Kasey
New Member
Posts: 31 
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Post by Kasey on Jul 18, 2013 3:20:46 GMT
Specifically, the goat on page 140. The goat keeps climbing up the hillside, despite Grendel's verbal and physical abuse. Like an abusive parent, Grendel builds up from an almost joking-disapointment to a quick explosion. So, my dear AP Students, what might this goat represent: to Grendel and to us as humans? Why do you think it is that Grendel kills animals like the goat without a second thought, but the image of a deer shot down by one of Hrothgar's men sticks with him?
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Post by jennyxu on Jul 21, 2013 5:07:00 GMT
The significance of the goat is its total disregard for Grendel's warnings and abuses. The goat is "mindless" and "mechanical", which helps it ignore outside forces in favor of continuing its nature-designated role to climb. Grendel becomes increasingly angry at the goat because the goat's one-track mind juxtaposes one of Grendel's weaknesses, his reluctance to accept his role as a monster. It is seen in his visit to the dragon and in his perpetual internal debates, the awareness he has for his cruel actions. He recognizes the meaninglessness of his desire to torture and kill and it stops him from his actions at times, like when he almost killed the queen. "I changed my mind. It would be meaningless, killing her" (110). Because of his superior mental abilities, his life is more difficult and painful than the goat's. The lengths Grendel has to go to in stopping the goat in its tracks (despite heavy bleeding, on the edge of death, the goat keeps climbing towards Grendel, threatening Grendel) shows that a thoughtless mind is better suited to accomplishing meaningless tasks and not letting outside threats influence actions.
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Post by davidqin on Jul 31, 2013 21:25:29 GMT
By the way, the goat is similar to the bull on page 20, when Grendel is stuck in the tree. The bull, like the goat, is oblivious to Grendel's demonstrations: "I bellowed at him. He jerked his head as if the sound were a boulder I'd thrown at him, but then he merely stood considering, and after a minute, he pawed the ground again" (20). Also like the goat, the bull is persistent in his efforts to charge Grendel. It's important to note that Gardner uses the same language ("mindless" and "mechanical") when describing the bull and goat.
I think it's fair to group these two characters together due to their persistence in achieving a goal, whether it's the bull's goal to bring Grendel down or the goat's goal to climb the mountain. Grendel's only real goal is to find acceptance of his monstrosity, which he consistently fails to accomplish because of his indecision between befriending the humans or utterly destroying them and proving his strength and superiority.
In addition, perhaps one reason the image of the Danish hunter pursuing and killing a deer sticks with Grendel is the ease and fluidity with which the hunter dispatches the deer. Grendel relates, "the man's hand moves... toward the bow, and grasps it, and draws it down, away from the shoulder and around in front (click click) and transfers the bow to the slowly moving second hand, and the first hand goes back up and (click) over the shoulder and returns with an arrow, threads the bow. Suddenly time is a rush for the hart" (127). Grendel seems very much impressed by the hunter's proficiency and how quickly the deer was brought down. More importantly, he says he "[senses] some riddle in it" (127). This may have been the first time Grendel has seen a human take down a lesser being, which may have strong implications for Grendel because he has always killed humans (and the goat) without much effort. Perhaps Grendel is coming to appreciate how quickly and easily death can come. More significantly, the swift death of the goat is in sharp contrast to Grendel's perspective of his own, slow death by a death grip.
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