The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic that recounts the illustrious deeds of the great Geatish warrior Beowulf, who travels across the seas to free the Danes from an evil monster, Grendel, who They wreaked havoc and terrorized the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds in ridding the land of an evil monster and stopping its evil scourge, while the monster is portrayed as a loathsome creature who deserves to die because of his evil deeds. In the epic poem, Beowulf, the authors portray Grendel as a cold-hearted beast who thrives on the pain of others. Many disagree with such a simplistic and biased portrayal of Grendel and his role in the epic. John Gardner in his book, Grendel set out to change the reader's perception of Grendel and his role in Beowulf by telling the story through Grendel's point of view. John Gardner transforms Grendel, perceived as a terrible evil demon, into a lonely but intelligent outcast who bears a striking resemblance to his human adversaries. In Grendel, John Gardner portrays Grendel as an intelligent being capable of rational thought and showing outbursts of emotion. It portrays Grendel as a wounded individual and as a victim of oppression ostracized by civilization. The author of Beowulf portrays Grendel as the typical monster archetype compared to John Gardner's portrayal of Grendel as an outcast archetype. The author of Beowulf demonizes Grendel by describing him as purely a monster compared to John Gardner who describes Grendel not as a savage. monster but as an intelligent being who has human-like qualities and characteristics. In the traditional story Grendel is depicted as a bloodthirsty demon driven by his greedy animal instincts. ... middle of the paper ... glorifies the humanity in this scene by portraying them as evil beings instead of Grendel who is the helpless victim of their savage assault. Men attack Grendel only because they cannot understand him and because of his appearance. Grendel makes no attempt to harm the men but to communicate with them while they are the ones who have savagely attempted to kill him. John Gardner portrays the men as the true monsters who mercilessly attempted to kill Grendel while he was defenseless. Grendel has another revelation because of this attack in which he states. “The world resists me and I resist the world… “That's all there is.” (Gardner, age 28) Grendel makes this statement as a means of organizing the way he perceives the world. While once he saw the world as a confusing collection of scary images, he can now separate the world into categories: those who don't look like him and himself..