Johnson Wang Pd 7 3/21/23

 

• Literacy & Learning

• Write about your thoughts regarding any of the fiction or nonfiction covered in class.

• Reflect on any new information you have learned in English class by considering how that learning influences your critical perception.

• How is what you’re learning applied to any other classes/the world around you?

  Reading the novel Grendel by John Gardner showed another side of the story of Beowulf to me in the perspective of the monster. When reading only Beowulf and watching the film, I started to develop the impression that Grendel is just like any typical monster, seeking to destroy humanity just for the sake of it. The novel Grendel portrays Grendel as a being that is constantly being bored and was pushed to destroy the Scyldings from other factors such as the meeting with the all-knowing dragon and his ideology of nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that everything in life is meaningless. The interesting part of this novel is that there is a contract between this idea of everything being meaningless. The dragon has a negative attitude towards that since everything is meaningless, everything should just be destroyed. On the other hand. One of the priests I think, also believed that life is meaningless since everyone dies. However, he believes in things such as hope. This enhanced my understanding of the world and is making me believe that there is multiple perceptions of a single entity just like in Grendel, despite the nuances that keeps on appearing every now and then. 

Furthermore, through this experience, I was able to see how some of mythology is connected. Before we started Beowulf, we learned about the sin of Cain, how he killed his brother and all that. Everything relates to Grendel since we believe that he is a descendant of Cain and because of this fact, God does not reply to him when he seeks answers from God. This was shown through Grendel pointing his middle finger in the sky like a child. 

Last but not least, going back to the beginning where I was discussing nihilism. In modern world, the idea of nihilism still persists, but it’s not like to the extreme of destroying things. Since there is no purpose, people are trying to find these purposes, what the priest may call “hope”. These can include simple excursions, finding a passion, or just meeting new people.