The Evolution of Grendels Worldview - Literature Essay Samples

In John Gardner’s Grendel, a few key interactions between Grendel and other characters mark the paradigmatic shifts that spur his philosophical evolution. Despite Grendel’s self-proclaimed isolation, his response to these interactions demonstrates his undeniable susceptibility to external ideas. Though at each junction he considers his viewpoint absolute, the new exposures bring about both confluences and conflicts of ideas that instigate Grendel’s further ideological revision. As solitary as Grendel feels, his views of the world and the role he plays in it are irrevocably linked to a few formative interchanges with varying perspectives. Grendel’s first encounter with a foreign creature sparks his initial sense of dissonance. Grendel, at the time a child only familiar with his mother and other shadowed, shuffling monsters, ventures one day beyond the safety of his sheltered mere. He wanders between two trees and ends up caught between them, unable to move and directly in the path of a charging bull. After surviving the first onslaught remarkably unscathed, Grendel realizes that the bull erred in its calculations before making the charge and aimed too low. Suddenly, Grendel comprehends that the bull lacks the faculties necessary to course-correct; without higher thought it will never fight Grendel with enough insight to succeed. Grendel recognizes this quality, and at once understands â€Å"the emptiness in the eyes of those humpbacked shapes back in the cave† (Gardner 21). Grendel’s perception of his own community cleaves, placing him at odds with the rest of the world: his capacity for higher th ought traps him in a solitary category, an existence entirely separate from instinct-driven animals like the bull and the other monsters in his mere. The world, he realizes, is a â€Å"mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly interpose our hopes and fears,† in which he alone exists (22). This epiphany marks Grendel’s first foray into philosophy, as well as his first sense of isolation. He alone can create meaning for the natural world around him because all perceived meaning is folly in any event, useless to all but the creator. The bull is a catalyst for Grendel’s self discovery, but Grendel is not empowered by this idea of his own individualism. He meets humans and recognizes that they make patterns and exercise complex thought, but his ideas do not change—he still remains depressingly convinced that he faces â€Å"the meaningless objectness of the world, the universal bruteness† (28). His continued pessimism regarding this â€Å"mechanistic† world demonstrates how his own isolation, catalyzed by the disparity he observes between the bull and himself, has caused his disillusionment. Despite Grendel’s initial certainty in his assertions, his philosophy reveals its malleability upon exposure to more of the world. One human manages to distinguish himself from the others enough to effect a change in Grendel’s worldview: the Shaper. The Shaper arrives at the meadhall and sings of the men Grendel has been watching, but though Grendel has been observing them violently destroy each other, the Shaper proclaims quite the opposite, singing of their divine creation and praising their power. Grendel knows the Shaper spins lies, but he and all of the other men nonetheless believe these fabricated histories, vesting power in the man who has â€Å"changed the world, [has] torn up the past by its thick, gnarled roots and [has] transmuted it† (43). The Shaper introduces Grendel to a world that exists by dint of emotion rather than mere brutality. This method of applying meaning to the world creates a grander purpose rather than reinforcing the blind, brute me chanics Grendel had been cornered into believing. Grendel knows the Shaper’s words have altered his previous convictions but struggles to overcome his doubt and fully embrace the idea of a world rooted in such poetic ideals. While the Shaper’s poetry directs Grendel’s mind â€Å"away to hopeful dreams, the dark of what was and always was reached out and snatched [his] feet† (54). In the back of Grendel’s mind he still thinks of the world as mechanical; the Shaper has only introduced a fantasy that Grendel is desperate to believe, even if he must play â€Å"the outcast, cursed by the rules of his hideous fable† (55). Grendel’s interaction with the Shaper introduces him to a human coping mechanism—the creation of fantasies to deal with the bitterness of real life. Grendel develops a desperate desire to hide behind the fabrications in the Shaper’s songs; they offer Grendel reprieve from