Grendel & Frankenstein
...GRENDEL & FRANKENSTEIN
AN ANALYSIS OF THE TWO "MONSTERS" AND THEIR SUPERIORITY TO MANKIND In
the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, "Is it good friend?"
"It is bitter-bitter," he answered;
"But I like it
Because it is bitter
And because it is my heart."
-Stephen Crane
This reflects how both Grendel and Frankenstein must have felt during
their lonely lives. "Seeking friends, the fiends found enemies; seeking
hope, they found hate"(Neilson back page). The monsters simply want to
live as the rest of us live. But, in our prejudice of their kind, we
banish them from our elite society. Who gave society the right to judge
who is acceptable and who is not? A better question might be, who is
going to stop them? The answer, no one. Therefore, society continues to
alienate the undesirables of our community. Some of the greatest minds
of all time have been socially unacceptable. Albert Einstein lived alone
and rarely wore the same color socks. Van Gogh found comfort only in
his art, and the woman who consistently denied his passion. Edgar Allen
Poe was "different" to say the least. Just like these great men,
Grendel and Frankenstein do not conform to the societal model. Also
like these men, Grendel and Frankenstein are uniquely superior to the
rest of
mankind. Their superiority is seen through their guile to live in a
society that ostracizes their kind, their true heroism in place of
society's romantic view, and the ignorance on which society's opinion of
them is formed.
Grendel, though he needs to kill to do so, functions very well in his
own sphere....
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