Comparing the Act of Creation in Grendel and Frankenstein Essay

The Act of Creation in Grendel and Frankenstein Man has always been impelled to create. We constantly shape the world around us by inventing stories of heroes and monsters, by crafting complicated but passionate ideals about good and evil. Some relish in the power that this manipulation of documentaryity wields others are more innocent in that they are simply yielding to a universal longing for something in which to believe. In both John Gardners Grendel and Mary Shelleys Frankenstein, creation is a central theme. Victor Frankenstein is inexplicably driven to make a creature like himself, though he doesnt have any external reason for doing so. The monster himself enacts a kind of creation he seeks to understand the truth of human nature by reading mans works, but also indulges in his own stories and fantasies of a life lived among friends. Shelley explores to some extent the faith of such creation (at least on the part of Victor Frankenstein), but Gardner is more interested in what the act of creation reveals about the nature of existence. In Grendel, nearly all of the characters are driven to shape the world to their ideas. Hrothgar spends his life crafting a government. Grendels mother is described as loving her son not for myself, my set apart specialness, but for my son-ness, my displacement of air as visible proof of her power (138). Both Grendel and the Shaper constantly seek the ability to reshape reality with words. magical spell they have differing motives, all of these acts of creation give power and significance to the creator. As Baby Grendel desperately convinces himself, it is the act of observing and commenting on what is outside that makes one real I understood that, finally ... ...endel would undoubtedly un-create if he really had that power. He understands too late. His death is as necessary as the death of a manoeuver in winter a new morning lies in wait for the Danes, as it does for all men in the circle of living and dying. Works Cited and Consulted Boyd, Stephen. York Notes on Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. Longman York Press, 1992. Gardner, John. Grendel. Vintage Books, 1989. Patterson, Arthur Paul. A Frankenstein Study. http//www.watershed.winnipeg.mb.ca/Frankenstein.html Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Edited with an Introduction and notes by Maurice Hindle. Penguin books, 1992 Strehle, Susan. John Gardners Novels Affirmation and the Alien. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 10. Detroit Gale Research, 1979. 218 -219.