A major theme in John Gardner's Grendel is the constant competition between ideas of the meaning of life and existentialism. Throughout the novel, Grendel undergoes constant spiritual decay to the point of denying any value or meaning in life itself. According to him, the world is nothing more than “a mechanical chaos of casual and brutal enmity upon which we foolishly impose our hopes and fears” (16). This progression begins at a young age and, over the course of Grendel's twelve years of life, comes close to a total commitment to this theory. Due to the actions of his mother, the dragon, and man in general, Grendel ultimately dies in the misery created by this belief that his life is nothing but programming, machinery, and random chance. As Grendel enters the world with the naivety and positive outlook of an everyday child, he soon learns that he will not live the life he imagined. He learns that he cannot communicate verbally with his mother and sees the mechanical structure of life. This isolation begins Grendel's inevitable separation from society at large, leading him to the belief that he will never be able to be part of anything greater than himself. His lack of communication with his mother, the only being he is close to, begins his psychological journey towards total surrender to the belief in nihilism. This occurs when Grendel, at a young age, gets his leg trapped in a tree. At this point “he turned as far as he could, searching wildly for her silhouette on the cliffs, but there was nothing, or rather, everything was there except my mother” (14). This shows Grendel's drastic separation from his mother and his desperate need to receive her help and care, which proves to be futile. This separation…half of the paper…just as Grendel, frustrated, shouts, “Use your reason!” (122). The brain-dead creatures that Grendel observes only support the Dragon's theories, and although Grendel desperately wants to see meaning in the lives of the creatures he encounters, he is left only to witness the pitiful effects of the life-theory mechanism in which the Dragon has buried him . At the end of Grendel's life, he dies surrounded by his main frustration, a group of animals he has seen his entire life, only wanting them to claim a life of their own. This final scene is depicted with a sense of relief, as Grendel is finally leaving the life he has been trapped in, without any trace in his mind of meaning, meaning, or belief system. Ultimately, Grendel's lack of a belief system causes his ultimate downfall, and is his only way out of the confusing void he called his life..