. “Now it will have to be wholly replaced. The strength of God was in me and I broke it with my fist” (Anderson, 115). The resolve that Hartman has shows how the idea of God as a monolithic truth has finally been broken down and Hartman has embraced the idea of other possibilities surrounding religion. Specifically, his smashing of the glass shows that he has metaphorically smashed the idol on his inside. This idol held God on a pedestal and created an internal hierarchy where God and religion were absolute truths. This plays into the notion of grotesqueness and maintaining truth that is unflinching. In this sense, Reverend Hartman is one of the few characters to break the mold and embrace a new ideology and idea of truth.

Ballad of Birmingham - Dudley Randall

The 1960 were a struggle for civil rights and establishment of equality for all races. Led by influential activists such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks. This piece of marvelously crafted poetic beauty was written in response to a real event, the bombing in Birmingham, Alabama. The bombing was in response to the increasingly violent nature of these demonstrations. In a time when many advocated for a peaceful solution to these injustices, police brutality and racism sought to expand white domination otherwise. This poem details the social struggles of the individuals who have been oppressed by the institutions and police in which they are a part of.  The purpose of Dudley Randall's poem, Ballad of Birmingham, is to highlight and bring attention to the horrific struggles for basic human rights. Dudley also seeks to shed light on the fracturing of African-American families and the role of youth in the struggle for equality. Perhaps the most significant thing about this piece is the point of view it takes.

            Birmingham, Alabama was the focal point of race relations during the 1960’s, whether it be Martin Luther’s imprisonment, or other race riots, the events in Birmingham led the resistance to racial injustice. This poem is perhaps the epitome of the struggles against these injustices. It depicts a conversation between a mother and her child, where the child wishes to go and fight for basic human dignity and rights, but the mother warns of the danger. This highlights the fracturing of families during the time of the race riots and revolts and how the police brutality tore apart these families. For example in line 25, it is evident that the mother loses her child when Randall writes, “For when she heard the explosion, Her eyes grew wet and wild. She raced through the streets of Birmingham Calling for her child” (Randall, 25). The struggle against these racial injustices sheds light on race relations and how black families were disproportionately affected by these struggles. The fact that the black woman loses her child while fighting for equality shows the stark contrast between the two societies [white and black] during this period.

            Perhaps, the more significant element of this poem is the point of view taken. The poem establishes the setting of a home where it depicts an otherwise normal conversation between a black mother and child. This view on race riots and struggles sought to bring light to the different side of race relations. Regardless of what was portrayed in the media, the struggles of those individuals who were most affected were whitewashed and thrown out the window. Randall seeks to bring these people into the light and highlight their struggles as possibly the most significant as they were the most affected by these tragedies. This is shown by the unbiased yet ‘real’ viewpoint taken of a fictional story coinciding with a historical event. Randall sheds light onto the struggles of the black body and rather than homogenizing them, seeks to emphasize the importance of their individual actions and bring brutality and inequality, as experienced by these individuals, to the forefront of the discussion.

Book of the Grotesque

            Winesburg, Ohio is an example of Sherwood Anderson’s criticism revolving around the idea of truth and the inability to break the notion of what absolute truth is and means, pertaining to an individual. The first chapter in the novel, ‘The Book of the Grotesques’, sets a tone for the rest of the novel that highlights this fact. Anderson portrays the idea of a grotesque as not necessarily negative, as all truths are not bad, yet he does maintain that one must inevitably break free of their higher truth to achieve individualism and further advancements in personal expression and ultimately ‘freedom’. ‘The Book of the Grotesques’ cements the tone for the rest of the novel and establishes truth a major focal point of Anderson’s social criticism.

            To understand how Anderson sets up the idea of truth and how what alternative he presents to this notion, one must first understand how he defines one who clings to the truth. He refers to the people who suffer from this as grotesques, he writes, “It was the truths that made the people grotesques. The old man had quite an elaborate theory concerning the matter. It was his notion that the moment one of the people took one of the truths to himself, called it his truth, and tried to live his life by it, he became a grotesque and the truth he embraced became a falsehood” (Anderson, 5). This shows Anderson’s emphasis on maintaining a truth that becomes absolute to the point where it becomes what he describes as a falsehood. Every chapter quantifies this and has an individual that refuses to break the mold. For example, in the chapter ‘Hands’, Anderson, when describing Wing Biddlebaum refers to him and his hands as grotesque, claiming, “They became his distinguishing feature, the source of his fame. Also they made more grotesque an already grotesque and elusive individuality” (Anderson, 11). This example specifically creates an interesting dichotomy that relies on the notion that an absolute truth is necessarily destructive. Each character, including Wing, experience negative affects from maintaining this truth. Unsurprisingly, all of these affects deal with the theme of loneliness. External of Wing, characters like Elizabeth and Alice rely on the certain truth and thus feel desolate and have ultimately been ideologically subjugated due this. Alice remains lonely because she holds onto the idea of Ned returning, while Elizabeth holds onto the idea of leaving Winesburg for a better life. The inability to break this causes separation and deprives these individuals of agency to the point where Elizabeth is referred to as lifeless, when Anderson claims, “The presence of the tall ghostly figure, moving slowly through the halls, he took as a reproach to himself” (Anderson, 21).

            While Anderson paints a negative picture of truth he also offers an escape from this reliance on truth and a way to ultimately destroy this cycle. The elixir as Foster might call it, is youth. Anderson explains “ It was the young thing inside him that saved the old man” (Anderson, 6). The idea of youth is another prevalent theme that allows these characters an option to break the mold. This is seen in nearly every chapter specifically through George Willard who represents youth and innocence. He has not yet been corrupted by the truths of the world and becomes a model by which these other characters can develop an ultimate sense of agency.