what he considers eternal isolation. Although his better judgment prohibits his complete subjugation, he is affected enough to willingly adopt the beastly role the Shaper assigns him. Grendel does not exist in this fantasy forever; his interaction with the dragon forces him to confront the idealistic foundations of the Shaper’s work. Though Grendel becomes enamored with the artistry of the Shaper’s words, the Shaper still places Grendel on the side of evil: â€Å"the terrible race God cursed† (51). The dragon sheds light on the necessity, rather than the miracle, of the irreconcilable rift between man and monster, explaining to Grendel that he is â€Å"the brute existent by which [the humans] define themselves† (73). His role in life is to serve as the foil to mankind’s endeavors and to drive them to â€Å"poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what they are for as long as they last† (73). Grendel initially refuses this fate; he seeks something different from life, a grander purpose mirroring the romanticism of the Shaper’s poetry. The dragon soon breaks down Grendel’s defenses, forcing Grendel to ack nowledge the idiocy of this lofty ideal. Grendel adopts the dragon’s dreary approach: everything will ultimately amount to nothing; his experiences are simply â€Å"a swirl in a stream of time† (70). The dragon advises Grendel to â€Å"seek out gold and sit on it†: in other words, perform what natural laws require him to do (74). This philosophy spurs Grendel into his most recognizable role; he fully embraces his designated purpose, initiating the â€Å"idiotic war† to wreak havoc upon Hart and mankind. Beowulf is the final character to confront Grendel’s views, and he does so with assertions that uproot the very foundations of Grendel’s beliefs instead of just altering them. By the time Grendel fights Beowulf, the dragon’s advice has taken full effect; Grendel is deeply entrenched in a pointless, violent war with the Danes and admittedly kills without purpose. When the confrontation begins, Beowulf shocks Grendel with his strength, soon gaining the upper hand by twisting Grendel’s arm behind his back when Grendel slips on blood. The two begin a grapple of worldviews that parallels the physical battle. Grendel is adamant, telling Beowulf, â€Å"If you win, it’s by mindless chance. Make no mistake. First you tricked me, and then I slipped. Accident† (171). Even in mortal danger, Grendel refuses to relinquish his philosophy; the dragon’s claim that the natural world is a meaningless cycle of life and death has been providing justificati on for Grendel’s actions through the twelve years of his terrible crusade. Beowulf advances a philosophy reminiscent of the dragon’s, but it deviates in a key manner. He addresses Grendel’s destructiveness, whispering, â€Å"Though you murder the world, [†¦] strong searching roots will crack your cave and rain will cleanse it: The world will burn green, sperm build again† (170). Beowulf’s sermon contains the element of rebirth, and with it, the suggestion that life does in fact have meaning despite ceaseless death. Such an assertion, if true, would do worse than make Grendel’s life meaningless. The implication that life had possessed an intrinsic worth all along would make Grendel’s chosen path a waste. He had opted for twelve years of murder, despite once harboring wishes for a grander purpose, and thus must defend his assertions of the world until his dying breath. The effect of their confrontation is as destructive on Grendel’s mind as it is on his body. Ripped from his meaningless cycle of murder and rampage, Grendel loses all sense for how to react, wondering, â€Å"Is it joy I feel?† (173). His philosophy, left vulnerable by the scars of transformation from previous interactions, fractures in the face of Beowulf’s onslaught. Floundering in an internal narrative riddled with doubt and confusion, Grendel perishes. Grendel’s persistent sense of isolation throughout John Gardner’s Grendel leaves him susceptible to influence from the worldviews of those he interacts with. His harbored resentment regarding what he perceives as solitude results somewhat conversely in a malleable ideology, prone to change through consideration of new perspectives. Each successive paradigm shift becomes more difficult to abandon, however, so when the dragon proposes a world devoid of meaning, Grendel initially resists. When he is finally swayed, he devotes himself completely, launching a twelve-year war in defense of his convictions. By the time he confronts Beowulf, the cracks in the foundations of Grendel’s viewpoint prove too much, leading to his pitiful but timely demise.

