preview

How Is Beowulf An Epic Hero

Decent Essays

The Tale of Beowulf; the Magnificent.
Upon research I discovered the comparison between the movie and the book contrast severely, however some aspects of the movie are similar. Beowulf is the epic hero- or so the poem makes him seem. He commits acts of bravery, he’s ready to fight, he’s primal, and he’s willing; all the qualities the poem gives to Beowulf. Whether the book or the movie he’s been given the qualities of an epic hero, after all he’s “Higlac[‘s] cousin and [his] king[.]” Nevertheless the way the reader should feel about Beowulf was told different in both poem and movie
One cannot take away from Beowulf’s boldness, and of course his boastful personality- Zemekis’ movie especially cannot take away from this. He can, though, take the epic Beowulf down a couple notches by making him seem like a liar, which is exactly what he did. Yes, Beowulf is still the same character …show more content…

In the film version, Beowulf talks about his many qualities that make him epic enough, “[but] wasn’t it three” said one of the comrades of Hrothgar after Beowulf just finished talking about the reasons he didn’t win the match between him and Brecca in Unferth’s challenge. Robert Zemekis even changes up the battle (or what we thought would be a battle) between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother by making it seem as if there was a sexual relations between the two them, enough so that Beowulf gets a son. This fortifies Beowulf, as the very flawed hero, which fell for a monsters trickery. In the film version also, when Grendel the first monster (there were three, I checked) first encountered Hrothgar he was portrayed as a gentle giant. The first thing we could obviously

Get Access