The concept of existentialism permeates the entire novel. Throughout the book, a feeling that the world is essentially a meaningless place is created. The main character Grendel, struggles to find some coherent, palpable meaning in his universe. In his childhood, Grendel had always been a lonely creature; he had no one to talk to and was surrounded by animals, creatures that survived mechanically, by instinct. However, he did not realize this fact until his encounter with the bull. The bull had “struck too low,” and from that point on Grendel realizes that the bull “would always strike too low.” It was at this point that we see a transformation in Grendel. The playful, curious baby Grendel was gone, replaced by an empty, hollow shell who “understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual enmity.” This realization started Grendel’s journey to seek meaning.

Grendel’s brief encounter with humans sparked his fascination with these conscious creates that shared a common language with him. Through them, he found the Shaper, a man who through his words, poems, songs, has the power to shape and unify the minds and hearts of the people, and create meaning in their otherwise meaningless lives. Even though Grendel realized that the stories were all lies, he still badly wanted the stories. Until now, these stories were his only source of meaning in life. The Shaper’s powerful words move Grendel’s emotional side and make him want to become a part of these stories, even if he “must be the outcast, cursed by the rules of his hideous fable.” His encounter also fuels his own desire to become the Shaper, so that he could have someone to talk, and have the ability to define meaning in the world and his own life. “’He stares strange-eyed at the mindless world and turns dry sticks to gold.’ A little poetic, I would readily admit. His manner of speaking was infecting me, making me pompous.” Grendel’s manner of speaking becomes more poetic, and starts to resemble the Shaper’s songs.

Grendel’s rational side however wants to follow a different path, the path of the Dragon. The Dragon’s teachings solidify his own understanding that the world is essentially a meaningless place and everything relevant becomes irrelevant in the endless passage of time. The Dragon advises Grendel to torment humans and become “the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves.” If Grendel does not use this opportunity to define his life at least temporarily as the “monster”, then other monsters will come along and take this place. The Dragon wants him to believe the world is meaningless in the long run, so Grendel might as well fulfill his fascination and seek temporary meaning through the destruction of humans.

At this point, Grendel still believed in the Shaper, but the Dragon has made him doubt the rationality of his emotional side. From this moment on, we are taken on Grendel’s conflicted journey to find the right definition for his life, whether it was through his emotional side or rational side. Grendel seems to embrace both these ideas at once. He becomes more infected by the Shaper’s poetry, yet he also followed the Dragon’s advice by starting his little war against humans. “My enemies define themselves (as the dragon said) on me.” (91) Through this quote, we see that he truly believes the idea that his enemies create definition through him and he has meaning as the “Hrothgar-Wrecker.” However, in the next moment he thinks, “Do a little dance, beast … Sing!” (91) and starts rhyming and singing about his life. At this point Grendel is heading towards both ends of the spectrum. He is like a rubber band being pulled by the Dragon’s ideas and his rational self on one end and the Shaper’s songs and his emotions on the other end.

Grendel claims that he “has not committed the ultimate act of nihilism: I have not killed the queen.” Since the Queen has a similar effect on Grendel’s emotions as the Shaper, by killing her, it would show that Grendel has fully embraced the Dragon’s ideas. Grendel resolved by the end of the chapter to actually kill Wealtheow. “I decided to kill her. I firmly committed myself to killing her.”(109) Grendel struggles with his emotional side though, and keeps repeating his “commitment” to himself. When he does go to kill Wealtheow, he changes his mind at the last moment and spares her life. This means that Grendel is still not able to give up entirely his emotional self to pursue the Dragon’s ideas. He then resolves to kill himself. “I resolved, absolutely and finally, to kill myself, for love of the Baby Grendel that used to be.” He wants to go back to become the innocent Grendel before his war, before his encounter with the Dragon, but he changes his mind the next instant. He isn’t willing to give up on the Dragon’s ideas either. This philosophical divide within Grendel confuses him and makes him ambiguous on what he really wants. His rational side thinks that his emotions with the Shaper and the Queen were “unreasonable, stubborn as the mountains”, yet he doesn’t want to face his rational side that the world is meaningless.

By chapter 8, Grendel has become even more stretched out. His short phrases and verses have become long poems and songs. He starts to tell the story of Hrothulf, like the Shaper would, in the form of a song. Yet he also believes his rational side that through his killings, he has created the great Hrothgar. “I made him what he is.” (123) He seems to think that by following the Dragon’s advice, his enemies, like Hrothgar, really did innovate and became powerful and defined their lives on Grendel. However his rational side also realizes that it will all lead to nothing, yet he also wants to believe “something is bound to come of all this.”

By the end of the story, Grendel begins to break away from the Dragon’s ideas. He felt tedious and bored from his 12 years of war against humans. He wants to do something new and becomes excited at the arrival of Beowulf. Grendel’s physical struggle against Beowulf was also a mental struggle against the Dragon. Grendel hallucinates that Beowulf had fiery wings, breathed fire, and hands like jaws during their fighting in the mead hall. The physical struggle proved futile for Grendel, but in his mental struggle, Grendel’s emotional side seems to have come out ahead. While it’s inevitable that he has gone on to embrace his emotional self, he still tries to hold on to a bit of his rational side. He still rejects his defeat and claims it was only an “accident”. “I will cling to what is true.” (173) He still wants to grasp a tiny part of reality, or rationality, even as his emotional self pushes him onward towards the cliff. “I seem to desire the fall, even though I fight it with all my will.” (173) The fall to his death will be his final resolution to break away from the grips of the Dragon. His emotional side pushes him towards the ultimate destination while his rational side fights it.

Grendel realizes that he will not live, but what was surprising was that he actually felt joy at dying. “Is it joy I feel?” (173) Grendel’s accident was the trigger that made him realize he should follow the Shaper’s path. He realized that he should seek meaning through poetry, through words, instead of surrendering to the fact that the world is meaningless. Grendel has finally chosen the path of the Shaper at the end. His accident helped him break out of his tedious twelve years of meaningless warfare and made him choose the right path. So he wishes this accident upon all the “mechanical” animals around him and perhaps even the readers. He wishes that we can all have such an accident to help break us out of our mechanical lives and feel meaningful in our lives.