reality

Grendel- John Gardner

Allegory of the Cave- Plato

Plato’s allegory of the cave discusses reality – our own personal realities. Grendel deals with quite a similar topic, making them perfect for comparisons. When we first began our comparisons in class, some characters and objects seemed to be clear cut parallels, while others seemed fuzzy. But looking back even the clear cut comparisons have begun to turn fuzzy and those that were already fuzzy have caused me to spiral down in confusion.

There were several symbols in particular that we examined: the prisoners, the cave, the shadows, the light, and the sun. The prisoners we agreed to be those that are child-like and unenlightened, just like the men in the cave that were not privy to the secrets of the ‘real’ world. They exist in a reality that encompasses only one aspect of a greater, more complete reality. The cave was then the limitation of their reality, perhaps resulting from close-mindedness that prevents ‘prisoners’ from seeing through to the true situation or their perception of what they see inevitably limiting what they understand of the situation. The shadows that danced across the cave walls were identified as the prisoner’s perception itself. Although the object itself was behind them, all the prisoners could see was the shadow in front, clearly representing a difference between the ‘truth’ of the environment and how the ‘prisoners’ understand and perceive that truth. The light that allows the freed man to see and understand the real objects is the truth of the world, how it really is outside of any single person’s interpretation. It then follows that the sun, the source of light in the world that is necessary for the survival of the world, was the source of all truth, comparable to a god. Not just someone or something that knew what the truth was, but the one that had created truth itself.

So how does all of that appear in Grendel? Naturally we began with the prisoners, matching them almost automatically with the nature that surrounded Grendel, as well as the people the Grendel looked down upon for all their “theories” and religion. However, as I thought about it more, I recalled a passage near the end of Plato’s allegory. When the freed man returns to cave, his perspective has been changed in what we would identify as a positive way. However, the men who remained in the cave, because of their lack of enlightenment, believed themselves to be the enlightened ones while the man who returned from the outside world was below them. Could that not also be the case with the nature and humans that Grendel looked down upon? What if it was, in fact, Grendel that did not truly understand, not privy to the truth, and because of that he saw those surrounding him as unenlightened? All of a sudden, nature did not seem like such an obvious prisoner.

The light and sun brought about even more confusion, in particular, the shaper. The shaper was the one that created the truth for the humans, telling them what happened, yet what he tells them is not always what really happened. He is the creator of truth, but his truths…are not actually true. So is he the sun, creating what truth is and shaping the world of the humans? Is he even the light, the truth of the world? Or is maybe the fire that burned in the cave, shedding light on what happened, but in the process distorting the truth, just as the fire shed light but created the shadows that became a false reality? We also entertained the thought that perhaps it was the mysterious presence that Grendel felt around him that was truly the sun, the creator of truth who had yet to fully reveal himself. As you may have noticed, there are very few statements at this point, instead replaced by questions and musings. But perhaps this confusion too is caused by my own cave keeping me from understanding the greater reality. Or maybe, just maybe, it is a sign that I’m being freed.