In the beginning of Grendel’s life, Grendel has lived in a cave with his mother and has had no contact with the outside world. He is basically alone and isolated in the cave because he cannot understand what his mother says and she cannot understand him. As Grendel progresses throughout the story and has more interactions with the humans and their language, Grendel’s begins to learn their language. In time, Grendel is able to understand what many of the humans are saying and, to some, communicate with them.
Throughout the story, Grendel’s understanding of the human language and his use of this language constantly increased. From chapter to chapter, a reader can see the improvement of narration and the addition of different aspects of the human language. Chapters 7 and 8 are great examples of the different aspects of language Grendel has learned from the villagers in Hrothgar’s village. In these chapters, Grendel uses italics, bold, and indentations. In addition, Grendel plays around with the language when he puts scene 1 and scene 2. Eventually, Grendel includes the thoughts of other characters and the novel even includes a couple of soliloquies from the other characters. These adjustments and format Grendel uses is an enormous improvement to that of the beginning of Grendel’s childhood.
From the beginning of the story, the reader can interpret that Grendel has some knowledge of language. During his first encounter with humans, he sort of understands what they are saying and tries to communicate, but he really only groans and moans to them. As time progresses, Grendel begins to be able to pronounce words and say complete sentences. He also starts to talk to some humans—like Unferth. Finally towards the end of the story, it can be seen that Grendel’s “storytelling” has had greatly improved; he even uses italics and brackets. By the end of the story, Grendel has great knowledge of language and can talk to and understand humans.
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