Grendel & Existentialism Essay

I understood that the world was vigor a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears. I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist. on the whole the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly-as blindly as all that is non myself pushes back. Existentialism is a philosophy that I, personally, was unfamiliar with until we talked closely it in class. The relationship between Grendel and existentialist philosophy was profound to me non scarcely in the way that it drew lines of symmetry, but in the way that it helped me to visit the concepts behind the philosophy.This quote spoke to me because it demonstrates how Grendel is pressured into living an existentialist lifestyle by the very forces that he says push upon him. Grendel delves into the psyche of a man-beast whose only prize is to react to the world as an existentialist the world (specifically mankind) exemplifies all of existentialisms c oncepts, proving Grendels niche to be that of an existentialist. Dark chasms I debauch from the cliff-edge, seize me Seize me to your foul black bowels and crush my bones I am terrified at the sound of my own huge example in the darkness At the same time, I am in secret unfooled. The uproar is only my own shriek, and chasms are, like all things vast, inanimate. They will not snatch me in a thousand years, unless, in a lunatic fit of religion, I jump. Grendel, pg. 10 Grendel knows that he is alone, despite his attempts to fool himself. This is ratified by his mothers softness to speak to him, the fear animals have of him, and the rejection he receives from mankind. He has no explanation for anything in existence due to his inability to communicate with anyone, until the dragon comes along. My knowledge of the future does not cause the future.It merely sees it, exactly as creatures at your low level recall things past. And tied(p) if, say, I interfere even then I do not ch ange the future, I merely do what I saw from the beginning. Thats obvious, surely. Lets say its settled then. So such(prenominal) for innocent will and intercession Grendel, pg. 63 Lack of free will is other concept of existentialism. Grendels previously mentioned lack of communication makes him eager to plunk up any idea that the dragon shares with him, and eventually he takes this to convey that his war on the mead hall was not done of his own free will, but because it was his future as the dragon foresaw it.