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Alyssa Velasquez
Ms. Ahonen, 5th period
English 2322
28 September 2016
Movie vs. Reading
Throughout any motion picture, it always displays the same, more intense, or soother sense of the reading it was produced from. The movie Beowulf and the textual reading, Beowulf is very different; in addition, the fight scene that is displayed in the movie and analysis, happens to be very comparable. Of course, as any movie there are differences in setting, and overall displacement in the movie; however, Beowulf and Grendel's fight scene is very unique. To start off, Grendel had only wanted to kill at Heriot because of a rumor he had heard, and treasures that were stolen. However, in the movie, they displayed he was “hurt” and “angered” because his father had left him.
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For the differences in the movie and poem, would all begin with Grendel slaying the Danes at night. In the poem, “down through the mist-bands God-cursed Grendel came greedily looping,” (712) making Grendel's first appearance being that nobody would have the chance to fight him. He went in, “madding for blood” (712) and as he saw ”many men in the mansion, sleeping” (713) he knew he had a greater advantage. However, in the movie, when Grendel first appears, everyone is awake and are able to witness the killings. One other dissimilarity would be based on how Grendel's arm had been ripped off. In in the movie, Beowulf is able to rip his arm off by swinging around a silver chain. By Beowulf doing so, he stops Grendel and cuts his arm off by slamming the Mead Hall door onto it. Beowulf wins the fight fair and square, meaning that he had defeated him by himself. He did not have any help, or anything happen; in addition, the victory was truly his.
The first battle in the poem occurs between Beowulf and Grendel because these characters best embody the Anglo-Saxon value of courage. Beowulf is the perfect representation of this value because he is reckless and says, “No weapons, therefore,/ for either this night: unarmed he shall face me” (Heaney 683-84). Thus when Beowulf proclaims that he is not using weapons he displays both honor and courage since it takes guts to go against a monster without an advantage. This quality was respected in his culture and the Anglo-Saxons made sure to make their epic hero a perfect fit for this trait. Grendel however, is the complete opposite
In both works, Beowulf and Grendel, Grendel himself is generally given the same connotations. He is given kennings, called names, referred to as the evil spawn of Cain, and even viewed as a monster; but why? Why in both books is he a wicked, horrible, person who is harshly excluded from everyone? After stumbling upon John Gardner's book, it was halfway expected that some excuse would be made for Grendel; that he wasn't really the inexorable monster the thanes in Beowulf portrayed him as. But all it really did was make him worse. What is the message we are being sent about Grendel?
The book Grendel, written by John Gardner, and the poem Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, both have very distinct opinions on what role each character plays. The translator of Beowulf and the writer of Grendel follow the idea that everyone has a story. A story is the writer’s perspective on a character’s personality, the way people in the story see and treat the character, and the way it ties the ideas together. There are many examples in these two writings of this concept, but the main instances connect with the lives of Grendel, Beowulf, and Unferth.
Even though, the values of Beowulf and Grendel are similar to the ones that I and my entire generation have grown up learning, both of the epic and movie have qualities that make me unable to come to a conclusion as to which of the works recounts the story of Beowulf and Grendel in a more exceptional way. Therefore, I give the forthcoming generations the responsibility of making that
Grendel in the novel Grendel by John Gardner, and Grendel in the poem Beowulf, which has an unknown author, presents two different views of the same character due to the perception differences of Gardner and the unknown author. Grendel in Beowulf and the story of his namesake both have notable similarities and differences that make each distinctive from one another.
He does not act like the blood hungry beast he is seen as in Beowulf. In
Throughout different translations of the Beowulf epic, composers put their unique touches on different situations to portray different ideas on the same issues that are brought up within the original old english version. This is truly evident during the portrayal of Grendel’s mother within the separate translations. The variance shown between translations helps to distinguish the differences between what each composer considers a villain to be personally. This is clearly evident between written translations and Robert Zemeckis film adaptation due to the visual imagery we receive when faced with Grendel’s mother. Even still their are small differences between written translations that play a major impact on how the author views villains as a whole. These differences helps the composers to display different viewpoints on how our society functions today.
There are numerous similitudes and contrasts between Beowulf the motion picture which was made in the year 2007, and the poem by an obscure Angelo Saxon poet. A large portion of the likenesses and contrasts are clear. The poem was changed into a motion picture and was more advanced and simpler to see then the epic poem itself. The movie happens to be more modern and gives the audience a better understanding of Beowulf and what happened during his life. It also helps the audience visualize it rather than having to picture the occurences while reading the poem.
