In the novel Grendel the title character works throughout his whole life to understand his purpose and place in a world that constantly makes him feel like an outcast, yet gives him a role to fulfill through being the outcast, the Cain to man’s Abel, the antagonist to humanity. It is no surprise, then, that throughout Grendel’s journey he encounters serious questions about his and humanity 's existence, the meaning or lackthereof in life, and what will come of his perceived misery and tribulation experienced in life. Grendel has multiple existential crises over the duration of the novel due to this questioning of life and meaning, leading him to his eventual end. These existential crises are turning points in Grendel 's life that make him reevaluate …show more content…
Grendel comes to this idea when he has his first existential crisis in the scene where a bull continuously tries to attack him in the same fashion over and over again. This is when Grendel comes to the realization that only he exists. He says, “I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly-as blindly as all that is not me pushes back” (22). Grendel is referring to the mechanical and instinctual way that the bull attacks, it is the same way the bull would attack against any threat, be it an earthquake or a bird. Grendel feels that he is the only truly sentient being in the whole world at this point, making him feel isolated, and in a way superior to every other being in the forest. He believes that he is the creator of the whole world, everything and every being in the world is simply driven by “...casual, brute enmity…” (22), and only he is the aberration to this state of mindlessness. This existential crisis sets the stage for Grendel’s later musings about life and meaning by setting up his feelings of isolation from others and his loneliness because of this …show more content…
At first, Grendel says, “...I misunderstood in the beginning: I thought it an advantage” (76). It is suffice to say that soon enough Grendel realises the true nature of the charm and assumes as to why the dragon has inflicted him with what Grendel would come to understand as more of a curse. The charm causes Grendel to feel isolated once again, and when the guard finds and attacks Grendel without provocation, Grendel comes to realise that man will always assume he is the enemy. With the charm, it is all too easy for Grendel to decide to finally fight back against man who he feels has been accusing him unjustly all this time. Grendel almost feel empowered because of the charm, and he was joyful that he now had a purpose and a place in the world. He calls himself “...Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, wrecker of Kings!” (80). This existential crisis Grendel found in realising he was now nearly immortal when it came to man turns into Grendel realising and fulfilling his place in the world that the dragon had talked about. Grendel came to accept his role as man’s antagonist and becomes elated at his new found purpose in life-terrorizing
In the book, Grendel by John Gardner, Grendel shows that existentialism is significant in his life. Many of his decisions are based on the thought of whether they have a meaning behind it or not. He tries to be nihilistic and think that the world has no meaning but he ends up being existentialist as he cares about how his choices will be perceived. There are different characters that have existentialism in their lives which allows them to function throughout their world. This book promotes existentialism because the different main characters take on their unique roles throughout the book and create their own meaning.
...n very human feelings of resentment and jealousy. Grendel was an unstable and saddened figure because of his outcast status. Though Grendel had many animal attributes and a grotesque, monstrous appearance, he seemed to be guided by vaguely human emotions and impulses. He truthfully showed more of an interior life than one might expect. Exiled to the swamplands outside the boundaries of human society, Grendel’s depiction as an outcast is a symbol of the jealousy and hate that seeks to destroy others' happiness and can ultimately cripple a civilization. This take on the outcast archetype ultimately exposes the Anglo Saxon people’s weaknesses, their doubts and anxieties towards the traditional values that bounded nearly every aspect of their life.
This ‘beast’, the protagonist of the story, fights an internal struggle, of which is a part of the Hero’s Journey. Grendel is unable to decide what to make of himself and of the world surrounding him. He has only ever known the world as wild and mechanical, yet he is charmed by the artistic brilliance of the Shaper’s words. Grendel ultimately meets a brutal yet peaceful demise. Standing on the face of the same cliff he found himself in the beginning of the novel, surrounded by mindless eyes, he states, “Poor Grendel’s had an accident. So may you all.” (Grendel, John Gardner, pg.174) Previous to this, he questions if what he is feeling is joy. The reader is lead to believe that Grendel must feel nothing but peace. This, is the concluding moment of his
Throughout John Gardner’s Grendel, the audience bears witness to a creature who has been ostracized by the world around him. Throughout his journey, the stories protagonist tries to live out his own life the way he wants to, despite being labeled as evil by those around him. Due to this constant criticism by his peers, he develops an inferiority complex that he desperately tries to make up for as the story progresses. Throughout his development, Grendel very rapidly moves past his existentialist beginning, through a brief phase of forced skepticism, and into a severely nihilistic point of view.
