After being taken into Grendel's past, we are shown the time of his youth which he mostly spent alone and exploring his boundless underground world. After encountering a pool of firesnakes (16), Grendel gets the courage to dive in and emerges into a “new” world. Grendel doesn't go too far the first night, but as time goes by, he goes farther and farther each time. He soon has one of his first encounters with human beings and it's not so great. As he is stuck in a tree and after receiving no response to his cries for his mom, a bull furiously charges at his leg but he soon realizes that the bull will always strike low as he says “He'd struck too low, and even in my terror I understood that he would always strike too low: he fought by instinct, blind mechanism ages old.” (21). The humans showed him otherwise... While still stuck in the tree, humans that appeared believed that Grendel was a tree spirit until he spoke. Right away the humans were terrified, and he realizes …show more content…
Nihilism is the belief that life is meaningless as well as the rejection of all religious beliefs and moral principles. As Grendel says this, he shows his belief that there is no linear existence to the world. He claims “The world resists me and I resist the world,” (28) as well as “That's all there is. The mountains are what I define them as.” (28). He says this to show that there really is no significance to objects, only the significance HE gives them. “The world is all a pointless accident”, means that in reality, there is no meaning to anything. He believes only his mind exists. For example he finishes by saying “I exist, nothing else.” (28). Grendel clearly believes that existence is everything he perceives it to be. Just as he defines what the mountains are (28) he could define what the bull, human, his mom, and the world around him