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Existentialism

Existentialism. Defined as: philosophy that maintains that existence precedes essence; concerned with humanity’s perpetual, anguished struggle to exist. PRESUMPTIONS:. Individuals have free will; they are entirely responsible for their own actions.

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Existentialism

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  1. Existentialism Defined as: philosophy that maintains that existence precedes essence; concerned with humanity’s perpetual, anguished struggle to exist.

  2. PRESUMPTIONS: • Individuals have free will; they are entirely responsible for their own actions. • There is no predestination (no deterministic systems, such as fate). • Individuals freely construct and use their own value systems. • They form their own sense of being and creating meaning in the process of the above.

  3. Rejection of value systems, and rules. The individual is the “engine of change.” Risks: despair, hopelessness, and nihilism. Kierkegaard and Marcel vs.. Heidegger and Sartre. E. since WWII: Theological Theorists: Christian Existentialists believe that true freedom may be found in God. Atheistic Existentialists believe that individuals exercise their free will to make themselves; they engage in the social sphere, such as the political struggle against institutions, laws, and conventions. Presumptions (Cont.)

  4. Existentialist Theory: Atheists • Stress the loneliness and despair; the alienation that is essential and inescapable. • Uncertainty. • Focus on the essential meaninglessness of the universe and man’s struggle to CREATE meaning.

  5. More on Existentialism • No Divine Absolutes--define yourself. • {Grendel speaks from Sartre’s POV} • NO rational reason for being; human life is futile passion; we must sculpt our own meaning; no moral law--all lead to dread and anxiety. • The dragon=the divine absolute. • In religion we are given an “essence.”

  6. An important tool for amplification and insight into the story and characters in Beowulf. Its tone is dark and pessimistic; however, the ultimate goal is to discover how Grendel is wrong: the world is not meaningless! Grendel: he tells his story from his point of view; He is at time vicious, pathetic, comic and insightful. He forces us to examine human civilization. Grendel

  7. Quotations to Look For: • “I understood that, finally and absolutely, I alone exist… I create the whole universe blink by blink.---An ugly god pitifully dying in a tree!” • “You stimulate them! You make them think and scheme. You drive them to poetry, science, religion, all that makes them what hey are for as long as they last.”

  8. Quotations: • “As you see it is, while the seeing lasts, dark nightmare history, time as coffin; but where the water was rigid there will be fish, and men will survive on their flesh till spring. It’s coming, my brother, whether you believe it or not…By that I kill you.”

  9. Monsters as Symbols: they are symbols of fears, dangers, and evils which any society that seeks to SURVIVE must face. Monsters are in: Folklore, myth, gothic works, science fiction, comics, and horror movies. Need of the human psyche to face and defeat these symbols of fear. The monster must be destroyed. Symbolism

  10. GARDNER: Style and Purpose • GRENDEL: less of the heroic ideal. • Use of his eclectic style enlivens his poetic prose; • Mixture of poetry, allusion, myth and “black humor;” • Tone of “despairing nihilism;” • Kennings • Use of the number twelve (12)! • Theme of Pessimism--- • (irony, heroic illusion, hypocrisy…) • No “heroic perfection.” • Hrothgar and his men struggle with a lifestyle that demands fighting and bloodshed; • Their religion provides no answers.

  11. GARDNER • GRENDEL: less of the heroic ideal. • No “heroic perfection.” • Hrothgar and his men struggle with a lifestyle that demands fighting and bloodshed; • Their religion provides no answers.

  12. Twelve Chapters. Five are “story.” Seven are “flashbacks. Flashbacks establish character, history and reasons for the feud. Non-linear chronology. Flashbacks enable Grendel to understand his motives. First person POV shows Grendel trying to make sense of his behavior; This reads like a confessional--yet Grendel denies himself “absolution,” At the end, he still believes that everything is accident; nothing matters. STRUCTURE

  13. More on Structure: • Interior monologue: • Grendel is a monster, but shares intelligence, language, and the search for meaning with the humans in the novel.

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