Being an outcast is hard and no one wants to be one. When someone is labeled an outcast the try their hardest to break their way back in. In the movie Divergent, Al starts off in a circle of friends, however as the film progresses, the competition for a spot above the red line gets a little more intense. Al starts to fall behind, and Tris starts to make a comeback. This pushes Al lower on the board. Al begins to become an outcast as he drops to a lower spot on the board and he realizes that there is no way he will make it above the red line unless he does something about Tris. If Tris continues at the rate she is going she will bump Al out of dauntless and into that factionless. Al comes to the conclusion that there is only one thing he can …show more content…
do, kill Tris. With Tris gone he has a much better chance of getting back above the line. This shows the length of which people will go to avoid being label an outcast. Al is willing to kill his friend just to further himself in a competition and socially. The definition of an outcast is a person who has been rejected by society or a social group. This definition perfectly describes the situation that Al is in. in the beginning of the movie when everyone has just entered dauntless Tris, Cristina, Will, and Al form a small friend group. As the film progresses they grow closer. Al starts to drift apart when the competition gets more intense as they are told that cuts will be made and if you are cut you will become factionless. This motivates everyone to work that much harder than they already are. On the board it becomes very apparent that Tris is going to bump all below the red line. Al is taunted about ho he is going to become factionless and how he is going to lose his spot in dauntless to Tris. All the taunting and teasing motivates Al to do something horrible. He decides that the only way that he could make it above the red line is to kill Tris. This shows the lengths of which people will go to, to avoid being an outcast. Al was willing to kill his friend in order to stay dauntless and not be labeled as an outcast. In the story of Beowulf it is very clear who the outcast is.
Grendel is made fun of his whole life just based on the way he looks and sounds. All Grendel wanted was to have friends and be included in things, however he is shunned and is forced into hiding in a cave far away from everyone. When the mead hall is opened everyone is invited and welcomed to come and have a good time except Grendel. This makes Grendel very upset and he becomes filled with rage. Instead of going and telling the king how that made him feel he decides to speak with his actions. Grendel goes to the mead hall and goes on a rampage killing and breaking everything and everyone in his way. Grendel did this because of how he was treated as a child both by society and his mother. Through his childhood his mother was never really there when Grendel needed her the most. On night Grendel went out on his own and got stuck in a tree. Grendel screamed for his mother "Please, Mama!”, "Owp!" I yelled. "Mama! Waa!" but she didn’t come. Time past as Grendel sat stuck in the tree until a group of men came up to the tree. The sat there on their horses staring at grendel saying things like "It's a growth of some kind, that's my opinion. Some beastlike fungus.” The men discussed what it could be until one got off his horse and said “Could be its some kind of an Oaktree spirit.” They came to the conclusion that he was hungry so the men went to get pigs. When the men left Grendel laughed because he was happy to get food. The men thought that the sound meant he was angry and moved back, then without any warning one of them picked up an ax and hurled it right at Grendel. He screamed “Surround him!” they started throwing rocks and poking Grendel with sticks, he yelled for his mother again and again and finally she came. Grendel’s mother came running in screaming and roaring. The men got so scared they hoped on their horses and rode home without looking back. The way Grendel was treated as a child has a direct
correlation with him being an outcast. Grendel being an outcast made him feel unwanted and he took his anger out on the people who hurt him. In the lord of the flies from the very first page it is clear that piggy is picked on based off his looks. Even his name is a crude nickname making fun of his weight. Piggy just like Al and Grendel is an outcast.
Grendel, as a character, has a much more complex identity than just a monster and a human. Some, such as Ruud, classify him as a mixture of three different characteristics, but alone, they tend to conflict with each other. By making the connection that Grendel represents immorality, the previous idea makes more sense, while simultaneously incorporating more aspects of the character into the analysis. In either case, Grendel represents much more than meets the eye, and provides a fascinating insight into
Throughout John Gardner’s Grendel, the audience bears witness to a creature who has been ostracized by the world around him. Throughout his journey, the stories protagonist tries to live out his own life the way he wants to, despite being labeled as evil by those around him. Due to this constant criticism by his peers, he develops an inferiority complex that he desperately tries to make up for as the story progresses. Throughout his development, Grendel very rapidly moves past his existentialist beginning, through a brief phase of forced skepticism, and into a severely nihilistic point of view.
