Shaper+(D+Block)

  


 * // Statement //**

Position 1 claims that God does not exist and there is no meaning to life. My name is Shaper and I would like to disagree. I believe there IS meaning in life and existence, and it isn’t just unplanned accident. There IS meaning in life if I CREATE meaning in life. Because there isn’t a god or meaning to life, one can simply insist any meaning anyone wants. That is the beauty of it. So how should we live? You believe there is God and meaning in life, make up your own values, use references from the past in order to make the present a but better. I am the Shaper and I sing to create meaning in life using beautiful words and sentiments. I sing for King Hrothgar’s people. It is true, some things I sing may not be the most accurate of things, I glorify the human’s actions to give meaning and hope to their lives. Position 1 may condemn me for being a fraud and a liar, but that is just what we do. President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation is a beautiful example of it. It may seem as if his intentions were to simply free all the slaves, purely out of the goodness of his heart, but the real intention may have been to purposely bring all the slaves to the North and cause chaos and disorder in the South. Lincoln may have been a hero, he is in fact, but whenever we call him one, we are lying to ourselves in a way. I make the vision of the future, the values to heroism, beauty, bravery, etc. We make up noble values for ourselves to believe in, hence there IS meaning in life (we just made it). Even Mr. Grendel got engrossed by my beautiful singing skills and was indeed tempted to accept the noble values we created. And the reason why Mr. Grendel was so eager for Mr. Beowulf’s arrival was because he was so eager to BE destroyed, not to destroy Mr. Beowulf. Perhaps Mr. Grendel wanted to destroy his own existence because he knew deep in his heart, that there is meaning to life, as the Shaper sang beautifully, but looking at himself he seems so hairy, pointless, and unloved. Because HE is the one that is meaningless he views everything with meaning and bad. Therefore Mr. Grendel is meaningless, not the world itself.

**// Outline //**

**Page 42 - 43 **  //He told how Scyld by the cunning of arms had rebuilt the old Danish kingdom from ashes, lordless a long time before he came, and the prey of every passing band, and how Scyld's son by the strength of his wits and increased their power, a man who fully understood men's need, from lust to love, and knew how to use it to fashion a mile-wide fist of chain-locked steel. He sang of battles and marriages, of funerals and hangings, the whimperings of beaten enemies, of splendid hunts and harvests. He sang of Hrothgar, hoarfrost white, magnificent of mind.

According to the passage above, it is obvious that even Grendel, one that knows all the truth about the humans, and how the Shaper’s words are all rubbish, can’t resist beauty. If there is the emotion of being attracted to something, such as this particular song sung by the Shaper, then there must be some kind of purpose in life. Maybe to enjoy beautiful singing. There is a purpose. // 

**Page 70 - 71 **  //"A swirl in the stream of time. A temporary gathering of bits, a few random dust specks, so to speak - pure metaphor, you understand - then by chance a vast floating cloud of dustspecks, an expanding universe. Complexities: green dust as well as the regular kind. Purple dust. Gold. Additional refinements: sensitive dust, copulating dust, worshipful dust!"

**Page 71 **  //
 * //"Such is the end of the flicker of time, the brief, hot fuse of events and ideas set off, accidentally, and snuffed out, accidentally, by man. Not a real ending of course, nor even a beginning. Mere ripple in Time's stream." // 

According to the Dragon and his passage above, he is suggesting that the world is nothing. And everything revolves around the one thing that actually matters- that only matters- time.

The Dragon strongly implies evil and destruction throughout the story. The way he thinks, his philosophies echo and stay in Grendel’s mind. According to the passage, the Dragon is implying that everything falls apart. This is the fatalist point of view of life the Dragon brainwashes Grendel with. As to live until one meets a dramatic end.

However, that is incorrect. Everything has a purpose in existence. Everything is there for a reason. The Dragon exists because the Dragon’s mother existed and she existed because her mum existed and so on. If the Dragon isn’t sure of his existence, may be he lost his purpose during his life. Or his purpose is to tell Grendel that life is pointless and it is all dust in the end. That is a purpose too. ** 

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Page 132 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"The nature of evil may be epitomised, therefore, in two simple but horrible and holy propositions: 'Things fade' and 'Alternatives exclude.' Such is His mystery: that beauty requires contrast, and that discord is fundamental to the creation of new intensities of feeling.

The world exists for nothing really is lost. Things die in time, by nature, but new life is born after that, and so on, forever.

**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Page 133 ** <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;"> // //<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">"Ultimate wisdom, I have come to perceive, lies in the perception that the solemnity and grandeur of the universe rise through the slow process of unification in which the diversities of existence are utilised, and nothing, nothing is lost." // <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">

Based on this passage, it is rather apparent and clear that nothing is lost. This passage means that everything has a purpose and reason why they all exist together. It unifies slowly but surely. Nothing is lost. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">

//**<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;"> Letter Reflection **//<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; letter-spacing: 0px;"> <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Through reading the letter of Mr. John Gardner, it certainly helped me understand a bit more what he was real message he tried to deliver through his book Grendel. He is truly a serious reader and a writer. In fact a but too much. He reads it so intensely he makes up things for himself. I love the English literature, but sometimes I wonder, if the author really disguised the message he tried to deliver in words so people like us can read it carefully to find it. I think sometimes we readers ‘over interpret’ the books and make up the meaning the author didn’t even intend. Mr. Gardner wasn’t very happy that the three students that wrote to him didn’t understand the book Grendel of Beowulf like he did himself, and said they read like children. Well they are. And by reading this letter it made me feel that Mr. Gardner is more cynical about life (Position 1) and not so hopeful like the Shaper. Although there were many evidences in this letter I could use for my argument, such as the example to President Lincoln of a white lie. And that it is better to be wrong than nihilitic.