Grendel+2+(E+Block)

=Nothing Matters...= “The world and everything in it is unplanned accident, existence is meaningless; the past is irrelevant; nothing matters.”

=OUTLINE:=

__Everything is an unplanned accident __
"Poor Grendel's had an accident," I whisper. "So may you all." (Grendel p.174)
 * When Grendel dies, he says it is an accident. He never really expected himself to die by fighting with Beowulf, because before meeting Beowulf Grendel always won. His death was unplanned, so it was merely an accident.

__Existence and life is meaningless __
"Ah, woe, woe! How many times must a creature be dragged down the same ridiculous road? The Shaper's lies, the hero's self-delusion, now this: the idea of a queen!" (Grendel p.108) "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." (Grendel p.110) "He has wings. Is it possible? And yet it's true: out of his shoulders come terrible fiery wings. I jerk my head, trying to drive out illusion. The world is what it is and always was. That's our hope, our chance. Yet even in times of catastrophe we people it with tricks. Grendel, Grendel, hold fast to what is true!" (Grendel p.169)
 * This quote shows that the people's hopes and beliefs are all meaningless. The Shaper is just misleading the people to make them believe something that does not even exist, and that is pointless because life has no meaning.
 * It does not matter to Grendel, whether Wealtheow lives or dies, because life and existence of her is meaningless to him. It is a pointless pleasure for Grendel to even kill Wealtheow because there is no point to have pleasure when life has no purpose.
 * This quote also shows that the hope and belief of chance of people are all pointless. They are all tricks that lead people into believing that life has a purpose. Even when it seems like there is hope, it is all illusion.

__The past is irrelevant __
"The future is as dark, as unreal, as the past. Coolly, objectively, I watch the trembling; it's as if all the muscles are locked to the carge of an eel. Then I push her away. The face shatters, she whoops. I run to the pool and dive, and even now I can hear her. I will forget, tomorrow, so her pain is a matter of indifference." (Grendel p.147) "I think of the pastness of the past: how the moment I am alive in, prisoned in, moves like a slowly tumbling form through darkness, the underground river. Not only ancient history - the mythical age of the brothers' feud - but my own history one second ago, has vanished utterly, dropped out of existence. King Scyld's great deeds do not exist "back there" in Time. "Back there in Time" is an allusion of language. They do not exist at all." (Grendel p.146)
 * Grendel will not feel pain tomorrow because what he did today is merely a past once tomorrow has come. He thinks past is irrelevant because you forget things as time passes. There is no need to think about the past times once they have already happened.
 * Thinking about the past or even acknowledging the fact that it exists is pointless, and past is totally irrelevant because everything that has already passed has already vanished. There is no existence to past times.

=STATEMENT:=

Absolutely nothing matters in this world. There is no point of living, as there is no point of future or past. Reminiscence is for those who are foolish and full of pointless hope. For instance, think about the Shaper. He always tells nonsense to people about fantasies and how this whole world started. "Ah, woe, woe! How many times must a creature be dragged down the same ridiculous road? The Shaper's lies, the hero's self-delusion, now this: the idea of a queen!" (Grendel pg.108). All he's doing is trying to give hope to the people. The hope that there is meaning to life, that there is a bright future, that a hero who saves people from monsters- like me - exists. Nonsense! There is no meaning of existence. I exist; so what? Aren't we all going to die somewhere, at some point? Time does not matter either. When my mother was suffering, I thought: "The future is as dark, as unreal, as the past. Coolly, objectively, I watch the trembling; it's as if all the muscles are locked to the carge of an eel. Then I push her away. The face shatters, she whoops. I run to the pool and dive, and even now I can hear her. I will forget, tomorrow, so her pain is a matter of indifference" (Grendel p.147). Even if I suffer today, it will be past tomorrow. Past time does not exist, so things that happened in the past do not matter at all. So what point is there to hope for the future? It will one day become past as well; Pointless, as well. So life has no meaning. Even if we live today, at some point we will be dead. We will not exist anymore. Since there is no point of life and existence, everything that happens is an unplanned accident. Why would god - if one even exists- plan everything orderly if there is no meaning to life and existence? For example, consider the time when I died. Back then, I said: "Poor Grendel's had an accident," I whisper. "So may you all." (Grendel p.174). I died because it was an accident. I was never planned to die. I believe the truth in this world is that nothing matters; everything that happens is an accident, existence and life are meaningless, and the past is irrelevant.

=LETTER REFLECTION:=

By reading the letter, I learned once again that Beowulf is not an optimistically written poem; instead, it supports baptism. Although Beowulf contains a series of epic and heroic events that lead to happiness of people, all the winnings and achievements are useless. John Gardener says 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," This basically means that fame is useless, because it will disappear someday. I also learned that when reading literature, we have to read with emotion, and know that any line or phrase in a book is always supporting one main idea, and any two parts of the book do not contradict each other. I also learned that in Grendel, Gardener's personal point of view does not correspond with the dragon's point of view. He also believes that Grendel is a more optimistic writing than Beowulf, since it also includes some sort of hope in it by including characters such as Ork, Wealtheow, and Unferth. I think by reading this letter, I gained a better understanding of the author who wrote the book himself. I think this will help me in the trial by knowing the true lesson the book is trying to tell us. Since my side in the trial is to support the fact that "nothing exists", I think I will be more confident with my ideas because the author's voice in the book corresponds with my side's argument. Also, by knowing the true meaning of certain parts of the book that the author explains in the letter, I will be able to use more reliable evidence in the trial.