How we cite our quotes: (Page) Vintage Books, 1989
Quote #4
"You are, so to speak, the brute existent by which they learn to define themselves. The exile, captivity, death they shrink from—the blunt facts of their mortality, their abandonment—that's what you make them recognize, embrace! You are mankind, or man's condition: inseparable as the mountain-climber and the mountain. If you withdraw, you'll instantly be replaced. Brute existents, you know, are a dime a dozen." (73)
Grendel wants out of the cruddy role he's been assigned in life, but the dragon is not doing much to encourage a "job change" here. In fact, he's encouraging Grendel to embrace his inner monster and do what he does best—terrorize the stuffing out of human beings. In a sense, the dragon has embraced reality in a positive way. If you're born to be bad, he says, you might as well be bad. It's just as useful as being good, and it doesn't force everyone else to think (you know, if you're a monster and don't act like a monster, people will have to question their assumptions).
Quote #5
Whatever I may have understood or misunderstood in the dragon's talk, something much deeper stayed with me, became my aura. Futility, doom, became a smell in the air, pervasive and acrid as the dead smell after a forest fire—my scent and the world's, the scent of trees, rocks, waterways wherever I went. (75)
The nihilistic, existentialist philosophy of the dragon has become a tangible factor in Grendel's life, even after he leaves the dragon's lair. He's definitely a changed monster. All of his admiration for beauty—as well as his desire to become something he was never born to be—has now vanished. In a way, although he's charmed by the dragon and invulnerable to things like sword blades, Grendel comes away a more wounded animal. The world of possibilities that once opened up before him has suddenly closed in around him.
Quote #6
I had become, myself, the mama I'd searched the cliffs for once in vain. But that merely hints at what I mean. I had become something, as if born again. I had hung between possibilities before, between the cold truths I knew and the heart-sucking conjuring tricks of the Shaper; now that was passed: I was Grendel, Ruiner of Meadhalls, Wrecker of Kings! (80)
Grendel has taken the dragon's advice at face value: embrace the evil inside you, and help those humans define themselves as the opposite-of-you. After his first raid on Hart, he can feel the power of being the center of chaos. He's the guy everyone is watching out for now; he's no longer simply the target of all the slings and arrows of the universe. Grendel feels a kind of euphoria at this new definition of self—pretty heady stuff (pun intended).