Grendel+3+(E+Block)

=Life... What is its meaning...=

“The world and everything in it is unplanned accident, existence is meaningless; the past is irrelevant; nothing matters.”
=Outline= "Poor Grendel's had an accident. //So may you all//." pg 174
 * __Unplanned accident:__**


 * Everything that happens is an unplanned accident. Grendel clams so after fighting Beowulf. He dies saying so believing that his death was all an accident, nothing planned. He never knew that he would be beaten and was hurt unexpectedly.
 * This doesn't only apply to Grendel, but everyone else. You never know what may happen to you. There is no such thing as fate, everything happens on a whim, and you can't do anything to stop it. Nothing is predestined and the world does not work based on logic and reasoning.

"I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears." pg 21~22
 * __Life is meaningless/Nothing matters:__**
 * Everyone will ultimately die and the cycle of life and death will continue no matter what you do. As you are born you will die and your existence will be erased. People will leave the world as they first entered it. No matter how much you struggle you will die. It is useless to try to change the inevitable.
 * The world is just like the bull, mindless and purposeless. It will crush everything and anything without a reason. Attempting to go against is a misguided effort.

“Nevertheless, something will come of all this,” I said. “Nothing,” he said. “A brief pulsation in the black hole of eternity. My advice to you—” “Wait and see,” I said. He shook his head. “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it.” pg 74
 * The Dragon states that mere human lives, or any lives for that matter have any meaning in them. Time is so vast that a single person's lifespan will not change or hold any value. Time will eventually destroy everything thus there is no point in music, art, poetry, or religion. Life has no purpose, the best thing you can do is to wait until your time comes.

"I changed my mind. It would be meaningless, killing her. As meaningless as letting her live. It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, and illusion of order for this one frail, foolish flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity." pg 169
 * Here Grendel realizes that there's no point of killing Wealtheow because it won't change anything. Life would still go on without her, indifferent to whether someone died or not. Realizing this, Grendel sees that he would get only pleasure for a short time and that killing her would be as meaningless as letting her live on. Whatever he does, it wouldn't make any difference.

"I will forget, tomorrow, so her pain is a matter of indifference." pg 147
 * __The Past is irrelevant:__**
 * Here Grendel is talking about his mother. Even though he hurt her, he feels that it won't matter tomorrow since he will forget. He's stating that the past doesn't matter if a person forgets about it. What happened in the past is past, nothing can be done about it.

__**Statement**__ Nothing matters. The only thing that may matter is me, myself. I am the shaper of this world, I alone exist. There is no real meaning to existence. "I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears." The world is uncaring. It doesn't care about what happens to me or anyone else for that matter. Like the bull that hit me, the world will come at us. "I changed my mind. It would be meaningless, killing her. As meaningless as letting her live. It would be, for me, mere pointless pleasure, and illusion of order for this one frail, foolish flicker-flash in the long dull fall of eternity." At first, I planned on killing Wealtheow, believing that it would give me joy. But I realized my foolishness! It doesn't matter if she's dead or alive, nothing will change! Everything will come and go, without reason and purpose, randomly. "Poor Grendel's had an accident, so may you all." I'm not the only one who'll meet an unexpected end. The world is just random! Who knows you might die the next day or even in five minutes! So really, time is everything, it rules over us. But even so, the past seems irrelevant to me. "I will forget, tomorrow, so her pain is a matter of indifference." Once I forget it, it's over. No one can change the past, it is no longer of any importance to me.

According to Gardner, Beowulf is not a happy poem. Even though there's a lot of heroism involved and all that, eventually everything is destroyed because of death. The achievements Beowulf had are all useless. Almost tauntingly, Gardner states that "in this world, you simply cannot win, no matter how noble you are. The best you can hope for is fame, and the poet undercuts even that." Gardner is saying that in the end nothing matters and that Beowulf is a poem that has no actual meaning behind it. I think that Gardner's thoughts are reflected through Grendel where he deals with existentialism. The dragon believes that everything is useless just like Gardner and Grendel struggles whether to accept this or not. Gardner explores his ideas in his book, mocking Beowulf which seems to completely ignore the reality. Gardner really goes full out to criticize Grendel, the tone of his letter makes me think that he wrote Grendel for the purpose of making Beowulf look bad.
 * __Letter Reflection__**