The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde - 1577 Words

The plot of Robert Louis Stevenson’s legendary novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is relatively well known. A scientist, Dr. Henry Jekyll, tries to separate his inner good from evil and ends up with an alter ego, Edward Hyde. While Hyde, he commits numerous atrocities, including trampling a child and beating Sir Danvers Carew to death with a walking stick. The story is mostly written from the point of view of Mr. Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer who is friends with Jekyll and eventually pieces together the mystery of his dual nature. Scholars have written countless articles on the duality of man in the novella, but few focus on the implications of the crimes that Jekyll commits as Hyde. In ending the saga of Mr. Hyde with Dr. Jekyll’s suicide, it is evident that Stevenson intended for readers to come to their own conclusions as to Jekyll’s guilt, as well as how he should be held accountable. This is complicated by the fact that, by committing suicide , Dr. Jekyll could be considered mentally ill by law. The legal system in Victorian England arguably treated the mentally ill unfairly, so in having Dr. Jekyll commit suicide, Stevenson could show this unfair treatment to the public. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson couples the character of Dr. Jekyll with his legal and medical knowledge to suggest that the unjust way the Victorian legal system and dealt with the mentally ill needed to be reformed. Stevenson’s background suggests that he had a wealth ofShow MoreRelatedThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1675 Words   |  7 PagesThe Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Essay Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, â€Å"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,† is a type of Gothic literature. In the beginning of the story when Stevenson is describing the lawyer, one â€Å"Mr. Utterson,† the mood is a bit dull. At first glance the reader may think that this story would be a bit boring and drab. Stevenson’s story is far from being another dull piece of British English literature. The setting and mood of this novella are more complexRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde Essay975 Words   |  4 PagesStevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novella that follows the basic outline established by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein. However, Stevenson’s monster is not created from body parts but comes from the dark side of the human personality. In both novels, a man conducts a secret experiment that gets out of control. The result of these experiments is the release of a double, or doppelgan ger, which causes damage to their creator. While most people think that The Strange Case of Dr. JekyllRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1440 Words   |  6 Pagescomplexity of human nature in his books, especially in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped. The former is about a lawyer named Mr. Utterson seeking out the truth of Dr. Jekyll’s very strange will. He finds out that Jekyll was transforming himself into Mr. Hyde so that he could have the freedom to do whatever he wanted no matter how evil. By the time Utterson finds all this out and findsJekyll, he is too late and Jekyll has already killed himself. The latter is about David BalfourRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1196 Words   |  5 Pageswhich do let control you? The good or evil? This was a question that Dr. Jekyll from the book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, could not answer. 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It was also consideredRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde964 Words   |  4 PagesThe Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson was published in 1886. The story is published during the Victorian era, the Victorian era was an age of repression, there was no violence, no sexual appetite, and there was no great expression or emotion. In the story, Dr. Jekyll creates a potion that turns him into Mr. Hyde, Mr. Hyde is the complete opposite of what people are in the Victorian era. At first, Dr. Jekyll is in control of Mr. Hyde, but towards t he end MrRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1505 Words   |  7 PagesDuring the latter portion of the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson published his novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The fin de sià ¨cle saw the rise of different thoughts and ideas surrounding science and society. These concepts and interpretations sparked the discourse surrounding the theory of degeneration; which was the concern that civilization would fall to a lower state of being. This chapter will be reading multiplex personality as a manifestation of this broader culturalRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1739 Words   |  7 Pagesnovel â€Å"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde† by Robert Louis Stevenson, the novel â€Å"Frankenstein† by Mary Shelley, the short story â€Å"The Monkey’s Paw† by W.W Jacobs and the short story â€Å"Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These four texts convey this theme through the use of gothic conventions such as death, madness and darkness. In the novels The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll are wronglyRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1351 Words   |  6 PagesThe Personas of Henry Jekyll Every person is born with bright and dark personas that people moderate due to the standards of society. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll and Hyde battle for the power to stay alive in the story. As Jekyll continues to try and take over his evil persona, Hyde tries to stay alive and cause evil in the world. In our society, many people will struggle with self control and Dr. Jekyll has trouble controlling his alter ego by performing his evil pleasuresRead MoreThe Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde1326 Words   |  6 Pages The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published during the late Victorian era, but he clearly brings into question the acceptance of Victorian philosophies, especially the belief that one truth exists and that we can identify good and evil as separate entities. The names Jekyll and Hyde have become synonymous with multiple personality disorder. This novel can be examined from the natural dualism and Freud’s structural th eory of the mind. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr

