Truth or Lies?

I’m going to focus on the second question since I think it applies more directly to the novel.

I would argue the idea of a “hopeless world” perfectly applies to Grendel’s situation; Grendel feels very alone in the world, and justifiably so. Early on in the novel, when Grendel is stuck in the tree and charged by the bull, he tells, “I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back” (Gardner 22). Sure, he mother rescues him, but even she provides little companionship to Grendel, because “She never speaks” (Gardner 11). Finally, when he becomes invincible (or almost invincible, I suppose) due to the dragon’s charm, Grendel is only briefly euphoric before becoming depressed: “I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings! But also, as never before, I was alone” (Gardner 80). So, for the sake of this discussion, I think it’d be fair to offer Grendel as a strong example of someone who sees the world as truly a hopeless place in terms of finding companionship that might give him happiness.

With that in mind, then, perhaps the answer to this often-asked question is found in Grendel’s own actions and emotions. Grendel rarely describes himself as happy. One instance of when he does so, however, is when the “fifteen glorious heroes, proud in their battle dress, fat as cows” arrive, and Grendel is “mad with joy—At least I think it’s joy. Strangers have come, and it’s a whole new game. I kiss the ice….O happy Grendel!” (Gardner 151). Initially, it seems like Grendel is finding joy in reality—he’s certainly not ignoring the arrival of the Geats or pretending they are not arriving in “battle dress.” But upon closer examination, Grendel is actually living in ignorance: he refuses to admit to himself that there is any possibility of death. Rather, he’s convinced the Dragon’s charm will protect him forever. Thus, the change in foes and “whole new game” might make Grendel happy, but his happiness is rooted in his ignorant belief that he is invincible.

The other characters in the novel also suggest that facing the “harsh reality” leads to discontent while ignorance is the source of happiness. I’d argue that the humans also live in a hopeless world in regards to Grendel, since, as Grendel reports, “I saw their weapons come flying straight at me, saw them touch my fur and drop quietly in the grass” (Gardner 78). In other words, they live in a “hopeless place” where death could and often does occur at Grendel’s whim.

Now, if we once again examine the arrival of the Geats, Grendel narrates, “The Danes were not pleased, to say the least, that the Geats had come to save them. Honor is very big with them; they’d rather be eaten alive than be bailed out by strangers. The priests weren’t happy either. They’d been saying for years that the ghostly Destroyer would take care of things in time. Now here were these foreigner upstarts unmasking religion!” (Gardner 159).

The Danes thus find contentment in the belief that they are stronger than any foe, even when such a belief is clearly not true. Previously, though, that belief is only disproven in a Dane’s death when fighting Grendel, leaving the other Danes to believe that they could be different than the unlucky Dane (and the Dane who died probably was not too concerned with honor at that point). Now, though, with the Geats’ arrival, this ignorant belief is truly shattered; here are outsiders who have come to kill the foe, directly implying that each and every Dane needs help.

The priests’ despondency, like that of the Danes, is also attached to facing reality. They found happiness, or at least self-satisfaction, in preaching and feeling more important than the average Dane and ignoring the fact that perhaps Grendel would never be taken care of by the “Destroyer.” Now, the possibility that the Geats might kill Grendel shatters their “ignorance,” or false belief.

Thus, in examining Grendel, the Danes, and the priests—all living in a hopeless world—there is really no choice. After all, the question itself implies the answer: if the world is “truly hopeless,” then facing the harsh reality of the world is “hopeless,” meaning there can be neither hope nor happiness. Thus, the only way to find any happiness (which I’d assumes is the “better” situation) is to live in ignorance or false beliefs.

The examination of the characters in Gardner’s novel, however, lends a noteworthy nuance to this idea: no character makes a conscious choice to live in ignorant bliss. After all, Grendel believes that he is invincible (and, up until his death, has no reason not to); he’s not trying to deceive himself. The Danes fully believe they need no outside help, or at least outside help from other humans (because they believe that they are as strong as any other human, so if they can’t accomplish something, no one else can), even though the Geats are able to kill Grendel. The priests, especially the priest who talked with Grendel, believe, to some extent, that help will come from above, since they cannot imagine any other salvation. Even the interesting contradiction you have highlighted, that Grendel runs from lies even though the lies repress his worst traits, reinforces the idea of unconscious, instead of conscious, deception: it is not that Grendel doesn’t want happiness, but rather simply that Grendel does not want to deceive himself to achieve that happiness.

So, maybe the better questions to ask are: if we live in a hopeless place, is it even possible for us to recognize that or will some inherent human trait of trying to find hope lead us to inevitable ignorance? And does the implication of this idea—the idea that happiness can only come from unconscious ignorance—apply to all happiness, or just happiness in a “truly hopeless world”? If you are happy, does that mean that you must be deceiving yourself or hold a false belief? Perhaps that is not easily transferred to our lives, since the world of Grendel and the Danes seems significantly more hopeless than the lives of most people growing up in Lake Oswego today, but according to Gardner’s novel, the answer is yes: happiness is found in unconscious deception or a complete belief in something eventually proven untrue.