Mama Grendel

Character Analysis

Grendel's mother doesn't have all that much going for her. She's not good looking, she's not a sparkling conversationalist, and she's not a very good cook. She... okay, we'll be real: she smells of fish, she has nasty amounts of body hair, and she has a tendency to suffocate her son when she gives him hugs. But like all the other characters in this novel, Mama Grendel is an intricate study in psychology.

Here again, Gardner plays with types and categories: this lady is a mother (and does all things a mother would do), but she's also a monster. Unlike Grendel, she is stereotypically monstrous—she doesn't seem to have language or higher thought patterns. She seems to belong squarely in the animal world. And yet...

I Remember Mama

Grendel's Mama still manages to have a complex relationship with her brainier son. She may not be able to speak, but she can certainly communicate—or not, depending on the situation. In any case, Mama makes her son's isolation and bewilderment about his identity worse without even trying:

She loved me, in some mysterious sense I understood without her speaking it. I was her creation. We were one thing, like the wall and the rock growing out from it.—Or so I ardently, desperately affirmed. When her strange eyes burned into me, it did not seem quite sure. I was intensely aware of where I sat, the volume of darkness I displaced, the shiny-smooth span of packed dirt between us, and the shocking separateness from me in my mama's eyes. I would feel, all at once, alone and ugly, almost—as if I'd dirtied myself—obscene. (17)

Mommy issues, anyone? This is not a healthy relationship by any means, but it's also possibly the only source of love that Grendel has. Grendel's Mama is also the only key Grendel has to his past. When he hears from the Shaper that he and all his kindred have been cursed because of the actions of their ancestor (Cain), Grendel knows that the only person who can confirm or deny any of this is his mother.

But she's not talking.

We Never Talk Anymore...

We understand that Mama doesn't have the ability to speak, but we do know she can communicate with Grendel when the need arises. However, she refuses to tell him about the past, so Grendel can only assume that something is up:

"Why are we here?" I used to ask her. "Why do we stand this putrid, stinking hole?" She trembles at my words. Her fat lips shake. "Don't ask!" her wiggling claws implore. (She never speaks.) "Don't ask!" It must be some terrible secret, I used to think. (11)

Mama's inability to speak and her guilty, secretive nature drive Grendel crazy, but we get the sense that her actions are meant to protect her son. And although she can only make mournful sounds, there's still enough sympathy between mother and son for Grendel to pick up some vibes from her: "'Dool-dool,' she moans. She drools and weeps. 'Warovvish,' she whimpers, and tears at herself" (145-146). It's a warning, whether Grendel admits it or not.

It's Mama's inability to communicate with language that isolates Grendel so completely. He even explains that the root of all his troubles (like his need to hear the lies of the Shaper, to concern himself so closely with human beings) is that he has no one to talk to. If only he did, he'd be like all the other thinking, planning, higher-level beings on the block.

Mom, however, has fallen too far.

Mother from Hell(?)

So how much does it matter to us that Grendel has no sympathetic companion to share his thoughts, questions, and fears with? Gardner brings Mama into the picture to increase the pity factor for Grendel. She also appears as a kind of motivation or starting point for Grendel's wicked behavior.

Here's one question Gardner wants us to ask ourselves: is Grendel's monstrousness the result of nature or nurture? Does Grendel become who he is because of his grunting, smelly mother (to say nothing of those nasty experiences with humans)? Or is it because he's got evil monster in his genetic code? Either way, Mama Grendel might be blamed.

There's one more thing to consider: Mama may seem to be a "brute" because she seems closer to the animals of the forest than to Grendel or the humans in the story, but she never acts out of cruelty or out of a desire for power. Whenever she springs into action, it's for the good of her child. She doesn't seek human flesh as her son does (or as Hrothgar and Beowulf do, in their own ways).

What we see when we look at her is a mother who worries about her kid, who paces the floor in frustration when she can't get through to him—just like any mother watching her child go through an identity crisis would do.

So what's the main difference between humans and animals? Or between humans and monsters? Is it intelligence, or is it something else?