John Gardner

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John Gardners grendel
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Essential Understandings

• Written in 1971 by John Gardner, American
  novelist, essayist, literary critic and
  university professor
• Grendel is a parallel novel
• Also considered a philosophical novel (e.g.,
  existentialism, solipsism, nihilism, etc.)
• Each chapter focuses on a different astrological
  sign.

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Existentialism

• Characterized by a sense of disorientation and
  confusion in the face of an apparently
  meaningless or absurd world.
• The world is all pointless accident (Gardner
  28).
• One of the horses neighed and reared up, and for
  some crazy reason they took it for a sign (27).

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Solipism

• from Latin solus, meaning "alone", and ipse,
  meaning "self
• the philosophical idea that only one's own mind
  is sure to exist.
• I understood that, finally and absolutely, I
  alone exist. All the rest, I saw, is merely what
  pushes me, or what I push against (Gardner 22).

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Nihilism

• from the Latin nihil, nothing
• Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form
  of existential nihilism, which argues that life
  is without objective meaning, purpose, or
  intrinsic value.
• The belief that traditional morals, ideas,
  beliefs, etc., have no worth or value
• I tried to tell her all that had happened, all
  that Id come to understand the meaningless
  objectness of the world, the universal bruteness
  (Gardner 28).

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The Taurus

• Taurus, the Bull. Taurus is determined,
  efficient, stubborn, cautious, placid,
  persistent, enduring, introverted, conservative,
  conventional, materialistic, security conscious,
  stable, industrious, dependable, and one
  generally having significant financial ability.
• In what ways do we see this zodiac sign
  represented in chapter 2?
• What is the significance of these depictions?

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John Gardner does not want you to have an
existential crisis

• So one reader of Grendel will get only this
  much that what we value so may not be lasting.
  Another reader may get much, much more...What
  matters is that I work out the problems with
  absolute honesty, that I make Grendel sympathetic
  so that the reader will feel from inside the
  importance of the question, What should I do? If
  the reader decides, as all three papers here
  decide, that I am advising people to live like
  Grendel and give up values, then the reader is
  wrong but I have done no harm, because the reader
  will see--in spite of his slight misreading--that
  somehow it's not good giving up values (which is
  exactly what I say). We all know that love
  sometimes dies, that people who at one time love
  each other truly and deeply may at another time
  stop loving each other. But as John Barth
  beautifully points out in Chimera, that is no
  reason for people to stop trying to love each
  other all their lives. In other words (as both
  Barth and I have been saying in books) we
  don't need eternal values to assert and try to
  live up to eternal values.

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Open Response Prompt

• In the following passage, analyze the function of
  point of view in John Gardners Grendel. Using
  evidence from the text, explain how Grendels
  perspective affects or complicates the readers
  understanding of the epic poem, Beowulf. (Hint
  Why does John Gardner choose to write from
  Grendels point of view and what does this
  narrative offer us? Consider Gardners narration
  and characterization of Grendel.)