Throughout the human history people have contemplated about the existence of the earth, whether it is unplanned or carefully crafted by god. The world in Grendel by John Gardener is portrayed in a way that the entire world is meaningless, everything is unplanned, unknown and is a huge accident in which nothing matters whereas in the book Beowulf by an anonymous author it is depicted that god handles everything, he plans ones fate and has made the universe an organized system.
This thought can be proven in the book Grendel by john gardener when Descendant of Cain was talking to the dragon. The dragon said” I know everything that’s what makes me so sick and old and tired”(Gardener 61) the dragon appears to understand everything and he doesn’t…show more content… It challenges the statement that existence is meaningless because if it were to be meaningless then nobody would care if they live or die, but in the book the people cared, people had dreams, for example, Hrothgar’s dream was to build Herot while Unferths Dream was to be a hero. This also proves that everything matters because it mattered to Beowulf if he won or not since if he wins he would gain glory, respect and treasure, which is a symbol of importance in Anglo-Saxon culture. Beowulf challenged the conception of the past is irrelevant when he claimed “I risked my life often when I was young. Now I am old, but as king of the people I shall pursue this fight for the glory of winning” (Page 170-171) .If the past did not matter Beowulf would not have been able to battle the dragon for he would not have any experience nor would he have the courage, it was his past achievements and valor which allowed him to fight the battles with various