Upon arrival at the mead hall, Grendel notices the door is much to small for him to enter through it easily. This does not make him happy because it happens everywhere he goes in the little human towns. So he squeezes his shoulders through the small opening and manages to ask the man at the nearest table what was going on. The man, being exhausted from his own celebrations, was to tired to even notice the beast standing over him. Monsters of Grendel's type are not used to be ignored and see it as disrespectful and so do not like to be ignored. Which is why Grendel pulled his head from the doorway and reached his claw in to snatch up unsuspecting man. Everyone else in the room was too busy to even notice the man being lifted from his place behind his drink. With the first man out of the way, Grendel decided to try a different approach. Again, scrunching himself down partway through the door, Grendel looked for someone to tell him what was going on. He cleared his throat and said with a rough, gravelly voice, "Excuse me!" No one noticed. So he said it louder, "Excuse me!" A few heads turned. After a number of astonished gasps, more turned to see. Detecting he was now the center of attention, Grendel asked what they were all doing making so much noise so late at night. The men only stared at him. So he asked more simply and slowly, not knowing if they were intelligent or not, "What are you doing?" The only response this time was an echoed "Get him!" This surprised Grendel because they seemed to say it in unison. He jumped slightly and hit his head on the doorway. He stood up and rubbed his head and knocked over a horse and its cart with his foot.
Grendel, surprisingly, adapts quite well to his society despite its detestation of his existence. Grendel live is a rattlesnake-guarded cave, which allows himself to detach from his society, giving him the necessary space to cope with the troublesome thoughts among his people about Grendel. Unlike Frankenstein, Grendel tries to associate with the members of his civilization but is rejected every time he tries to do so. Every night Grendel goes to Herot to listen to the Sharper’s stories because the history interests him. He is quite intrigued and appreciative of the tales he hears, but when he comes in contact with those from Herot, they do not reciprocate the appreciation of his presence in Herot. The ones he admires so much taunt and torture him to the point they try to kill him for “intruding.” As retaliation, Grendel fights back and raids Herot every night.
This essay is the comparison between Beowulf and a modern day hero. I consider any American soldier to be my modern day hero. In this essay I will explain in three paragraphs of how my modern day hero is like Beowulf. With in these three paragraphs I will go over how they are both fighting for a good cause, how they are both rewarded for what they do, and how they are both treated with much respect.
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.
Grendel feels like an outcast in the society he lives in causing him to have a hard time finding himself in the chaotic world. He struggles because the lack of communication between he and his mother. The lack of communication puts Grendel in a state of depression. However, Grendel comes in contact with several characters with different philosophical beliefs, which allows his to see his significance in life. Their views on life influence Grendel to see the world in a meaningful way.
...n very human feelings of resentment and jealousy. Grendel was an unstable and saddened figure because of his outcast status. Though Grendel had many animal attributes and a grotesque, monstrous appearance, he seemed to be guided by vaguely human emotions and impulses. He truthfully showed more of an interior life than one might expect. Exiled to the swamplands outside the boundaries of human society, Grendel’s depiction as an outcast is a symbol of the jealousy and hate that seeks to destroy others' happiness and can ultimately cripple a civilization. This take on the outcast archetype ultimately exposes the Anglo Saxon people’s weaknesses, their doubts and anxieties towards the traditional values that bounded nearly every aspect of their life.
