Revelations of Grendel, by Charles

For this assignment for "Beowulf," I asked students to consider writing from the monster Grendel's perspective. I asked them to step into Grendel's shoes and explain why he was murdering so many people. Charles took this opportunity to write a long, descriptive monologue to explain the pagan Grendel's motivation for killing the Christians in Herot Hall.

Why...Why you ask me. It is not by will or by instinct. It is by choice. Now it has become my purpose, my cause. I no longer have control over what or who I slaughter or destroy. I remember when my life was wonderful; as a child, I used to run around the forest, smelling the fresh air of the blossoming flowers and listening to the wind. My whole family and people lived in the forest, taking no heed to time, just smiling and laughing. Every month, we would have a spiritual festival, tributing to the Gods of Nature. We enjoyed our lives and never ceased to.

Then, they came...like a pack of rabid dogs only to kill and to scavenge. They came to us in the mist of the night, setting houses on fire, killing men and women and children, anything that so much as blinked or gave a gasp of air was like an animal. I barely escaped with any goods, let alone my life. I looked back to see my life, family, and hope being burned to ashes.

That night, I mourned not only for my family but for revenge. I went back to where my village was and gritted my teeth. The trees were now pitch black and smoke rose from the ground. The very air I breathed was poisonous, but I didn't care. It was then when the gods appeared to me in a dream and gave me an offer I could not refuse.

Now the sole survivor of my clan, I have been hunted long enough. It was a week after I had the curse that my first seige on Herot came to pass. Like them, I came in the night. I busted through the door and let instinct and hate take me over. That night, all that was heard was screaming, snapping of bones, the sound of slash marks and spewing intestines. My eyes had turned blood red, not only because of the blood that gleamed off my pupils from seeing my victims lie helpless, begging for mercy as I dug my cold snout into their broken rib cage and ate their liver, but because although I had taken a bloody revenge, one killing didn't seem enough.

Now killing is like a drug to me. Once I start, I can't stop. And until my bloody genocide is complete, I will continue to kill. It was because of them I am alone in this world, no family, wife, child, anything. But somehow, after all the bodies I've torn apart with my bare hands, after every cry of anguish and beg for mercy I heard before my victims throats bled to death, I've loved every second of it.