One of the hardest parts of my job is selling my students the idea that I am not making things up as we go along. After all, gentle reader-student, isn't that what we think of English teacher questions? Especially the ones that land on quizzes? I know I did.
Well, let me assure you that we aren't making it up as we go along. We are stealing it from study guides published by professionals. And they're the ones making it up...
No!
English discussions are driven by questions. Some of them are surface level, plot-based questions with firm, definitive answers. Black and white answers. Like Scout Finch is a girl. Boxer is a horse who is turned into a bottle of glue. And Gatsby isn't his real name.
Fact, fact, fact. I like those quiz questions, don't you?
Inferences don't work that way. They demand our ability to intuit information from the facts. We need to assemble bits and pieces that span sentences, paragraphs, pages, even whole chapters. We must discern among these details which are the important ones without ignoring the rest of them. In fact, without ignoring any of them. Remember, good authors don't give us fluff. The fluff died on the editing floor long ago. What remains must be useful, somehow. This process, inferring, is harder than finding explicitly stated information. But even inference work is still grounded in the text.
Consider Grendel's trick-or-treating nightmare from chapter 4. To be clear, he shows up as a non-human carrying a human corpse. Whatever his reasons, however pure his motives, Grendel presents a frightening image. He must appear monstrous to the Danes as they are jamming out to the Shaper's song.
But is he a monster? Are we meant to view him as one?
Not here.
But in my opinion...
No. Stop. Not here. And not because I say. Because John Gardner, our esteemed author, says. He says many, many times all over the page. Providing quotes from Grendel ("Peace!" and "Mercy!" and "Friend!" and "Friend!"); writing Grendel into a position of submission and vulnerability (on his knees); supplying him with tears ("Waaa!"); causing him to run away and curse at the wind (supply your own four-letter words here...). To be sure, there is more than sufficient evidence to NOT view Grendel as a monster. Naïve maybe. Innocent probably. But not a monster. John Gardner writes this scene to elicit sympathy for this character in this moment of the book.
Still not convinced? Reread. That is our best tactic here. When it comes to inferring, we only have the words on the page. Return to the text! The proof is always in the pudding.
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