In the story, Grendel by John Gardener, Grendel tries to discover the purpose of his existence. He curiously observes the humans and finds one person particularly interesting, the shaper. He couldn’t explain how his poetry of false lies influenced the men, so he went on a journey only to find the dragon. Grendel starts to learn more about the world as the dragon imposes nihilistic ideas onto him that will influence his actions in the future. After their conversation, Grendel starts to realize something. The dragon had placed a charm onto him that would make him invulnerable to weapons, and that only made him darker. Despite the dragon only appearing in one chapter of Grendel, he has caused Grendel to become more nihilistic, resulting in Grendel’s negative outlook on humanity, making him lonelier and more violent. With his new nihilistic views on the world, he sees the human’s actions even more pointless and stupid. “It enraged me. It was their confidence, maybe-their blissful, swinish ignorance, their bumptious self-satisfaction, and, worst of…show more content… The dragon had convinced Grendel to become the brute existence of humanity which would set his path to his death. After becoming bored of all the men he has killed, new strangers have arrived at Heorot, and already Grendel was craving for them. As Grendel fights them in the mead hall, he notices something strange about one of them. “Now he’s out of his bed, his hand still closed like a dragon’s jaw on mine” (P168). By relating the dragon and Beowulf, he shows that this is Grendel’s fate, to die by the hands of Beowulf, since the dragon represented fate as he could see the future. Grendel, before the fight had thought of avoiding them to avoid his death, but the dragon’s charm convinced him to fight them. His cockiness from the charm lead to his death, as he had tripped on a pool of blood letting Beowulf get the upper hand, allowing him to rip his arm
