I understood that the world was nothing.
. . . I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist.
See Important Quotations Explained
Summary
After establishing the novel’s linear plotline in Chapter 1—namely, the
twelve-year battle between Grendel and the Danes—Chapter 2 takes
us an unspecified number of years into the past to tell the story of
Grendel’s first exposure to the human world.
In his youth, Grendel explores his vast underground world
with childlike abandon. He is always alone, as the only other creatures
in the caverns, aside from his mother, are strange, unspeaking beings that
watch Grendel’s every move but never interact with him. One night,
Grendel arrives at a pool of firesnakes. He senses that the snakes
are guarding something, and after a moment of hesitation he dives
into the pool. When he breaks the surface of the water he finds himself,
for the first time, in moonlight. Grendel goes no further the first
night, but as time passes he ventures farther and farther out into this
strange new world.
Grendel’s exploration of the world of humans changes the
way he perceives the creatures in his underground world. He realizes
that the unspeaking strangers seem to look past him or through him; only
his mother truly looks at him. She looks at Grendel
as if to consume him, and he has an inexplicable understanding that
they are connected, possibly even a single entity. At times, however,
the intensity of his mother’s gaze causes Grendel to suddenly feel
separate from her, and at those times he bawls and hurls himself
at her. His mother responds by smashing him to her breast as if
to make him part of her flesh again. Comforted by this gesture,
Grendel can then go back to his exploratory games.
One day, lured out to the upper world by the smell of
a newborn calf, Grendel finds himself painfully trapped in a tree.
He bellows for his mother, but she does not come. In his pain and
desperation, he imagines he sees her shape in a black rock, in a
shadow, and in a cave entrance, but each vision turns out to be
a cruel tease. A bull appears and, despite Grendel’s screams, comes
charging at him, its horns ripping Grendel’s leg up to the knee.
Grendel realizes that the bull has struck too low and will always
strike too low; the bull is a creature of blind instinct. Grendel
knows that if he can twist his body away, he will be able to avoid
the bull’s thrusts. This event causes Grendel to experience a revelation
that the world is nothing but a chaotic mess of casual, brute violence.
Grendel understands that he alone exists, that everything else in
the world is merely what he pushes against or what pushes back against
him. The bull continues to attack Grendel, but Grendel ceases to
pay attention. Nothing seems to matter anymore, and eventually Grendel
falls asleep.
Grendel wakes in the darkness to catch his first glimpse
of men. Surprisingly, they speak Grendel’s own language, though
it sounds strange. The men are baffled as to what this strange creature
in the oak tree might be. At first they think Grendel is a kind
of fungus, but then they decide he must be a tree spirit. They further
resolve that the spirit is hungry, that it eats pig, and that they
must feed it. Grendel is overjoyed at the prospect of food, and
he laughs out loud. The humans take this laugh as a sign that the
spirit is angry, and they try to attack Grendel. Grendel tries to
communicate with the humans, but they do not understand his words.
As Grendel watches them plan their attack, he realizes that the
humans are no dull-witted animals, but thinking, pattern-making
beings, and therefore more dangerous than any creatures he has thus
far encountered. Just as Grendel feels he will fall to the humans,
his mother arrives to save him.
Grendel wakes up in his mother’s cave. He tries to share
his revelation about the nature of existence with her, but she only
stares blankly at him. Grendel becomes more and more agitated at
his mother’s unresponsiveness, and she reacts by rushing to embrace her
son. Grendel is sickened with fear, and feels he is suffocating
in his mother’s mass.
