Read the excerpt from Grendel. Then they would fight. Spears flying, swords whonking, arrows raining from the windows and doors of the meadhall and the edge of the woods. Horses reared and fell over screaming, ravens flew, crazy as bats in a fire, men staggered, gesturing wildly, making speeches, dying or sometimes pretending to be dying, sneaking off. Sometimes the attackers would be driven back, sometimes they’d win and burn the meadhall down, sometimes they’d capture the king of the meadhall and make his people give weapons and gold rings and cows. It was confusing and frightening, not in a way I could untangle. I was safe in my tree, and the men who fought were nothing to me, except of course that they talked in something akin to my language, which meant that we were, incredibly, related. I was sickened, if only at the waste of it: all they killed—cows, horses, men—they left to rot or burn. Which statement best describes Grendel’s perspective? He enjoys watching the violent men kill one another. He admires the powerful weapons and strong men. He wishes to be part of the excitement somehow. He feels disgusted by the wasteful nature of war.

In the famous epic poem "Beowulf", Grendel is described as a man-eating monster, incapable of feeling, whose only purpose is to kill. He and his mother end up being killed by the hero Beowulf.

However, when we read the novel Grendel, by John Gardner, a new light is shone onto the character. The story is now told from Grendel's perspective, and he is not a monster as portrayed in Beowulf. He has feelings, he suffers; but since he has a monstrous appearance and seems incapable of expressing himself, he is misunderstood.

In the excerpt we are studying here, Grendel watches while men kill each other and other beings. He does not admire their violence or their weapons, nor does he wish to be a part of it. Grendel is practical, and sees it as a waste that what is killed is left to rot. To his mind, since they have been killed, those carcasses should now serve as food. This excerpt doesn't show it, but the next line would actually picture his practical nature by his attempt to save what he considers to be food:

I was sickened, if only at the waste of it: all they killed—cows, horses, men—they left to rot or burn. I sacked all I could and tried to store it, but my mother would growl and make faces because of the stink.