Essay about Atomism Democritus And Epicurus - 1299 Words

Atomism: Democritus and Epicurus nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In the Atomists, we see pluralism taken as far as it could possibly go. We see Democritus and Epicurus divide all the world, as well as the universe, into two categories; atoms and empty space. Everything else is merely thought to exist. The atoms are eternal, infinite in size and number and they are moving through the empty space. There is no motion without empty space. Both Democritus and Epicurus agreed that motion was impossible in a plenum, but it is here that their theories diverge. In the cause of the motion, we begin to see a variety of opinions. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Both Democritus and Epicurus agreed that the â€Å"qualitative world of sense†¦show more content†¦Since an objects natural state seemed to be rest, Epicurus decided that it was not motion, but lack thereof, that is in a things true nature. Therefore it is motion which requires an explanation (Jones 85). nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Since it is agreed that the atoms must collide in order to form â€Å"objects† that possess different qualities, the frequency of these collisions must be infinitely large. How else can one account for the variety of objects recognized as â€Å"normal†? The space in which the atoms are traveling is large beyond our every conception of size, and the atoms are small on the very same scale. The probability of even two of these atoms colliding while they fall through the void is minute, if not non-existent. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Epicurus attempts to explain these collisions with his â€Å"swerve† theory. In this, he holds there is an arbitrary, imperceptible swerve in the straight â€Å" falling† path of the atoms. Rather than contribute the collisions to the nature of the atoms themselves, he is attempting to account for the frequency of collisions, and in effect increase the probability of two atoms colliding in infinite space. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;There are many problems with this postulation. In effect, it is no better an argument than Democritus nature theory. If we begin to assume that events simply â€Å"happen† arbitrarily, we do not gain any deeper insightShow MoreRelatedPhilosophy And Science Of The Same Breath2132 Words   |  9 PagesThe philosophers Leucippus and Democritus are constantly mentioned in the same breath. Since the bulk of their works did not survive the middle ages, we have only fragments and the writings of their peers and successors to tell us about their accomplishments and ideas. It is difficult to separate these two men because they are praised or critiqued as a unit by contemporaries and followers, but their exact relationship is unclear. Sources such as Diogenes Laertius do not link them as teacher and studentRead MoreEssay about The History of Chemistry and Technology883 Words   |  4 Pagescombination. Greek atomism dates back to 440 BC, arising in works by philosophers such as Democritus and Epicurus. Unlike modern concepts of science, Greek atomism was basically just the philosophical in nature, with little concern for empirical observations and no concern for chemical experiments. In 1700 BC with the scenario of King Hammurabis reign over Babylon there where several metals recored found at the site. In 430 BC Democritus of ancient Greece and man named Democritus proclaimed the atomRead MoreEpicurus And Epicureanism ( Pghc11181 )2053 Words   |  9 PagesB099785 Epicurus and Epicureanism (PGHC11181) Epicurus on the Gods: Realism or Idealism? Conflict between two interpretative parties. It is commonly accepted that in antiquity people always believed in gods regardless of their stature. Taking into consideration the different periods of history, there have been observed cases of incredulity and skepticism as far as the existence of Gods was concerned. The disbelief over gods and generally divergences on the traditional way of treating gods developedRead MoreThe School of Athens2478 Words   |  10 PagesThe style is so careless that the syntactical relations of the words are often hard to perceive; and the thoughts are profound, and Lucretius attacks him on the ground From his gloomy view of life he is often called the Weeping Philosopher, as Democritus is known as the Laughing Philosopher. It is above all in dealing with Heraclitus that we are made to feel the importance of personality in shaping systems of philosophy. He is likened to Michelangelo because Michelangelo showed personality andRead MoreEssay The School of Athens2445 Words   |  10 Pagesis so ca reless that the syntactical relations of the words are often hard to perceive; and the thoughts are profound, and Lucretius attacks him on the ground From his gloomy view of life he is often called quot;the Weeping Philosopher,quot; as Democritus is known as quot;the Laughing Philosopher.quot; It is above all in dealing with Heraclitus that we are made to feel the importance of personality in shaping systems of philosophy. He is likened to Michelangelo because Michelangelo showed personality

