"Grendel": A Monster Fighting His Inevitable Nihilism.

John Gardner's literary masterpiece "Grendel" was created as a critique on modern philosophy. Nowhere was this more present than in Grendel's encounter with the Dragon in Chapter Five. During this particularly one sided conversation, the Dragon became an amalgam of many of modern philosophy's greatest minds. It was through this rather bleak encounter, that "Grendel" was pushed from trying to accept a mere existentialist philosophy to becoming an absolute nihilist. Existentialism is an "I" based …

…beliefs of the Shaper; he could not because in this philosophy Grendel himself was the most reviled creature. The Dragon was the final push Grendel needed toward total nihilism. He could do this because he was the first being in Grendel's entire life to accept him as a thinking being, not a monster. Though Grendel had never wanted to be one, he became a nihilist out of both necessity and inherent beliefs in common sense.