Monsters vs Humans
The most striking thing about Grendel is that the novel is narrated by a monster. Gardner takes the oldest story in English literature of a hero defeating a monster (Beowulf) and turns it on its head by seeing the tale through the eyes of the monster Grendel. The novel thus continually asks what it means to be a monster and how monsters and humans differ or are related (note: both find it very important to stress their difference)
Language and The Power of Stories
Grendel explores the power, consequences, seductions, and deceptions of various forms of language. Language is what separates Grendel from nature and from his mother. His ability to speak marks him as different from the rest of the natural world that cannot respond to him.
Through the character of the Shaper, the novel displays both the power and deception of language. The Shaper is able to make the lies of heroism seem true and alluring. His very name implies that his artful language has the power to shape and change things
Isolation
Gardner’s rewriting of the character of Grendel makes the monster sympathetic largely through his pathetic loneliness. His violent outbursts and antagonistic relationship with humans can be seen as the result of a lonely creature’s misunderstood attempts to reach out and communicate with someone else.
Nature and Time
Throughout the novel, Grendel and other characters attempt to answer large questions concerning nature and time. Grendel speaks to nature and at times wonders if there is some kind of spirit in nature (as the Danes believe), but ultimately concludes that the world is made up of a series of mindless, mechanical processes
Heroism
In the background of the novel is perhaps English literature’s most significant text about heroism: Beowulf. Whereas the epic poem Beowulf builds up the idea of a hero, much of Grendel criticizes and pokes fun at the very idea of heroism. From Grendel’s perspective, the heroic feats celebrated by the Shaper are all lies.
Philosophy, Theory, and Belief
Grendel can be seen as a novel of competing ideas. Different characters try to make sense of the world in different ways
Existentialism, nihilism, solipsism
existentialism
a philosophical attitude associated especially with Heidegger, Jaspers, Marcel, and Sartre, and opposed to rationalism and empiricism, that stresses the individual’s unique position as a self-determining agent responsible for the authenticity of his or her choices.
There is NO INHERENT MEANING TO LIFE.
existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility.
The belief is that people are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook. And personal choices become unique without the necessity of an objective form of truth. An existentialist believes that a person should be forced to choose and be responsible without the help of laws, ethnic rules, or traditions.
solipsism
a theory in philosophy that your own existence is the only thing that is real or that can be known
Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that “I am the only mind which exists,” or “My mental states are the only mental states.”
nihilism
the belief that traditional morals, ideas, beliefs, etc., have no worth or value
: the belief that a society’s political and social institutions are so bad that they should be destroyed
Major Existential Philosophers:
Martin Heidegger :
(1889-1976) interested in the “question of being”. He thought that western philosophy had been over obsessed with the problem of knowledge. For Heidegger the individual as being-in-the-world was characterized by action and anxiety: knowing the world is not our primary way of being in the world. In his later works, Heidegger became more interested in the history of concepts in language. He regarded his investigations as an attempt to disclose or uncover the concealed nature of being. His most fundamental question was: why should there be being at all, when there could be nothing? Although Heidegger claimed he was not an “existentialist”, his influence on Sartre and the existentialist movement is undeniable.
Kierkegaard: The solitary wanderer
Søren Kierkegaard led a brilliant but turbulent life. His intellectual precocity was recognized by his father who educated him before he moved on to the University of Copenhagen where he studied for 10 years.
As a young man, Kierkegaard began to feel that he would always be an ‘outsider’. In 1837 he fell in love with the 14 year old Regine Olson to whom he became engaged. However after much inner turmoil he broke of the engagement, convinced that his fate was to be the ‘exception’, the lonely wanderer.
Kierkegaard thought that philosophers who claimed that philosophy could show us the ultimate nature of spirit were deluded. Hegel claimed to have overcome paradox, but Kierkegaard was not convinced. Existence, for Kierkegaard, was paradoxical. The individual must find his/her spiritual path, not through the comfortable dogmatic rituals of the established church or the pseudo-clarity of Hegelian dialectics, but through action, action that is conscious of religious conviction.
Kierkegaard held that religious faith was central to an authentic existence. His Christian existentialism has continued to be influential. Theologians have had to face the horrific absurdities of the 20th century and religious (or theistic) existentialism shows how the individual can, with faith be authentic in an uncertain world.
Nietzsche and Nihilism
For Kierkegaard existence emerges as a philosophical problem in the struggle to think the paradoxical presence of God; for Nietzsche it is found in the reverberations of the phrase “God is dead,” in the challenge of nihilism.
Concerned with Good vs. Evil, the Will to Power, etc.
Nietzsche saw the will to power as an explanation for the diverse actions of man seeking power in different areas. If the concept were left at this point without important qualifications it leaves the way open for fascism and other forms of tyranny. Nietzsche did make important qualifications on it. The will to power must be sublimated and controlled by reason. Hence, for Nietzsche, philosophy was “the most spiritual will to power.”40 The will to power as a basic ingredient of man’s existence reaches its acme in the rational man who controls himself. It must be realized that the will to power is vitally related to Nietzsche’s concept of the overman (Übermann); the man who overcomes himself. The will to power is primarily a concept for explaining man although the concepts can be seen in other areas of nature.
Jean Paul Sartre ‘Existence precedes Essence’
Jean Paul Sartre (1905-80) is, perhaps, the best-known existentialist. He was a gifted playwright and novelist who was offered the Nobel Prize for literature in 1964, but refused it. Sartre thought that there was no fixed human nature or essence and so the individual has to choose his/her being. This choice brings with it responsibility. Those who do not choose, but base their lives on pre-arranged moral and philosophical systems are said to be acting in bad faith.
Unlike Kierkegaard, Sartre was an atheist. As God does not exist, there are no ‘essences’. By essence, Sartre is talking about a pre-defined human nature. What Sartre meant by the phrase ‘existence precedes essence’ is this: If there is no cosmic designer, then there is no design or essence of human nature. Human existence or being differs from the being of objects in that human being is self-conscious. This self-consciousness also gives the human subject the opportunity to define itself. The individual creates his/her self by making self-directed choices.
Albert Camus
Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a journalist, novelist and philosopher. He thought that life was essentially absurd: the modern world is full of injustice, millions work in repetitive exploitative jobs. Camus thought that we should rebel against these absurdities by refusing to participate in them.
Existentialism in the 20th century reflects the loss of certainties in the post-modern world. If there are no clear philosophical answers to the question of existence, then each individual has to design their own life as a project. The choice and responsibility of that project falls entirely on them.
apliteraturemlec 