Android App Development-Free-Sample for Students-Myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about the User's Call History and daily data usage app. Answer: Introduction: Various mobile operators in Australia have been delivering different plans regarding Internet data and phone calls. An Android app is to be developed by them having the most effective economic mobile plan. It also considers the regular data usage and call history of the user. The following report introduces the app with its device capability requirements. Then a brief description of the architecture is proposed. Lastly the use case and case diagrams are includes with the small discussion on the project user interface and interaction. Introduction of the mobile app: The aim of the app is not just simplifying the chores of the users but also serve as the entertainment. However, they often end up in hogging data. This eventually makes the chosen data plan going for a toss. There has been need for various apps in order to monitor which app has been consuming more data daily keeping any tab used up and so on (Burton Felker, 2015). On the other hand the users also need to display various call information that includes the incoming calls with the name of the caller if available. They should also be aware of the outgoing calls or the party name. They need to know about the starting time of the call and the call types. The later one includes whether that was outgoing, incoming or missed calls. They must filter the record views by the call type and delete the older records after they get to view those (Beyer Pinzger, 2014). They should also be able to return the missed calls through pressing the soft-keys. Lastly the app must help them to insert the AR S prefix needed to make the external calls. They must add or delete the prefix digits through manually. Device Capability Requirements for the App: The phoneCall capability must allow the app in accessing the phone lines over the device and do various functions. They must place a call over the phone line and display the system dialer. This must be done without prompting the users. They should also be able to access the line related triggers and metadata (Deitel, Deitel Deitel, 2014). They must also use the spam filter app selected by the user for setting and checking the information regarding call source and the check block list. The capability of the phoneCall should include the namespace uap as it is declared in the package manifest of the app. On the other hand there have been two capabilities indicating that the apps could receive the incoming data from Internet. They are the internetClientcapability denoting that the app could receive the incoming data from Internet. It does not act as the server with any local access of network. The other one is the internetClientServercapability (Li Halfond, 2014).This denotes that the app could retrieve the data but could act as the server without any access of local network. Brief Architecture of the app: The real strength of the architecture lies in the capability for the administrators in taking action using the automated policy controls. This includes the device quarantining, caps, blocks, filters and alerts. The administrators must receive the real time intelligence and the reporting (Gu et al., 2017). This must include the summary digests. The user activity has to be presented in the real-time and the data has to be simply exported. The executives could view the summary dashboards for monitoring the security performance and the data management. Project Use Case and Class Diagram: The actors shown in the following use case is the User. The user is effectively able to access the section of main menu. From there he is able to view the call history. Next, the class diagram has been regarded as the static structure diagram that is displaying the structures like the user, call log, data usage and others with the attributes and the relationship among them. Figure 1: The suggested Use case (Source: Created by Author) Figure 2: The suggested Class diagram (Source: Created by Author) Project User Interface and User Interaction: The chosen app has needed the GUI to allow the user interaction. The GUI has been interface between come primary areas. One of them is the menu bar that could transfer the multimedia, HTM L and XML contents. Figure 3: Suggestion for a user interface GUI (Source: Created by Author) Conclusion: The application that is proposed above has analyzed keeping every potential and effectively of the existing data mining and internet usage in mind. It has helped in understanding the brief description as per as the architecture is concerned. It has covered the elements of device capabilities along with fulfilling the app requirements. Next, the use case diagram has been created by displaying all its various components. Then, the class diagram has helped to understand every class with all the applicable links. Finally the report has suggested an interface in mind the relevant user interaction with the application. References: Burton, M., Felker, D. (2015).Android App Development For Dummies. John Wiley Sons. Deitel, P., Deitel, H., Deitel, A. (2014).Android how to Program. Prentice Hall Press. Kang, H., Cho, J., Kim, H. (2015). Application study on android application prototyping method using App inventor.Indian Journal of Science and Technology,8(18), 1. Iversen, J., Eierman, M. (2014).Learning mobile app development: a hands-on guide to building apps with iOS and Android. Pearson Education. Li, D., Halfond, W. G. (2014, June). An investigation into energy-saving programming practices for android smartphone app development. InProceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Green and Sustainable Software(pp. 46-53). ACM. Beyer, S., Pinzger, M. (2014, September). A manual categorization of android app development issues on stack overflow. InSoftware Maintenance and Evolution (ICSME), 2014 IEEE International Conference on(pp. 531-535). IEEE. Barnett, S., Vasa, R., Grundy, J. (2015, May). Bootstrapping mobile app development. InProceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering-Volume 2(pp. 657-660). IEEE Press. Gu, Y., Xu, C., Zheng, M. (2017, April). Using React Native in an Android App. InMICS2017-Conference Proceedings of Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium.