How Is Beowulf And Grendel Alike

There are two sides to every story. The events may be the same, but the tone in which the story is told shapes the reader’s understanding of the events. This idea is never more evident than through the disparity between Burton Raffel’s translation of Beowulf and John Gardner’s Grendel. Both novels are based on the idea of Beowulf killing Grendel. However, the two different points of view telling the story create vastly different novels. Beowulf highlights the heroic and positive world in which Beowulf lives. Whereas Grendel elucidates on the miserable life that Grendel is circumscribed to. The consistent variance in tone skews the events in two completely different directions. The tone between Beowulf and Grendel differ in

Both of the pieces of literature, Grendel and Beowulf, contain the same story; it is just told from different viewpoints. Beowulf is an epic oratorical poem depicting the heroic Beowulf defeating the hideous creature that haunts the halls of Herot. Grendel, however, allows the reader to be able to experience the story from Grendel’s point of view. Though the books depict the same creature who possesses the same qualities, within Grendel, he is given more human characteristics and this makes the reader feel as though they are reading about a different being.

To honor the Beowulf’s heroic life and battles, I’ve been assigned as one of his closest warriors to exclaim his appellation and share the stories of his battles. One of the citizen came up to me and asked, “I heard that Beowulf was an amazing guy, but I never fully knew him. Could you tell me more about him?” I was extremely excited as this man was the first person to ever ask me about Beowulf. “Beowulf was a strong leader and a great friend. Although he might not have been a very humble man, he was nowhere near being a bully. He’s the type of man that would belittle anyone who hurts the weak and innocent. Beowulf was mettlesome and was never intimidated by any menace.” The man’s eyes were already widen. “He sounds like a guy I would wanna be protected by,” the citizen said, “Can you tell me about one of his battles?” I prepared myself as I was about to begin a long lecture of how strong Beowulf was.

Beowulf is about a warrior who fights a huge monster to show his loyalty to a king that was not even his. It was written in the Anglo-Saxon time period and this greatly affects the way the story is written. Grendel is written from the monster's point of view and this was written many years later.

One aspect of Grendel that is alike in both stories is the way he acts. In Grendel the monster kills many people. He does it very brutally too. "Enough of that! A night for tearing heads off, bathing in blood. Except, alas, h has killed his quota for the season. Care, take care of the gold-egg-laying goose! There is no limit to desire but desire's needs." This was Grendel's law. He does not take pity on any human. From his point of view, the humans deserved this and they were going to get it. These actions are the same in Beowulf

One major difference between the text and the movie is the characters. One of the characters that seem to differ quite a bit between the movie and the book is Beowulf. Everyone think of him as the hero that killed the monsters they were terrified of and probably would never think of a “hero” as a liar. In the book it never says anything about him lying about killing Grendel’s mother as it shows in the movie; according to the text “struck it with all the strength he had left, caught her in the neck and cut it through, broke bones and all. Her body fell to the floor…”(521). Another character in Beowulf that differs is Grendel, in the movie Grendel seemed to be able to communicate with the other

Spirituality is a prominent theme in both books. More specifically, the dichotomy between good and evil is one of the main themes in Beowulf, while existentialism and nihilism are the main beliefs in Grendel.

In the book as well as the movie Beowulf brings fourteen men to the land of the Danes and defeats Grendel. The first main difference is that in the book Grendel’s mother only kills one Dane, Aeschere. In the movie Grendel’s mother slays all of Beowulf’s men besides Wiglaf. At this time in the book Wiglaf is not present with Beowulf and his men, but only at the final battle against the dragon. In both the book and the movie Beowulf detaches Grendel’s arm and his mother returns to the hall for revenge. In the book Beowulf immediately follows Grendel’s mother to the underwater lair, but contrastingly in the movie Beowulf would have no knowledge of Grendel’s mother unless Hrothgar would not have told him. Beowulf kills Grendel’s mother and returns to Geatland to rule in the book, however in the movie Beowulf lies about killing Grendel’s mother and stays to rule in Denmark. Just as Beowulf brought Grendel’s head back in the book, he also did so in the movie. The book does not mention that Hrothgar was the son of Grendel or that Beowulf was the father of the dragon. In the book as well as the movie Beowulf defeats the dragon and dies as the hero of the epic even though he did it in a different way at a different place. The concluding difference includes Beowulf’s funeral. The book displays his funeral as a burial near the coast of the sea, but conversely in the movie his body is put on a burning ship sent out into the

The battle between Beowulf and Grendel's mother has its similarities and differences as well. Throughout the movie, clues are given about Grendel’s mother when encountering mysterious hands breaching the water while

When Grendel's mother arrives to torment the Danes, seeking vengeance for her son’s death, Beowulf’s fight with Grendel's mother

Both the epic poem Beowulf and the novel Grendel depict the same storyline, but from different point of views. Grendel’s personality tends to be much more evil than he himself depicts in the novel. Since Grendel is the narrator of the novel, the audience only gets to know what the story is like from his point of view, which he stretches the truth on numerous occasions. But, in Beowulf, the poem has a narrator and is in the third person omniscient, this means the audience knows how all the characters and feeling, thinking, or saying. Also, the theme nature vs. nurture appears a lot in Grendel which means his viewpoints on certain things are either

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

To begin, one of the many ways that Beowulf was different than Grendel is that Beowulf was brave. Every night Grendel snuck into Herot Hall to destroy King Hrothgar’s men. He did this while hiding in the shadows, sneaking around in the dead of night, and attacking while the men we asleep and at there most vulnerable. These are not the characteristics the brave, these are the characteristics of a foul, loathsome, cowardly beast. Mean while, Beowulf liked to meet a problem head on, in this case the problem was Grendel himself. Determined Beowulf sailed to Denmark to defeat Grendel, telling Hrothgar that he will take Grendel’s life with his bare hands. As told in the story, “ That mighty protector of men/ Meant to hold the monster till it’s life/ leaped out” (Raffel, 1963, l. 366-368). And when Beowulf got the chance to do just that, Grendel took the cowards road, “Grendel’s one thought

After defeating Grendel Beowulf enjoys the celebration and rewards that Hrothgar has treated him to. Beowulf earns the respect of the whole kingdom of Heorot. A few nights later Grendel’s mother learns that her son was killed by a human. She comes angrily back to the mead hall where she will take vengeance for her son. “But now his mother had sallied forth on a savage journey, grief-racked and ravenous, desperate for revenge” (pg. 89). Grendel’s mother is another stage in Beowulf’s step toward an older warrior. Before the great battle with Grendel’s mother, Beowulf was a little bit more mature and was not as confident. “Beowulf got ready, donned his war-gear, indifferent to death; his mighty, hand-forged, fine-webbed mail would soon meet with the menace underwater.” (pg. 101) He needed armor because he feels that it wasn’t the kind of battle he would face without his necessity to survive. After a long fight Beowulf finds the strength in him to grab the weapon that would kill Grendel’s mother. Once again good has defeated evil. Beowulf comes through as a hero one more time before his departure from Heorot.

In the movie there are many comparisons and contractions to the movie to the Epic of Beowulf. First let's start out with some comparisons between the movie and the Epic of Beowulf. One comparison between them is that they both say that fate is why he goes to kill Grendel, and that fate is still a really big factor in their way of life. Another comparison was that Beowulf, and his men generally acted the same, and that he still could not be hurt or hindered by their mortal weapons. The last comparison is that in both the movie and the Epic, Beowulf ripped off Grendel’s arm.