Grendel And Beowulf Compare And Contrast

eowulf and Grendel

Beowulf and Grendel from the book are significantly different from Beowulf and Grendel(Gunnarsson,2005) from the movie.(Heaney,2000) Beowulf and Grendel from the book are one dimensional characters, and the Beowulf and Grendel from the movie act more complex than in the book. The Beowulf from the movie expresses the cultural belief of morality when he changes throughout the movie of how he feels about Grendel while Grendel from the movie shows the cultural belief of prejudice.

Beowulf from the book is one dimensional and not changing at all during the course of the book. Sticking by Hrothgar never questioning why Grendel is attacking or what Grendel is. Also viewing Grendel as an evil that he just needs to kill for instance,”Then news of Grendel, hard to ignore, reached me at home...”. As well as beliefs in cultural value that something is either good or evil. He starts as a hero looking to save the day and boasting about other triumphs such as,”I battled and bound five beasts,raided a troll-nest and in

the night-sea slaughtered sea-brutes. I have suffered extremes and avenged the Geats”(Heaney,2000). Beowulf has the strength of thirty men which make him seem almost like a God, but just a little less than a God. He is just this noble person that people look up to. Beowulf is so one dimensional it's tough to relate to him. Anglo-Saxon culture is more relatable to that type of hero than heroes we have today in our culture whereas their Gods were basically their heroes. They wanted a character like Beowulf in Anglo-Saxon culture because he basically had no flaws which, if he did the Geats and Danes would have seen that as a weakness. When they have gods like Thor, Odin, Loki, and Malekith it makes him seem equal to them.
Beowulf from the movie was more relatable with our culture. Not the perfect hero of the epic, or the enormous hulking figure of the epic that has the strength of thirty men. It's something our culture is more likable to the general audience. If Beowulf of the epic was present in the movie the audience would regard him as dull and uninteresting. He starts as the Beowulf and in the epic, however, changes to find out why Grendel does what he does. At first he identifies Grendel as some evil troll that he needs to rid the world of then he realized that Grendel can talk and has a name. Grendel also doesn't attack Beowulf, which causes Beowulf to question. The point where Beowulf starts to question the events transpiring is when Hrothgar doesn't tell Beowulf anything about Grendel. Hrothgar acts in a way rude about giving Beowulf information, he basically goes around the question. By the end of the movie Beowulf finds that Grendel has a son and Grendel isn't as bad as people thought him to be. He just held the people responsible for killing his dad. Beowulf also builds a shrine to commemorate Grendel. Our culture believes heroes should have good values expressed through Beowulf
Grendel on the other hand is more one dimensional in the epic than Beowulf. Grendel doesn’t give a reason to attack the mead hall, but just an arbitrary reason to have a villain. There is not any real sympathy to find and the author probably didn’t want you to. Anglo-Saxon culture was either good or bad. If a creature was imperfect they wanted to be prejudice towards the creature.Grendel is not a character in the epic that gets as much time as other characters.With Beowulf he tells all these stories that give some backstory. The only true backstory that is presented about Grendel is that he is a descendent of Cain,”Grendel was the name of this grim demon haunting the marches, marauding round the heath and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time in misery among the banished monsters, Cain's clan”. In Anglo-Saxon culture not knowing about the villain of the story was good .
The Grendel from the movie has more backstory than in the epic.

You find out he is dad died when he was just a child. That gives him his reason to attack the mead hall. He also doesn't try and harm Hrothgar. Maybe it's due to when he spared him when he was a child and remembers him. We also find out he has a child with the witch. That could be why they added his son so when Grendel dies, you feel sorry for his kid not having a father. In the epic he is dignified as a monster, but in the movie he's actually smarter than you'd think in that he only attacks people that have done him wrong.

The epic and the movie Beowulf and Grendel have many cultural differences. These differences are major differences from what our culture's view as entertainment are unquestionably different. The two Beowulf and Grendel are great examples of this. They give us two different ways of looking at the characters. One for our culture and another for

theirs