Grendel Literary Criticism Essay

Nihil ex Nihilo, I always say (Gardner 150). Those are the nihilistic words that Grendel used to profess his belief that life has no purpose. Little did he know, those words would lead to a serial publication of misfortunes that would conclude in his death. John Gardners Grendel is a modern-day work of literature that affirms the importance of human meaning through and through its downplaying of different philosophical beliefs, which ultimately express that life has no purpose.
Gardner begins this modern work with the breakdown of Solipsism; the belief that scarcely the ego exists. He does this by taking Grendel, an isolated monster, and having him explore the somatic and metaphorical aspects of his surroundings. By doing this Grendel realizes that not only he exists, precisely so do many other creatures that are adequate of performing similar actions to those that he does. He also encounters the danish pastry people in the forest when…I opened my eyeball and everything was blurry. There were lights all around me, like some eldritch creatures eyes. They jerked back as I looked. Then voices, speaking words. I found that I understood them: it was my own language, but speak in a strange way! (Gardner 23). After this encounter, Grendel feels a very close connection to the Danish people due to their similar language.



By negating Solipsism, Gardner becomes one-step closer to proving that we all guide purpose in our lives.
After Grendel realizes that he is not the only one to exist, he tries to create a meaning for his life. This is where Gardner gets the destiny to denounce Existentialism; the belief that life has no inwrought meaning but the one that you create for yourself. Grendels incertain interaction with the mysterious dragon is where he gets the idea that he needs to give meaning to his life. The dragons shadow is to terrorize the Danish people. His reason being that You improve them, my boy! Cant you see that yourself? You stimulate them! You make them cerebrate and scheme. You drive them to...If you want to get a full essay, commit it on our website: Orderessay



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