A Comparison of Nihilistic and Christian Archetypes in Beowulf and John

Grendel, Beowulf and the Relationship Between Nihilistic and Christian Archetypes The Wisdom god, Woden, went out to the king of trollsand demanded to know how order might triumph everyplace chaos.Give me your go away eye, said the king of trolls, and Ill tell you.Without hesitation, Woden gave up his left eye.Now tell me.The troll said, The secret is, Watch with both eyeballWodens left eye was the last sure hope of gods and men in their kingdom of light surrounded by darkness. All we have left is Thors hammer, which represents not brute force but art, or, counting both hammerheads, art and criticism The philosophies expressed in the Beowulf epic complement the exploration of existentialist philosophy throughout the modern work, Grendel, by John Gardner. Both works portray different perspectives of the same story, involving the same characters Beowulf, the ancient Anglo-Saxon hero who destroys Grendel, and Grendel, the monster who terrorizes Hrothgars hall. Beowulf and Grendel ac t as archetypes that explore humanitys perception of the world. In the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf and his companions represent good, and the monsters, including Grendel, represent evil. When Beowulf kills Grendel, the world is less evil, but since Beowulfs companions endure in the struggle, the world is also less good. Ultimately, the two forces of good and evil will destroy each other, but the story maintains that God will interject and save mankind from destruction. In Gardners story, the progression of society begins when mankind creates a monster and then creates a hero to fight the monster. Once the great power of the hero had been established, once the conflicts resolution strengthened societys power, than a greater monster developed ... ...fact, it is the saving blow up of mankind the hope that God will save society and establish harmony and justice. The modern story takes the opposite view it shows what happens when hope is lost, when society has nowhere to turn it is a more pessimistic, more complicated view of humanitys progress.Throughout this paper, G after a characters name refers to Gardner AS to Beowulf the poem.Works CitedGardner, John. Grendel , unexampled York Vintage Books Edition, 1989.Gardner, John. Moral Fiction. New York Basic Books Inc, 1977.Heany, Seamus. Beowulf A Modern Translation. New York Farrer, Straus, and Giroux, 2000.Sources CitedCohen, Jeffrey Jerome. Monster Theory. George Washington University www.upress.umn.edu/Books/C/cohen_monster.html, 2001.Johnson, Tim. Grendel. New York www.panix.com/iayork/Literary/Grendel/grendel2.html, 2001.