Similarities Between Heulf And Beowulf

Hrothgar, the king of the Danes is faced with the issue of a horrible monster, Grendel tearing apart his soldiers and causing bloodshed. This is where Beowulf comes along, he is prepared with his men to defeat this monster and when the time comes Beowulf is more than ready to face him. Beowulf

Grendel is evil; powerful and he strikes fear and tenor in all who see him, Beowulf is the hero of the story. Grendel who has killed many men. And both characters have monsters in them from the banished demons such as Grendel. Grendel and Beowulf is two monsters that are born from different demons. Beowulf has stood up too many monsters. Grendel is presented as a coward. Beowulf succeeds and defeats Grendel.

While many pagan influences appear in the poem, Christian overtones dominate. Many of the characters exhibit Christian characteristics. Beowulf has a Christ-like behavior in his good-heartedness and charity. Beowulf understands the plight of the Danes that are being oppressed by the evil monster Grendel just as Christ knew of the oppression of the Jewish people. Both set out on a venture to save their people. To free themselves from the monster, the Danes need a savior, and Beowulf, through his desire to disperse their suffering, comes to save them. When Beowulf battles Grendel, he exhibits a sense of fairness when he refuses to use a weapon. The idea throughout the poem of living right, of loyalty, and of being a good leader can all be seen as traits of Christ. Just as Beowulf exemplifies Christ, Grendel mirrors Satan. Beowulf and Grendel represent the Christian beliefs of good verse evil. Grendel is referred to as a descendant of Cain, whom Satan tricks into sinning and committing the first murder. He is the image of a man fallen from grace through sin. Like Satan who is jealous of the happiness and joy that Adam and Eve have in the Garden of Eden, Grendel is jealous of the happiness and joy in Heorot. Grendel, as with Satan, is an adversary of God and poses a great challenge to Beowulf. Grendel lives in an underworld as Satan lives in hell. Grendel is referred to in the poem as "the guardian of

The story of Beowulf is a heroic epic, chronicling the distinguished deeds of the great Geatish warrior, Beowulf, who travels across the seas to rid the Danes of the evil monster Grendel, who has been inflicting destruction and terrorizing the kingdom. Beowulf is glorified for his heroic deeds of ridding the land fiendish monsters and stopping the scourge of evil, while the monster, Grendel, is portrayed as a repugnant creature who deserves death for its evil actions. However, 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, sets 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 Grendel, once perceived as an evil fiend in Beowulf, into a lonely but intelligent outcast who is actually quite similar to humans, due to his intelligence capacity for rational thought and his real, and at times irrational emotions. Gardner portrays Grendel as a hurt individual and as a victim of oppression, ostracized from civilization. Although the two works revolve around the same basic plot,, the themes and characters in Beowulf and Grendel are often different and sometimes contradictory.

When Cain killed Able, he ignited the eternal flame of a cursed family. From Cain's blood came "the curse of his exile and sprang ogres and elves and evil phantoms and the giants too" (Beowulf. Pg. 35), darkness entailed is legacy and evil embodied his future. Grendel is a descendant of Cain, so he shares Cain's exile from all that is good and light. Cain may have been the first displaced person after Adam and Eve, but he was not the last. Grendel shares his ancestor's punishment, he is exiled not only from whatever land or wealth he would have had if he were "human", but he is also abandoned by God and all who followed and indulge in his faith and grandeur. It is this abandonment that causes Grendel to destroy and murder. "The treasure seat, he was kept from approaching; he was the Lords outcast" (Beowulf pg.36), since he cannot approach the throne of the Lord like the rest of mankind, he chooses to attempt to destroy it. He has no love for God and his children if he can not be with them "hand in hand". However, unlike Cain and his parents, Grendel is doomed from

“Beowulf” and Grendel are two tales similar in many ways, yet different from each other. These stories are like a coin; you cannot have one side without the other. Just as the sides of a coin share the same coin, these stories share a similar plot, a setting, and tell of the same events. The sides of a coin also have differences as do “Beowulf” and Grendel. In the case of these two tales this difference is in their respective philosophical views.

Beowulf, the defender of Hrothgar and Heorot, exhibits far more complicated (and less sincere) shades of revenge than the Grendel’s mother. At the end of the day, Beowulf’s goal is to become the preeminent warrior in all the land. In his society, the only way to gain such widespread celebrity is through courageous and self-endangering acts. Beowulf masks these deeds with a façade of seeking revenge; he supposedly comes to Heorot to save the Danes from Grendel’s terror, but his true motives lie in becoming a hero. His reward is not the pride of doing a good deed; Beowulf is rewarded with lavish and expensive gifts.

Grendel is put off as an evil monster, but not all monsters start out evil. Yes, he lives in a lair underneath of the earth but, why were the Danes being so loud that he could hear it that low in the ground? They say in line 20-22 that Grendel was, “Conceived by a pair of those monsters born of Cain, murderous creatures banished by God.” Just because he was a descendant of Cain, it doesn't mean he is evil. Grendel was courageous but an evil kind of courageous. I if the Danes hadn't made him angry, maybe they would still be alive.

A. Grendel is impatient with the music and celebration of Hrothgar’s men; his home is a hell on earth; he was born in slime; his parents are the children of Cain, who were exiled by God; he is family to “a thousand forms of evil,” who angrily fight against God.

From all of this, the only real explanation for his war on the Danes is this: Grendel is pure evil. “So Hrothgar 's men lived happy in his hall till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend, Grendel, who haunted the moors” (Beowulf 1: Line 15). Hrothgar 's men, firstly, provoked Grendel simply by being happy. Any demon such as Grendel hates happiness and wants nothing but to steal, kill, and destroy that happiness in someone 's life. Throughout Beowulf, Grendel is called many names, and demon, monster, and fiend are the most frequent. It is no wonder he loved killing. Grendel was born into evil, said to be a descendant of Cain, the world 's first murderer. Grendel 's mother was evil herself, being a sea serpent who did not stray from indulging in evil either. One the fact of Grendel being evil, one piece of evidence stands above them all. “Killing as often as he could, coming alone, bloodthirsty, and horrible. Though he lived in Herot, when the night hid him, he never dared to touch King Hrothgar 's glorious throne; protected by God” (Beowulf 2: Line 80). God is good, and He will always triumph. Grendel knew he could not match the power of God, who loved Hrothgar 's throne. If Grendel were to

The contrast between man and monster facilitates this religious conflict as well as conveys the message that all good things can die in the hands of evil; Beowulf upholds the Christian ideals, while Grendel dies away representing the fall of the Pagans. In contrast to the beauty and success of the great Heorot hall, the swamp is full of damned, evil creatures, “The water was infested/ with all kinds of reptiles. There were writhing sea-dragons/ and monsters slouching on slopes by the cliff, / serpents and wild things such as those that often/surface at dawn to roam the sail-road/and doom the voyage. Down they plunged, / lashing in anger at the loud call/ of the battle-bugle” (1425-1429). The swamp is infested with many wild beasts, by nature bloodthirsty and murderous, just like Grendel who becomes a monster through adopting sinful actions and bringing honorable men to their doom. These anathematic savages confirm that only godless creatures can dwell in Grendel’s swamp depicting hell, and

The epic starts in a clever way beginning Beowulf’s tale with an extremely powerful and cunning opponent, for it immediately becomes intriguing. Both the link between man and beast, and the driving force of hate behind his assaults, and his reaction to these feelings make Grendel extremely important in this book.

Translations of historical text vary depending on the translator, location, and year it was translated. The enjoyable feature of translations is they are all different. Each text has its own unique style and word choice, allowing the audience to get an altered read of the same story or passage. Longfellow (pg 304), Raffel (pg 312), and Heaney (320), all have very different styles of writing and ideas on how Beowulf should be translated. They also each lived in a different century, making the varying language of their interpretations of Beowulf clear.

Grendel first brought chaos to the society. Since Grendel was a larger than life villain, normal people were not able to defeat Grendel. Beowulf came into rescue and the honor was his. Honor is another heroic characteristics that Beowulf has. Beowulf demonstrates his honor by showing a sense of integrity in his actions. Beowulf’s decision of going to the land of the Danes and killing Grendel did not result from money, but because he wanted to help the Geats. Beowulf did this because he was successful in past deeds as mentioned in line 321-322. “They had in remembrance my courage and might. Many had seen me come safe from the conflict.” (lines 321-322) Beowulf’s generous action’s earned him a name of “the mighty protector of men.” (Line 366). We can see that as Beowulf continued his benevolence, people began to rely on him more. “Save us, once more, and again twisted gold, heaped-up ancient treasure, will reward you for the battle you win”. Since Beowulf was a larger than life hero, he was the only one who could save the townspeople. He was the one who ““ended the grief, the sorrow, the suffering// forced on Hrothgar’s helpless people.” People told Beowulf that Beowulf would get reward for his actions, but Beowulf did not do these heroic actions because he wanted reward. Beowulf is a hero; (pattern 1.a) therefore he has a responsibility for the peace of the world, which connects with his nobility too. Through the character, Beowulf, represented as the iconic representation of a hero, the text explicitly states that the strive for justice and peace were primary qualities in Anglo Saxon culture. Moreover, with the addition of the most horrible element, Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon, who are guilty of all kinds of heinous deeds, Beowulf becomes a true Anglo Saxon hero; (pattern 1) a hero who does not know fear death, who seeks to bring peace

To begin with, Grendel represents the effects of isolation from others; His motives of attacking Heorot are that he was bothered by the constant commotion caused by the mead-hall. He is bothered by the commotion as he has lived his life as an outcast as stated “... he dwelt for a time/ in misery among the banished monsters/, Cain’s clan, whom the creator had outlawed/ and condemned as outcasts” (Heaney 4-7). Grendel’s fate made it so that he would never be accepted into other communities. His connections to Cain have also detained him from interactions with other communities. One could argue that he could have fought fate and attempted to change as Cal Trask from East of Eden attempted to. His identification as an outcast detained him from interacting with any community, especially since he was a giant ,a creation of Cain, in an era of humans. In the poem, it states that Grendel attacked Heorot because it disturbed him. “It harrowed him/to hear the din of the loud banquet/ everyday in the hall, the harp being struck/ and the clear song of a skilled poet…” (87-90). This clarifies the fact that Grendel attacked Heorot since it housed commotion and interaction between others. This act shows that Grendel prefers isolation from others or simply the suffering of those who celebrate