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During the c. 750 s the world was not at all like it is today. The land was rugged and wild, and the people were just as untamed as the world they lived in. The kingdoms and people, such as the ones portrayed in poems and stories like Beowulf and Grendel, led barbaric lives: where war was common, death was like a brother, and kingdoms came, and went as easy as night and day. In light of this one can still see vast similarities with what was, and what is today; mans never ending quest to understand life.
Gardner uses the character of the Shaper, to metaphorically represent the aspects of life that man needs to bring meaning to their lives. The book Grendel written by John Gardner is derived from the poem Beowulf, only its point of view has changed. Instead of seeing the story through the eyes of a human bystander, we see it through the murderer, the beast, and the villain. 1 The Shaper in this book is a character, who is not understood entirely by Grendel, yet, who he admires greatly. The Shaper according to Grendel tells lies. This in part is true because the Shaper does stretch reality, as well as with holds many truths to a story. But he only does this to shield the ignorant people of the realities of their barbaric lives.
he redefines reality and makes people believe it. (Role 1) The Shaper, like art, is a reflection of the world through the eyes of its beholder. As in art and literature, the Shaper provides humans with an alternative reality. 2 Gardner illustrates this mind control in his book. Grendel falls prey to his stories and their warped realities early on; I listened huddled in the darkness, tormented, mistrustful. I knew them, had watched them; yet the things he said seemed true. (Gardner 47) Grendel, like the humans; had seen the ugly wars, the death of the many young innocent men, the endless fields of blood. As the Shaper sang his song he took what was real and shameful and made it glorious and consequential. 2 Yet, on first view of the humans, Grendel feels a sense of awe, and intimidation, due to their ability to think, and make decision based on strategy, not on chance. I knew I was dealing with no dull mechanical bull but with thinking creatures, pattern makers, the most dangerous things I had ever met. (Gardner 27) The Shaper makes the long days of bloodshed and pathetic impulses to kill, and be on top seemed like acts of a hero not savage beast.
Grendel tells his mom that he understands, the meaningless, object ness of the world, the universal blueness. (Gardner 28) he is shifting all his attention to the metaphysical nausea produced by a world of meaningless objects. 4 Sartre made this philosophy known in his essay arguing that free choice over deterministic psychology. Sartre, unlike fellow philosophers Freud and Skinner, felt that man no matter what the subconscious was led to believe always man had a choice as to whether or not to believe it. (Sartre) The Shaper is a man who is used by the people to hide their true knowledge of specific events they wish not to remember in its exactness. History even up to present day is based on stories and interpretation. When visiting Germany the acts of Hitler are not looked upon with such scorn as they are in America and other countries. In Plato's The Republic, Plato visualizes a world where stories are taught to the children and the people. But these stories never show the true horrors of life.
They are censored so that only the good meaningful aspects of life are remembered. This is similar to what the Shaper does he takes a story and makes it one that you might read to your child. 5 One in which the good guys always win and the bad guys dont really die they just go on a long strip. Real art should aim at creating myths that are healthy for society. (Sagedy) The ironic thing about the Shaper is that he is blind. Here this man is that has the power to make grown men cry and make any man believe that which he sings, and yet he tells of the entire world without truly seeing it.
The Shaper has faith in man and strives to create meaning and purpose in life. It is said that those that physically cannot see, are the ones that truly can see. Grendel, even in his stage of contempt for man and his ridiculous world always reveres the Shaper as the all-powerful. In a way he looks up to the Shaper for it was the Shaper who took mans pathetic quest for heroism and made it seem worth the fight. Grendel is not unlike the Shaper in that -he chooses to take his nihilistic revelations about the indifference of the universe and the reality of a values are nothing more than his feeble attempt to justify his role as a murderer. (History of Existentialism) 5 The Shaper takes the barbaric rituals of the people of his time and justifies their actions in his songs. In modern day it is through writing that many people are able to get others to understand a way of life they may not have known of.
Gardner implicitly poses the question: What kind of world would we have if there were no Shapers to make sense of human existence and to fight back the forces of nihilism. The Shaper takes the scattered pieces of lifes puzzle and other miscellaneous pieces, and acts as the missing link. The Shaper acts as a mediator between all that is good and bad, right and wrong, and finds the place where life is in perfect accord. (Sagedy) Gardner uses the character the Shaper in his book Grendel, to mask the shattered reality that is life in the c. 750 s. Much like present day, Gardner reflects upon the manner in which man deals with his life in his quest to understand it.
The Shaper in this book: Grendel, is the object that takes the pointless and trivial acts of man and allows them to become important values by which, man, runs his life. Bibliography: Existentialism. Class Handout, September, 2000. Gardner, John. Grendel. NewYork: Vintage Books, 1989.
Human, Norma L. Even Monsters Have Mothers. Contemporary Literary Criticism Vol. 18. Sharon R. Gunter, ed. Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research Co. , 1981: 173 - 176.
Line, T. Z. From Socrates to Sartre: the philosophic Quest. New York: Bantam Books, 1984. Class. Sartre: Existentialism is Humanism.
Paper Topics. Sagedy, Michael. A critical Look at Gardners Grendel. Virginia English Bulletin.
Winter, 1986. The History of Existentialism. Class handout, September, 2000.
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