In 1971, American author John Gardner wrote Grendel. With a creative mind, John Gardner successfully retells the classic epic poem Beowulf. It captivates the reader by giving an interesting view of order and chaos, good and evil, hero and monster, allowing one to see the monster's point of view. On July 21, 1933, John Gardner was born in Batavia, New York. He was the son of a minister and a newspaperman, and his mother taught English. They were very fond of Shakespeare and enjoyed reciting literature. Gardner spent his early years attending school, playing the French horn, and working on his father's farms. In April 1945, Gardner's brother was killed in a cultipacker accident on their family farm. Gardner was driving the tractor at the time of the accident. He took on the guilt of his siblings' deaths and as a result he suffered from nightmares and flashbacks. Overwhelmed by guilt and self-hatred, he prepares to perfect his French horn playing; he uses the instrument as a blockade from the outside world, allowing him to withdraw from his family and other forms of companionship (Winter 13). This feeling of guilt will be transposed into his writing, as in the short story “Redemption”, which recounts the accident (winter 13). Gardner graduated from Batavia High School and enrolled at DePauw University. He married Joan Louise Patterson in 1953 and attended the University of Washington. After graduating from the University of Washington in 1955, he attended the University of Iowa, where he studied medieval and Anglo-Saxon literature (Howell 1). After receiving his doctorate, Gardner spent a period teaching at Chicago State College, Oberlin College, and San Francisco College (Howell 2)... middle of article...... gives the reader some compassion towards Grendel, makes it difficult to prefer a particular character in the novel. Another theme of the novel is confrontation of order and chaos. Norma L. Hutman states: “Grendel sees chaos in everything that happens and indeed insists on chaos as the ultimate principle. …Monsters from the untamed world invade the tamed and symmetrical world of man, entering the mead hall to leave, with death and destruction, their chaotic mark on the ordered universe. Grendel seems to view man as a creator of models. Stating: “They are thinking creatures, pattern makers” (Gardner 22). “They plot a path through hell with their wild theories (Gardner 13). Through such changes, Gardner creates themes that appear in Grendel and much of his later work. He starved readers with his writing, which allowed him to succeed..