Grendel as anti hero
...n and people are scared of him because he looks like a giant troll can talk. Grendel wants to have a part in Hrothgar’s society because he wants to feel important and if that means destroying the kingdom, then he will do it. Grendel wants to be noticed by someone for what he does and he has never gotten that pleasure, not even from his mother. Grendel is also like an outlaw because he really isn’t part of the kingdom he just wanders around it, only coming out at night to strike. Since he is an outlaw, he rejects the values of the kingdom and therefore wants to establish his own. Grendel rejects the kingdom’s rules and values, which is another quality of an anti-hero because he only follows his own rules. Grendel defies Hrothgar and everything he has done because Grendel wants to be a part of the thanes and be involved with the kingdom, but when he is deprived of that he follows his own rules. Grendel thinks that if he kills thanes and destroys a kingdom that he will be helping out society. He feels that if he rids the world of Hrothgar’s kingdom the world will become better for people or things like him. Like many bad guys in comic books or movies, they feel their evil acts are for good and will improve the world, when in fact they only hurt. Grendel’s values and thoughts are not accepted by anyone and that causes him to be very angry at the world, which doesn’t end in a very good outcome. In the early stages of Grendel’s life we see his mother treat him horribly and she never really pays any attention to him. Grendel is deprived of love from his mother which we see in many anti-heroes, no true love from family. Grendel is considered a failure and she calls him stupid, which causes him to be angry and he leaves to find someone who will think of him as a good thing. So, he meets the dragon, who is very evil, and is influenced by the dragon’s evil and is given a spell where he can’t be harmed. When Grendel gets this power, the combination with his anger leads to horrible things not only for the people Grendel kills, but; for Grendel himself. A good parallel to Grendel and the dragon would be Darth Vader and Emporer Palpatine because Darth is influenced by the far more evil Palpatine and is given power. Darth is an angry man and the combination leads to horrible things and like Grendel an eventual death. But, both Darth Vader and Grendel never really started out evil, they were just two very naïve people. They didn’t ...