How we cite our quotes: (Page) Vintage Books, 1989
Quote #1
And so begins the twelfth year of my idiotic war. The pain of it! The stupidity! (5)
It's a hard concept to wrap our heads around: a monster who doesn't love his status as evildoer. This status isolates him from all society and makes everything good and beautiful a torment to him since he can never benefit from them. On top of that, Grendel's ability to analyze his own behavior is no help at all. He knows that neither raging nor snarfing down humans will do anything to ease his pain.
Quote #2
I would feel, all at once, alone and ugly, almost—as if I'd dirtied myself—obscene. The cavern river rumbled far below us. Being young, unable to face these things, I would bawl and hurl myself at my mother and she would reach out her claws and seize me, though I could see I alarmed her (I had teeth like a saw), and she would smash me against her fat, limp breast as if to make me part of her flesh again. (17)
Grendel takes a seat on the psychotherapist's couch, as it were, and shows us what it's like growing up monster. It isn't a pretty childhood. Gardner does a great job "humanizing" Grendel here—and making it a lot harder on us humans to judge his behavior.
Quote #3
Blood gushed from my ankle and shin, and flew up through me like fire up the flue of a mountain. I lost my head. I bellowed for help, so loudly it made the ground shake... I bellowed to the sky, the forest, the cliffs, until I was so weak from the loss of blood I could barely wave my arms. "I'm going to die," I wailed. 'Poor Grendel! Poor old Mama!' I wept and sobbed. "Poor Grendel will hang here and starve to death," I told myself, "and no one will ever even miss him!" The thought enraged me. (18)
Physical pain helps Grendel build a wall between himself and the rest of the natural world—that is, until the dragon charms his hide and makes him invulnerable. If he could have continued to feel pain and fear injury from humans, he might have been a different kind of monster. Would he have been more like humans?