3/2 Paulo Xu PD8

Paulo Xu - Period 8

Modern Mythology 2020

3/2/2020

Aim: How does the mood shift to a sense of tragedy and foreboding, foreshadowing events to come in Grendel?

Group Work

Chapter 10 incites us with two gruesome images of the mountain goat and the children who don’t come in at night.

• What happens in these scenes, and what can be deducted about Grandel’s character from these incidents?
• How does this affect our view of Grandel as an enlightened monster?
• How does it affect our view on the darker depths of humanities?

After sharing out some ideas we concluded a few things about Grandel’s character and personality. First, we notice the mental transformation Grandel goes through as he goes from a scared boy that runs away from a bull int the beginning of the book to someone who killed a goat for instinctively going up the mountain. Another example of this nihilistic mindset is how Grandel goes from contemplating killing the queen, who he ends up not killing, to seemingly killing whoever he wants. We can also see that Grandel perceives to have no purpose and becomes jealous of the goat for having a purpose. Grandel goes after the goat and the children who have their own purpose which aggravates him. And at the end of the chapter, Grandel once again mentions the “scent of the dragon” which shows that the nihilistic thinking is consuming him more and more after meeting the dragon.

Discussions:

• How should we interpret the death of the Shaper?

The Shaper wrote history with his poetry and epics about the world and he also gave Grandel purpose by making everyone view him as the monster. At first, we thought that the Shaper’s death can signify that the world had lost its beauty and Grandel had lost his purpose as the monster. However, we realized that the history that the Shaper created will still live through songs. Another point brought up was that the truth or the real history dies after the Shaper’s death since he made up all the stories told while being the only one who truly knew what happened, creating an illusion of history. The world is only left with legends and the monster.

• Why does Grendel end Chapter 10 with this statement?

Nothing comes from nothing is hypocritical since he wants to have a purpose even though he doesn’t think anything has a purpose. Since he feels his purpose is gone he feels like he needs to create something however he doesn’t have anything. This is ironic because everything Grandel does has a purpose which he doesn’t see. It was also said that Grandel is embodying the Dragon’s nihilistic view of everything.

• What can be argued and/or established by Grandel’s mother’s behavior in chapter 10?

Grandel’s mother shows that she at least cares for her own son as she warns Grandel and tries to prevent him from killing. Even after his own mother tries to save him, he dismisses her warnings and seems to have lost all sense of humanity.

Reflection

In today’s lesson, a big takeaway was in the idea of nihilism and how that has affected Grandel. In chapter ten, I feel like Grandel feels the loneliest so far because he struggles to find his purpose and meaning of life and seems to have been consumed by the dragon’s idea that nothing matters. He has lost his sense of humanity and is he is the monster that the Shaper made him and at this point, Grandel hates everything even himself. This even applies to people in the real world; we often find ourselves looking at others in order to find meaning or purpose in life however I think it is something that has to come within ourselves. And just like Grandel, we all go through that experience of finding purpose or feeling like we don’t belong.