John Gardners literary masterpiece Grendel was created as a critique on modern ism. Nowhere was this more present than in Grendels hear with the cream of tartar in Chapter Five. During this particularly one sided conversation, the Dragon became an dental amalgam of many of modern philosophys greatest minds. It was through this rather spare encounter, that Grendel was pushed from trying to accept a mere existentialist philosophy to becoming an absolute nihilist. Existentialism is an I based philosophy. It is spawned from mans need to seek out the meaning of existence and is almost solely based on personal interpretation (Existentialism 1). Nihilism, on the other hand professes that human existence is without significance or legitimacy and thus has no lasting affects on a vast universe (Nihilism 1). The dragon rather convincingly painted the world out to be a tie of inevitabilities: man will be born, man will mean he has made a difference, man will come apart and the world will be neither for the better or worse. This agrees with nihilist philosophy. Though Grendel only saw truth in nihilistic philosophy, he did not wish to be a nihilist. He wished to follow the existentialist teachings of the shaper; however his genius was completely opposed to this.
From the very beginning of the novel, Grendel spouted nihilist philosophy. His demeanor up to that moment had been entirely pointless. He lived with a female parent who cannot communicate on his level and he felt no love for her for this very reason. He also felt that his only purpose in life was to kill Danes, and thus he did so mechanically (In fact, later on in the novel, the Dragon said, You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to delineate themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from - the...
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