The dragon tells Grendel that he has a place in the universe. What is his place?

Grendel’s encounter with the dragon is an encounter with the philosophies of materialism and nihilism. The dragon directly contradicts the Shaper’s concept of God, insisting instead that the universe is impersonal and consists simply of entities that exist. The dragon also offers Grendel a place in this universe: he is the monster, the affliction on humanity that will lead the human race to think, to create, and to develop. Grendel has difficulty understanding the dragon’s words and so cannot immediately accept his place in the universe according to the dragon’s metaphysics. He falls back to the Shaper’s views, which he at least finds comprehensible, if not palatable.