John Gardner's Grendel Essay: A Problem Of Evil

The concept of evil is difficult to understand, and varies from person to person. But generally evil can be defined as wickedness or lack of morals. Throughout history evil has always been prevalent, but to a varying degree and in different ways. Every person has an evil side to them, and to suppress that evil side, it is critical to attempt to understand it and how to prevent it. John Gardner’s Grendel, a novel about a murderous monster, examines the effects of evil philosophies and how positive philosophies can counteract those. The value of Grendel is showing the reader how the evil mind works and how to halt the evil that exists in every person.

Cold-blooded murder is one typical form of evil, so Grendel’s thoughts and reasoning about

his life of murder can reveal how his evil mind works. Growing up looking like a monster and having negative experiences as a child both shape his character. One of these experiences is watching a bull repeatedly injure itself until it dies without even considering the negative consequences of its actions. It is during this unsettling event that Grendel loses his innocence and defines the world as “a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears” (22). These nihilistic thoughts determine his future as he becomes a monster. Grendel kills thousands of people solely because they have faith in their humanity. Committing murder with that reasoning may appear illogical, but to Grendel it makes perfect sense. Had he been more rational and not made the decision to let a single philosophy define his life he would not have been evil. At a difficult point in his life he seeks an explanation for the world around him, which nihilism provides, along with reason to become a monster. The evil mind is one that has chosen a negative explanation for life over a positive or unconcerned one.
Grendel lived by evil philosophies, and by understanding how the evil mind works, it is not hard to avoid these philosophies.

Soon after he becomes a full-fledged killer, Grendel meets The dragon, a mysterious advice-giver inside his mind. He claims to know the past, present, and future and tells Grendel: “My advice to you, my violent friend, is to seek out gold and sit on it” (74). In this way Grendel is being offered a glimpse at a more positive way of living. One of the consequences of letting nihilism control his life is that he is backed into a corner he cannot easily escape. However, by choosing to abandon the evil philosophy and be content with the world as it is, Grendel can stop his life of senseless killing. The dragon knows Grendel’s worldview, as well as the fact that Grendel will never be able to go back to innocence, so he advises him to stop following nihilism and sit on gold, or do nothing. At the very least Grendel would waste away the rest of his life without harming others, but more likely he would eventually find happiness in something and experience the positive aspects of life. Readers of Grendel can learn from the dragon’s advice and stop the evil inside of them; all it takes is satisfaction with being unable to define and understand every working of the

world.
Evil exists in many forms; Grendel depicts it through a monster that struggles his whole life with philosophical conundrums. For normal people with a rational mind, evil might seem like a mystery, but really all minds are the same. Gardner demonstrates throughout the book that evil people are only evil because they were not able to control the demons inside of them, and that in their minds, all of their evil actions are justified and reasonable. Life philosophies tend to be very black and white; therefore, following every facet of a philosophy brings out the evil inside someone and causes them to go mad. To avoid being evil, it is important to avoid enslavement by any one philosophy, as this can result in wickedness, as well as have a rational mind and be open to new ideas.