Truth

          The idea of truth is one of the most important ideas that is interwoven throughout Grendel, and is shown quite a few different ways. Grendel's mothers struggle to try and keep the truth hidden from Grendel throughout the early years of his life, and whether it affected him positively or negatively, parallels a question we face quite often in everyday life, is it better to allow someone to live in a happy ignorance or is it better to force everyone to face reality? Both, as shown in the novel, can have their share of good and bad outcomes, and although society as a whole may never be able to answer this question, I am definitely all for telling things as they are from the start. I think much of what Grendel feels, alongside the anger that comes from the ideas that " what these people are doing is so wrong, is utter disappointment and a huge let down that hit him a little too hard. Although he felt loneliness all throughout childhood, and began to feel that his mother may not love him the way she should, he still had this positive expectations of the way things really were, and wasn't going to let himself think that things were actually as bad, or worse, than they actually were, and his mother allowed him to think that.
The same goes for the shaper. The shaper tells stories that paint Hrothgar’s people and all the negative they're putting into the world in this great light, telling them that everything they are doing is right and to keep doing it, but more so. Since the shaper is viewed as such an important, trusted person, there's no  reason that Hrothgar's people would try to fix themselves and their actions. They are being told that everything they are doing is good, being continuously lied to.