Grendel’s story is about finding out his purpose in life and where he fits in the world. Throughout the story, his philosophy changes when Grendel meets people like, the dragon and the human race.
Grendel begins as a young, curious monster that explores the world around his home under the marshes. As Grendel does this more and more, he becomes enlightened with knowledge and awe. This was until he was walking through the forest. Grendel made his first philosophical view after he was attacked by the bull. After the attack, Grendel becomes a solipsist. Solipsism means that only the person’s mind exists and everything else does not.
Grendel begins as a young, curious monster that explores the world around his home under the marshes. As Grendel does this more and more, he becomes enlightened with knowledge and awe. This was until he was walking through the forest. Grendel made his first philosophical view after he was attacked by the bull. After the attack, Grendel becomes a solipsist. Solipsism means that only the person’s mind exists and everything else does not.
While Grendel was a solipsist, he was introduced to the human race. He did not see humans as human beings. Rather, he considered them machines because they repeat every action they do every day. After his first encounter with the humans, Grendel was attacked by the humans and Grendel tries to find a way to fit in with them. One way that Grendel tried to fit in with the humans was through the Shaper. The Shaper sang many poems and stories of mythology and heroic battles. One of these stories was about how Grendel is a descendent of Cain, the father of evil. At first Grendel denied this accusation, but soon Grendel accepts his fate as “the bad guy.” This caused him to convert to the Old Testament as his new philosophy. This wasn’t his final philosophical view.
Grendel soon meets a dragon that does nothing but guard gold. This dragon claims that he can see the past, the present, and the future (meaning he can see all of time at once.). The dragon tells Grendel that everything in the world will decay and he too will die. The dragon also told Grendel something that haunts Grendel. He tells Grendel that if he were to die, the humans would find a new “bad guy” to replace him. This left Grendel in confusion as to what philosophy he wanted to believe in. In this point of the story, he has no definite philosophy to follow.
After Beowulf and Grendel had their fight to the death, Grendel settles with nihilism. Readers know this because Grendel says words like “accidental.” This means that Grendel believes that life and existence is accidental, they are manmade. But if Grendel were to still be alive to this day, he would change his philosophy multiple times.
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