Examples Of Nihilism In Grendel

Grendel’s violence stems from his belief that all things in the universe, including people, have no reason to exist. After meeting the dragon, an omniscient creature with knowledge of the past and the future, Grendel tries to change his own ways by repressing his animal nature and not harming the humans. The dragon asserts that everything that the humans do in the search for meaning, including religion and art, is pointless. During the talk, the dragon suggests to Grendel that he should find something tangible in the world and hold on to it, saying “my advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” (Gardner 74).

Another part of the text which is evidence to Grendel not being the monster he is made out to be, is the relationship dynamic between Grendel and his mother, and also his mother’s actions after his death. The actions of Grendel’s mother are not those of a monster, but those of any normal woman who has children. After her son was killed (murdered and then part of his body was taken as a trophy), she just wanted to seek revenge. “But now his mother/ had sailed forth on a savage journey,/grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge.” (1276-1278). Grendel’s mother displayed the emotions of complete sadness and despair over her son; it seems more of a human response rather than that belonging to a monster. Considering that the bond of a mother and son is supposed to be the strongest bond of all, her actions after his death are in a way justified. It is easy to see that the character of Grendel is much more than just a monster through his mother’s subsequent actions of taking down Grendel’s arm from hanging in Heorot, and feuding (in her own way she was trying to feud, to obey the code as it was in this time. When she went to Heorot to seek her revenge, she did not

One of the major philosophies in the novel Grendel is Nihilism. Nihilism is the rejection of moral and religious principles, and the belief that life is small and meaningless. In the first few pages of the novel, John Gardner states that “He cocks his head like an elderly, slow-witted king, considers his angles, decides to ignore me. I stamp. I hammer the ground with my fists. I hurl a skull-size stone at him. He will not budge.” (Gardner, 5). Here is a snippet of Grendel’s hatred towards life and even nature. Throughout the novel, Grendel proves to the reader that he doesn’t really care about anybody except for himself. In this quote, Grendel sees a ram and tries to make it leave, only to fail. The ram just stays where it is and ignores Grendel, even when Grendel yells and throws a large rock at it. As John Gardner states, “I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes

Grendel discovers and begins to gain the understanding/knowledge of different concepts such as power, etc. In addition, he observes how humans interact with one another throughout the twelve years of war; Yet, his attempt to communicate with humans gives him the title horrific monster. This leads to his loneliness and isolation from everyone. Furthermore, Grendel is left without any companion. Grendel can be best described as a monster who has human qualities but can be both rational and irrational. In Chapter 1, Grendel has an outburst because of the ram that appears.. “I stamp. I hammer the ground with my fists. I hurl and skull-size stone at him. He will not budge. I shake my two hairy fists at the sky and let out a howl so unspeakable that the water at my feet turns sudden ice and even I myself am I left uneasy.” This demonstrates how Grendel is hostile and belligerent. His emotions get the best of him and blinds his consciousness and awareness of how harmful he can be towards

In the novel, Grendel by John Gardener, Grendel is a human-like creature capable of rational thought as well as feeling emotions. Early on in the story Gardener depicts Grendel as being very observant, critical and somewhat spiteful of the world around him. He describes himself as a murderous monster who smells of death and crouches in the shadows. Grendel watches the humans from the shadows of the trees and at first it seems as though they are the real monsters, slaughtering and pillaging all for the sake of their leaders and for power. This light that the humans are put in gives Grendel a certain charisma about him, making him seem like the one to side with in this novel. Later in the story, however, things change. Grendel seeks out the

Like many whom suffer the same disorder, Grendel completely changed his mind, extending from one topic to the exact opposite. He goes against his own ideas as if he were two totally opposing characters. He also always thought the dragon was near. Grendel allowed the ways and beliefs of the dragon to get in his head. He would claim he could “smell the dragon’s scent” whenever something sinister occurred. All of these symptoms, in addition to the isolation from Hrothgar’s people lead to the overall cause in withdrawal from society. Grendel’s emotional disturbances caused him to react completely unreasonable and rather foolish many times within his life.

In contrast to the Danes of “Beowulf”, Grendel searched for his very reason of existence by asking the questions “Why?” and “How?” for answers. Grendel started off in the book struggling with finding meaning in his life while watching the people clearly doing things that gave their lives meaning. He became upset as he saw that he couldn’t deter their spirits no matter what he did and started to feel jealous of their self-found purpose. He realized that through various ways the people attained meaning. In response to his confusion over their self-discovered purpose, Grendel started listening to the Shaper’s words when he spoke to the people shaping their very beliefs which confused Grendel even more on the meaning of life. After listening to the Shaper for a while, readers can see Grendel in a state of contradiction. He started off killing people as a simple, bestial monstrosity but in the end he is shown as quite intelligent and capable of choosing whether to kill or not. Soon, Grendel started seeking answers to his questions from a dragon. The dragon’s very philosophy on life was that there is no meaning of life which started to influence Grendel. Upon Grendel’s persistent questions of “Why?”, the dragon told him “You improve them, my boy! Can’t you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme…You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves

