Conflict of conflicts in Grendel
...someone to share their life with while he was all-alone, the only creature of his kind. He comes to a conclusion saying, "I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears," and that, “I exist, nothing else (28).” Due to this feeling of jealousy, Grendel tries to find love in other places. When he finds the dragon and is told of the great feeling of having treasure, he latches onto it. He states during one of his killing rampages, “But though I laughed, I felt trapped, as hollow as a rotten tree (81).” Whenever he would kill someone, he would feel a momentary joy, but the gap would quickly return. He also talks about how all the earthly things don’t seem to fill him, "I eat and I laugh and eat until I can barely walk, my chest-hair matted with dribbled blood, and then the roosters on the hill crow, and dawn comes again over the roofs of the houses, and all at once I am filled with gloom again." An external conflict is a struggle between two characters, the protagonist and the antagonist. Grendel has many enemies, it could be said that his greatest enemy was Hrothgar, lord of the Danes. Grendel is helpless in eternity, and the men try to change the nature of his life. Grendel believes his helplessness is the meaning of life and goes to “teach” Hrothgar and his people a lesson by killing them. As Grendel begins taking over the greatest kingdom of his world, the humans are not allowed to live in the peace that Hro...