Marc Tiskewicz

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Term Paper Title	Marc Tiskewicz
# of Words	979
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	3.92

Marc Tiskewicz
Mr. Prosser
English 3
19 November 1998
Learned Helplessness and Grendel
     John Gardner constructs an all to familiar story in his novel Grendel. Not that the stories of Dragon’s are part of our everyday existence, but rather the experiences parallel to those of Grendel. These experiences Gardner constructs seem to follow the pattern of the psychological condition of learned helplessness. Grendel’s overwhelming accumulation of failures cause this condition. The primary supporting components to this idea are Grendel’s reactions to the Shaper, his reactions to the Dragon, and his reaction to Beowulf.
     The name “Shaper” immediately imparts some meaning to this character. The most obvious application of this name is that of how the Shaper shapes his stories. As we dig deeper though, there is more the link between this character’s name and role in the story than just the apparent easy-to-remember label. In the field of psychology the phenomenon of shaping offering enforcement and/or punishment for behavior that get progressively closer and closer to the complete desired behavior. The shaper offers experiences to the Danes and to Grendel that they seem to take as truth: “. . .and they, who knew the truth, remembered it his way—and so did I” (43). They therefore base their own actions upon this “wisdom” they have gained through the Shaper’s stories. This is quite a power for one man to have in any age.
     Though Grendel holds much doubt in human thinking, explaining it as “lunatic theory,” he finds himself strangely attracted to his songs: “Even to me, incredibly, he had made it all seem true and very fine” (43). When Grendel places much trust in the word of the Shaper, the Shaper and the people reject Grendel—making him to be the race of failure, or evil. Grendel listens to the Shaper tell of Grendel, “He told of an ancient feud between two brothers which split all the world between darkness and light. And I, Grendel, was the dark side, he said in effect. The terrible race God cursed” (51). Grendel appears visibly hurt by the what the Shaper—and therefore the people—now think of him, “Stood wriggling my face, letting tears down my nose, grinding my fists into my streaming eyes. . .” (51).  He then proceeds to try to explain that this is not true by staggering up to the hall, “groaning out ‘Mercy! Peace!’” (51). Without hesitation the people violently reject him by hacking at him with battle axes and screaming in fear (52).
This event of failure for G...

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