Troublemakers
Though an audience trained by the principle of chivalry and Christian sentiment might expect an epic hero to be a paragon of virtue, the ancient epic heroes were quite often more what the postmodernists have created in the modern antihero. So one can compare the protagonist of John Gardner's antiheroic Grendel -- in which the monster of an old dawn-of-Christianity epic becomes the hero of a postmodern tale -- not so much with the villains of older epics but with their heroes. In particular, one can compare the character of Grendel with Odysseus (particularly as he is seen in the Odyssey, though it is important to remember that both the Iliad and the Odyssey are written by Homer and as companion pieces function as elements of the same epic). Both Grendel and Odysseus are somewhat antiheroic: Grendel is a murderer and a trickster whose villainy defines a people, while Odysseus (whose very name apparently means troublemaker) is the grandson of a notorious thief who is himself known for his trickery and his elaborate lies. Yet though both are troublemakers and sorrowers, Grendel and Odysseus also share a certain heroism in their search for a spiritual and physical homecoming.
If one is to see how Grendel and Odysseus share a common quest,...
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