Grendel vs Beowulf
Grendel and Beowulf are both interesting books although Grendel may have done wrong by killing, the story he tells makes him seem very intelligent and that he is not just a killer. However, one of these stories is better than the other, sure Beowulf is a good story too, but Grendel is overall better .The author in Grendel uses more of a creative word choice. Grendel’s book portrays the story better because of the detail in the story, the specific, smart, and variety of word choice that Grendel uses and lastly, the huge fight at the end of the story has much more detail and it creates images in the reader's head, it has more action and it made the fight more understandable. With all these things being said
The specific,
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variety, and smart word choice in the book Grendel makes the story more interesting. As used in Grendel, “He bleats, falling, flopping, over with a jerk too quick for the eye, and bleats again, scrambling, sliding toward the ledge-slide.” Using words such as bleat (to whimper or cry), flopping, and scrambling gives the story more of a wow factor. Another example would be “ My belly rumbles, sick on their sour meat. I crawl through the bloodstained leaves to the eaves of the forest, and there peak out. The dogs fall silent at the edge of my spell, and where the King’s hall surmounts the town.” He uses so many smart words that one wouldn’t think a big hairy monster would say. This makes Grendel sound smart which overthrows the book Beowulf. Beowulf makes Grendel sound like a useless and dumb monster that just kills people for no reason. Grendel is actually really smart and actually emotional. The huge fight between Grendel and Beowulf was explained really differently in both stories.
Beowulf’s version was pretty simple and did not have a lot of detail in it. The whole time Grendel and Beowulf were fighting, Beowulf kept whispering to him and he was chanting a song in Grendel's ear. “ A meaningless swirl in the stream of time, a temporary gathering of bliss, a few random specks, a cloud … complexities: green dust, purple dust, gold. Additional refinements: sensitive dust, copulating dust.” Keep in mind, Beowulf is holding on very tightly to Grendel, “ Nowhere on middle-earth, I realize, have I encountered a grip like his.” All this creates an image in the reader's head. In the book Beowulf the battle at the end seems very bland and not interesting, it does not mention the chants that Beowulf was saying to Grendel while he was beating him up.
The detail in both Grendel and Beowulf are outstanding. Grendel though describes everything with more detail. Everything in Grendel gives the reader an image in their head. One example would be, “ The old ram stands looking down over rockslides stupidly.” This examples gives the reader a image in his head of what is happening. Grendel uses actions to describe what he is trying to explain. He says that a ram is looking down a rockslide, and immediately it makes a picture in the reader's head of a ram looking down a
rockslide. Although Beowulf is a great story, Grendel is better in the sense of quality. He uses description, and language that makes him seem not stupid, and he explains the fight in the story with great detail that Beowulf did not. Grendel turned out to be very intelligent for a big and hairy monster. He is very emotional and the book Beowulf does not describe him like that in the book Beowulf he is described as a monster who eats people for no reason. Grendel’s story showed a whole new side of him that one would not know if one just read Beowulf,
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?
It is the jealousy of Unfurth to Grendel, the hatred of Unfurth to Beowulf, and the conflict between Beowulf and Grendel that give the book Grendel and the poem Beowulf the theme that everyone has a story. All their differences tie the characters together and when things connect it creates a good balance in the story. The amount of tension that is caused by these characters creates the makings of a good story.
Beowulf wants to fight Grendel, a monster wreaking havoc, and is boasting that he is more powerful and courageous.
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
The battle with Grendel’s mother differ from the battle with Grendel because when Beowulf fought with Grendel he used no weapon “my hands alone should fight for me” line 174. On the day of the battle, when Grendel saw Beowulf he was scared for the first time “ Grendel's one thought was to run from Beowulf, flee back to his marsh and hide there.” line 278 But when Beowulf fought with Grendel’s mother, at the beginning Beowulf was fighting for his live “ For the first time in years of being worn to war it would earn no glory” line 484 Beowulf was losing , she was to fast and “no sword could slice her evil skin.” He needed his weapons fight for him, and Grendel’s mother was not scared of his strength as Grendel
He does not act like the blood hungry beast he is seen as in Beowulf. In
Whether one watches the movie and then reads the poem, or does the opposite, it is almost too easy to spot the differences in the story and the two cultures. Beowulf is very descriptive but at the same time leaves a lot to the reader to imagine. It can also be considered, in some ways, a tall tale, as no human being can swim while carrying 30 pieces of armour. “But Beowulf's prodigious gifts as a swimmer guaranteed his safety: he arrived at the shore, shouldering thirty battle-dresses, the booty he had won.” Narrator, 2359-2362. The Beowulf in the poem is also materialistic, greedy, and ruthless. The Beowulf in Beowulf and Grendel isn’t slaying monsters for the gold and fame. He is also sympathetic to Grendel when he realized that he, to, had feelings and a family. At the end of the movie he lights a funeral pyre for Grendel as Grendel’s son watches from a distance. The story was more than likely changed to fit the likes of today’s audience, as we can relate more to compassion and realism than we can heartlessness and
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.
Although Beowulf was written thousands of years ago, when compared with Grendel, it acts as an example of propaganda of a certain perspective that was used throughout the history, even today.
There are differences between Grendel in the novel, Grendel, and the Grendel from Beowulf. Grendel from the novel is into philosophy, teaches himself of human characteristics, and has deep thoughts of on the events on the events in his life. Grendel in Beowulf, is animalistic, cruel, and is thoughtless. Even though both the novel and the epic poem deal with the same character, the differences are great between them. The similarities between both Grendels are that they both are bloodthirsty, and described, but that’s where they typically end. This could be because the author of Grendel, John Gardner, decided to have the character from the poem, but wanted to have his own ideas on why Grendel is the way he is.
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.
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.
Beowulf and Grendel (Gunnarsson 2005) depicts a very different protagonist than the one in the epic (Heaney 2000). The Beowulf in the film learns how to have mercy as the movie progresses, while the epic Beowulf is very flat. This is due to the fact that the modern culture is very different from that of the epic. Our culture isn't content with such characters. We want our characters to have more lifelike characteristics such as emotions and a change of heart.
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.
One aspect that was the most apparent was the fact that he was such an outcast. In Beowulf, Grendel was “…living down in the darkness, growl[ing] in pain…” because he knew that he did not belong with the Danes and other human beings at all (Raffel 6). Similarly, in Grendel, as interested as he was with the humans and their way of life, he still found himself “…back[ing] away till the honeysweet lure of the harp no longer mocked [him]” (Gardner 4). Grendel was constantly distancing himself from the human beings because he knew he did not belong and they were not willing to give him the gift of acceptance into their group. However, this outlook carried through with Grendel between the two stories to portray just how monstrous and estranged he