“I Am Beowulf” an infamous line from the movie Beowulf. The Movie Beowulf directed by Robert Zemeckis is an animated film which is an adaptation from the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf whose author is unknown. There are many differences between the film and Anglo-Saxon poem that include Beowulf’s characteristics, Grendel’s fight with Beowulf and how Grendel dies, Grendel’s mother and her fight with Beowulf, Hrothgar and his actions, Beowulf’s kingdom and the fight with the dragon. The Differences between Beowulf the poem and Beowulf the movie are very large.
While Grendel enters the world with the naiveté and positive outlook of an everyday child, he quickly learns that he will not live the life he has imagined. He learns that he can not verbally communicate with his own mother and sees the mechanical layout of life. This isolation initiates Grendel’s inevitable separation from society in general, leading him to the belief that he will never be able to be a part of something bigger than himself. His lack of communication with his mother, the only being he is close to, initiates his psychological journey to fully giving in to the belief of nihilism. This occurs when Grendel, at a young age, gets his leg caught in a tree. At this point he “ twisted around as far as [he] could , hunting wildly for her shape on the cliffs, but there was nothing, or rather, there was everything but my mother” (14). This displays Grendel’s drastic separation from his mother, and his desperation to receive her aid and care, which proves to be futile. This separa...
Beowulf represents what a modern hero truly is rather than Dante the pilgrim, because he displays qualities of courage, pride, and humility. In order to be considered a modern hero the individual must demonstrate these particular qualities, and courage, pride, and humility should be reflected in the actions they make.
Throughout a lifetime, only so much conflict could be bore upon oneself. There is always a breaking point, the important aspect is the timing. From my story Wuthering Heights to Beowulf and Canterbury Tales there are conflicts that have been exaggerated and then blown to preposterous proportions. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight there are conflicts between man and man just like there are in the world we live in today. Conflicts in books or stories could show what is going on in the real world or what an author is thinking and making up.In Wuthering Heights there could be two different conflicts man vs. man, with the conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar, as well as a conflict of man vs. self, with the inner conflict that Catherine faces in deciding between Heathcliff and Edgar. Every story has conflicts, similarities, literary devices, cultural happenings, and even more. The question to be asked is ‘Why?’, ‘Why is there a conflict?’ or ‘Why is the author saying that?’. Upon reading Beowulf, Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Le Morte d’Arthur, Macbeth, and Wuthering Heights, the answers have become more clear and distinct. Now the question to be asked is ‘What is the next book to be read?’.
From the darkness of his home life, to the murders bread in his heritage, how could one not argue he was destined for the life of a bloodthirsty monster? But the family of the deceased held the biggest grudge of them all. They gave Grendel the name of the horrible monster that everyone feared. The family and friends told the stories of the way Grendel had smashed, and ripped apart, with his claws, the bodies of the sleeping soldiers. But if only they would have been kind to Grendel in the beginning of when he had first tried to establish friendship. If the villagers had not run away, screaming words of rejection, Grendel might have been able to hold onto his little peace he had once had. But instead, he had been automatically turned into the misunderstood monster that everyone
Grendel spent his childhood being alone by himself and his mother was the only creature that live with him in the cavern and she was always watching him.” I understood that the world was nothing: a mechanical chaos of casual, brute enmity on which we stupidly impose our hopes and fears.. All the rest, I saw, is merely what pushes me, or what I push against, blindly—as blindly as all that is not myself pushes back.” Someday Grendel found himself trapped in a tree. He was calling for his mother help, but she does not answer him. He was in a lot of pain and and desperation, he sees her shape in a black rock, in a shadow and in a cave entrance
In the Anglo-Saxon time period the major values were bravery, honor and loyalty. Beowulf and wiglaf demonstrate these values by standing up to villains, fighting a fair fight and protecting the people of the public. These values later carried on into modern day heroes, such as, Batman who displays these values by fighting evil in Gotham City by sticking to his honor code, and not being afraid to stand up to the evil villains in order to protect the public. Although, ages apart both Beowulf and Batman share these values. The epic Beowulf shows the values of the Anglo-saxons that later reflected in modern day heroes.