Nope. Didn't Happen.

While I was reading Grendel by John Gardner, I wasn't exactly enjoying it. I definitely enjoyed it more than following George Williard around everywhere...no offense to Mr. Anderson...My favorite chapter is Chapter 5--when we learn about the dragon. I don't know if that's because I love dragons in general...or if it's because I didn't like the Shaper just because it seemed like a bunch of hocus pocus. Then again, I've always wanted a pet dragon that could fly me to school and make everyone jealous. A big controversy in my class was the end. If you think Grendel dies, I disagree completely. Also, if you think he killed the mountain goat, I disagree completely as well. Gardner doesn't say anything that could make us sway either way. He leaves it to us to decide. And I decided Grendel and the mountain goat don't die and you should too. So Grendel gets aggravated when another goat starts to bother him and this time instead of just yelling at it (because yelling really doesn't do much but make the goat want to bother him more), Grendel starts to throw things at it. First, Grendel rolls a "boulder" at him (139). The goat avoids it and continues to head towards the more and more angry Grendel. Each time Grendel throws something at the goat, the goat gets weaker and weaker. Finally "death shakes his body" (140). The last thing Gardner tells us is that Grendel picks up another stone. We never find out if he kills it or not. We don't know if he gives into his want to kill something, or if he gives into not killing it. We don't know if he gives into the animalistic want to kill something or if he goes back to his original thought of how killing something for no point is savage. We just don't know. It shows how he is torn with inner conflict. This isn't the first time he's struggled with this either--but that's another story. Then in Chapter 12, aka the end, Grendel's "enemies of old" have come to watch him 'die' (173). Grendel mentions a "sheepish smile" that makes me think back to the goat (173).  It's as if Grendel is mimicking the goat because he now understands the difficulty of avoiding death and how it can all be a big mistake or as Grendel says, an "accident" (174). Stupid Grendel, he just had to give into temptation. The last part of me that doesn't think that Grendel dies is when he is faced with the chasm yet again. In the beginning he yelled into it over and over as if he was taunting it. He was challenging the chasm to take him. When he finds himself back at the chasm missing an arm, the "voluntary tumble" that he thinks is going to kill him doesn't happen (173). He's already faced this problem and he's avoided it. So to all you Grendel'sdeadbelievers, he's not. He's simply alive waiting to give a humanish smile to his old friends when he gets his revenge.