Although he describes her as a “life-bloated, baffled, long-suffering hag” (11), Grendel realizes that “she would gladly have given her life to end my [his] suffering… with useless, mindless love” (102). He also believes that “she must have some human in her” (11), furthering Grendel’s character as one that derived from humankind at the very least. The novel acts as a witness to the fact that Grendel did have a childhood. Although his childhood brought on some struggles, this is a part of all life, including that of people. He finds his purpose in life when “at an early age [he] is forced to deal with a brutal and meaningless reality” (Butts) and he begins he finds his purpose. Throughout Gardner’s novel, Grendel tries to learn “how best to deal with the world” (Butts). As Grendel grows up, he learns from and is influenced by many different people who act as his teachers and role models. These interactions are Grendel’s closest alternative to the relations that the average human has. Grendel has three unique influences in his life: his mother, the Shaper, and the dragon. Grendel views his mother with disgust and she provides the inspiration and motivation for him to do better with his own life. The Shaper’s influence brings out Grendel’s ability of

"The sky says nothing, predictably. I make a face, uplift a defiant middle finger, and give an obscene little kick. The sky ignores me, forever unimpressed. Him too I hate, the same as I hate these brainless budding trees, these brattling birds (Gardner 6)." He also developed a hatred toward humans after getting stuck in the tree. On that dark night, he learned that humans were dangerous because they tried to hurt him instead of helping him. "It wasn't because he threw that battle-ax that I turned on Hrothgar. That was mere midnight foolishness... It wasn't until later, when I was full-grown and Hrothgar was an old, old man, that I settled my soul on destroying him—slowly and cruelly (Gardner 30).” The humans were not as innocent as the Shaper perceived them to be. Grendel lurked in the darkness and watched them as they battled and destroyed their own kind. Ultimately, the dragon with the dark scales made an immense impact on Grendel’s character. Grendel was not sure of his purpose in life, and the dragon confirmed that he should be evil by killing the humans. At first, Grendel resisted. However, hatred led to Grendel’s determination to punish mankind.

In this story, Grendel is cursed from the beginning and he has no chance of being a useful contributing member of a society that does not accept him, so in turning away from god, he became a

Grendel is characterized as a lonely creature who is trying to figure out the meaning of life around him. Grendel is an unhappy soul because he feels useless in society and doesn’t want to accept his given role. Throughout the novel Grendel feels as if he has no friends and nobody else accepts him but his mother. Humans have always been a problem in Grendel’s life and they affect how he lives life each day. Grendel is not an evil creature, he is just unhappy because of the way he is treated. We should sympathize for Grendel because he is suffering on Earth and he does not know what to do about it. The author shows that Grendel is in a place where he needs love and does not get punished because he uses his emotion to escape from his punishment.

"The mountains are what I define them as.... What I see I inspire with usefulness... and all that I do not see is useless, a void." [28-29] Grendel then sees that the world is how he views it, and his senses make up everything: reality is dynamic. This important conclusion leads him to begin to look around him and form thoughts and opinions on all that he sees, as well as placing him at the first step down the road of the cynical death he suffers. His first impressions

Grendel, is thus seen as the descendant of an individual who epitomizes resentment and malice in Beowulf. The author states Grendel lives in exile and is seen as “mankind’s enemy”(Raffel, 22). Grendel is the representation of all that is evil and he is declared to be the “shepherd of evil and the “guardian of crime”(Raffel, 33) by the Danes in Beowulf. The author describes Grendel to be an evil, cruel, apathetic creature who’s pleasure lies in attacking and devouring Hrothgar’s men. The author describes Grendel’s malice by painting a gruesome picture of Grendel’s countless attacks on the mead hall in which he exhibits Grendel as a heartless, greedy, and violent being who mercilessly murders the men at the mead hall by tearing them apart, cutting their body into bits and drinking the blood from their veins. The author describes Grendel’s greed by stating Grendel’s thoughts were as “quick as his greed or his claws”(Raffel, 21). He describes Grendel’s as having eyes that “gleamed in the darkness and burned with a gruesome light”, swift hard claws and great sharp teeth which paints a picture of Grendel’s frightening appearance in the reader’s mind. In contrast to the traditional story of Beowulf, Grendel in John Gardner’s novel, Grendel is not depicted as a monster but as an intelligent creature capable of human thought, feelings and speech. John Gardner portrays Grendel as an outcast

It may be that at one point Grendel was a human much like Beowulf. "Yet, so as to save his life, he left behind his hand, his arm and shoulder" (957-959). He has the appearance of a man and he has a mother, but the humanness of Grendel has disappeared, and what remains is a creature that as the text says, "the Creator had condemned." Instead of saying that Grendel was just a real bad guy, through these descriptions, he has taken on a supernatural or mystical quality. God was even concerned enough to curse Grendel for his atrocities.

Our first character, Grendel, is an exceptionally diverse character. It is implied that in both book and poem, Grendel is a blood-thirsty monster. All Grendel does is go through