Beowulf Vs Grendel Research Paper

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Everyone loves an antagonist they are able to dislike, but a character who can obtain the feeling of dislike and still gain pity and sympathy provide for greater entertainment. In the epic Beowulf (Heaney), the writer portrays Grendel very differently from his portrayal in the modern movie Beowulf and Grendel (Gunnarsson), which could be solely due to the large time difference and what the intended audiences would find entertaining. The cultural differences between these two time periods appears as a significant element in the film, reflected in the attitudes of particular characters--the protagonist and the antagonist. One particular system of beliefs revolves around a simplistic view that the Anglo-Saxons, the originators of the Beowulf poem, seem to have held. At the time of the Beowulf poem people believed in the idea of simplistic duality, the belief that everything fell into one of two categories--good and evil, the thought of giving the main antagonist in the poem a backstory that was not only added to the storyline but gained an emotional aspect to the…show more content…
His appearance could be changed depending on how you originally pictured Grendel based on the written description. Personally, based on how Grendel is depicted the audience would assume he is a tall, hairy monster, with demonic like eyes, and fangs, a typical childhood nightmare. Although, he appears in the movie as a troll-like man, who is hairy, but he is not very much taller than someone who could easily have a mutation in their genetics or come from a long line of tall ancestors. Grendel’s personality is different being that he has a conscious, and he uses his morality in his trail of revenge. In the film, when his father’s skull is desecrated by one of the Geat warriors Grendel smells out that man’s particular scent, and kills only him then tries to leave but is stopped by Beowulf and the other

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