It bears mentioning that Grendel was strongly influenced by the idea of nihilism, which means that he believed that nothing has meaning and everything in life was an accident. “Nevertheless, it was
One of the prevalent themes John Gardner mentions in the story of Grendel is that perceptions of reality between people are different. Gardner reveals to readers throughout the novel that words, events, experiences, and beliefs forge character’s realities. In Grendel perception of reality greatly affects people’s actions, their viewpoints towards life, and decisions. For example, Grendel’s perception of reality is that the world is solely mechanical and is created with his words.
Grendel, as a character, has a much more complex identity than just a monster and a human. Some, such as Ruud, classify him as a mixture of three different characteristics, but alone, they tend to conflict with each other. By making the connection that Grendel represents immorality, the previous idea makes more sense, while simultaneously incorporating more aspects of the character into the analysis. In either case, Grendel represents much more than meets the eye, and provides a fascinating insight into
Grendel as a character is very intelligent, he is capable of rational thought at all times. Because of this, at sometimes during the story I would forget Grendel is a monster, the way he acts in his thoughts and actions I would mistake him for a human; at times I was even feeling bad for Grendel because he is a very lonely person who tries to understand all of the meaningless of the world around him. Grendel can never get to close to
An innocent, joyless, outcast lurks in the depths of the earth. He is feared by all due to his violent behavior and thirst for humans. Stories about this monster stretch across lands, intriguing the one and only Beowulf. In this notorious Epic, Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, Grendel is the Frankenstein of this poem, the Joker of this time period, the Lord Voldemort of this book. Basically, Grendel is the villain and when there’s a villain there’s a hero. Our hero today is Beowulf, who challenges Grendel and he trounced not only Grendel but Grendel’s mother as well. Not only are Grendel and his mother villains but they also played the role of being the outcast/scapegoat. Symbolically they play the role
In the story Grendel, one learns that this monster that seems atrocious and insensitive holds a dark outlook on the world. He often ponders the meaning of life, which seems to plague him. This stems from his painful childhood: “I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical
Grendel’s point of view as a narrator adds an added sense of violence to the scene, which suggests that absurdism is useless, as absurdism ultimately decay into nihilism due to the chaotic nature of life.
After having thoroughly read the book, there is no doubt that Grendel shows proof of support in existentialism. The novel follows the life of a character who is gradually "disillusioned," turning from a teary romantic into a cold nihilist. Indeed, as the main character describes his childhood/adolescence in the beginning of the novel, his naiveté and innocence clearly stand out. “And so I discovered the sunken door, and so I came up, for the first time, to moon light”, recalls Grendel, remembering his first days out on earth as he analyzed and discovered various creatures and his surroundings with blatant ignorance. With the story of his first encounter with men, after getting his foot stuck in a crac...
Grendel feels like an outcast in the society he lives in causing him to have a hard time finding himself in the chaotic world. He struggles because the lack of communication between he and his mother. The lack of communication puts Grendel in a state of depression. However, Grendel comes in contact with several characters with different philosophical beliefs, which allows his to see his significance in life. Their views on life influence Grendel to see the world in a meaningful way.
In the beginning Grendel’s perspective of himself leads to various encounters that help him discover the meaninglessness to his very own existence. From the beginning through many centuries of pondering Grendel has come to the idea that the world consists entirely of Grendel and not-Grendel. Thus Grendel begins his search for meaning of his very own life with an existential philosophy, the belief that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will. While Grendel’s overall perspective of nature is that of mindless and mechanical machine, he believes that he is a separate entity from this machine. Furthermore he holds the philosophy that he himself is a god like creature that “blink by blink” creates the world. This philosophy undermined when Grendel notices that events occur before he can think them into existence. Grendel witnesses the death of a deer by the hands of humans: “Suddenly time is a rush for the hart: head flicks, he jerks, his front legs buckling, and he’s dead. He lies as still as the snow hurtling outward around him to the hushed world’s rim. The image clings to my mind like a
Grendel is the embodiment of all that is evil and dark. He is a descendant of Cain and like Cain is an outcast of society. He is doomed to roam in the shadows. He is always outside looking inside. He is an outside threat to the order of society and all that is good. His whole existence is grounded solely in the moral perversion to hate good simply because it is good.