In the beginning of the novel, we find that that a mysterious creature attacked Hrothgar, the king of Danes and his army. In response to the situation, Hrothgar decides to call Beowulf who happens to his nephew. In this account of the story Beowulf is the hero to the Danes. He defeats the monster and it's mother. In contrast, in the novel Grendel, Grendel tells the story from his perspective. He describes to the how he wanted to be friends with the humans. In hi attempt to communicate, he is unsuccessful and finds himself being attacked. After trying several more times to befriend the humans, he deices to carry out his plan of being what society ‘wants’ him to be.
In the movie, this version of Beowulf does what the other Beowulf would have never done for a monster he just finished slaying. He builds a memorial in honor of Grendel. This shows Beowulf's remorse for killing him. An emotion the Beowulf from the epic didn't seem to have. Beowulf also shows mercy on Grendel's son when Beowulf decides not to kill him. This mercy is something that was not present at all in the epic's portrayal of Beowulf. If a deed would bring glory to the name of Beowulf, then he wouldn't hesitate to do it.
In both John Gardner’s Grendel, and the poem Beowulf, there are significant differences between characters, and the way they are portrayed in each of the tellings. The interpretation of a hero is usually altered in order to fit the audience, such as, Saddam Hussein in America is made out to be this monster whereas, in his home country Iraq, he is looked at as a hero and idolized by some. In each telling, Grendel and Beowulf have many similarities in how they are described in each writing, but each character is also shown in a different light in each of the writings.
Grendal, a descendant of Cain, is one of the main antagonist of the poem Beowulf. He lives under an inherited curse and is denied God’s presence. Throughout the story Grendal causes enormous grief and fear to the people of Herot. After so much pain and agony the king of Herot, Hrothgar, sends for the protagonist of the poem, Beowulf. He is a Geat and the epic hero of the poem. The wide variety of distinctions between Grendal and Beowulf is what develops the climax of the composition. Beowulf kills Grendal, so he is honored by the people of Herot for his heroic act. Since Grendal and Beowulf play opposite roles in the poem, Beowulf, they let the reader know how contrasting characters can develop the plot of the story.
There are many similarities and differences between the movie "Beowulf and Grendel", to the poem. Major differences between the movie and the poem would be Grendel himself. In the poem, he is described as an evil monster born from two demons. In the movie, Grendel is actually human, but known as a troll to the warriors and Danes. The poem doesn’t give the background of Grendel or show how the Danes killed his father and the possible reason of his revenge, like in the movie. If the witch, Selma, was not included in the storyline of the movie, the audience would not have known key information that she was used to show from more flashbacks. The witch gives more of an idea about Grendel’s past life that could have been the possibility to reasons for his actions. Some major similarities are the battles. Both epics include the battles between Beowulf and Grendel, as well as Beowulf and Grendel’s mother. The end results are the same, leading to their death, but the journey and process to the two tales are different.
The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic chronicling the illustrious deeds of the great Geatish warrior Beowulf, who voyages across the seas to rid the Danes of an evil monster, Grendel, who has been wreaking havoc and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land of a fiendish monster and halting its scourge of evil while the monster is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves to die because of its evil actions. In the epic poem, Beowulf the authors portrays Grendel as a cold-hearted beast who thrives on the pain of others. Many have disagreed with such a simplistic and biased representation of Grendel and his role in the epic poem. John Gardner in his book, Grendel set out to change the reader’s perception of Grendel and his role in Beowulf by narrating the story through Grendel’s point of view. John Gardner transforms the perceived terrible evil fiend who is Grendel into a lonely but intelligent outcast who bears a striking resemblance to his human adversaries. In Grendel, John Gardner portrays Grendel as an intelligent being capable of rational thought as well as displaying outbursts of emotion. He portrays Grendel as a hurt individual and as a victim of oppression ostracized from civilization. The author of Beowulf portrays Grendel as the typical monster archetype as compared to John Gardner’s representation of Grendel as an outcast archetype.
The movie kept to the origin of how Beowulf came to help king Hrothgar. He came to defeat Grendel and pay his wergild. Grendel was also a monster who killed and incapacitated people in the hall. They both had Grendel lose an arm in the fight, but they had him lose it in different ways. They both had journey's to fight Grendel’s mom and the dragon, but both of the tales had different outcomes. Nevertheless Beowulf still became king in the two stories, it was just a matter of where he ruled, that made the