Beowulf

The dominator of men, the vanguard of the Geats, the decimator of demons, the slayer of dragons. This man of so many deeds and accomplishments, no mere soldier or warrior of any stature could dream of undertaking such monumental tasks. An honorable battle between a powerful and hideous demon Grendel. A very fierce battle with Grendel’s mother. Finally his last yet toughest battle , which cost him his life, was with a massive and powerful Dragon. This man’s name has been sung for ages, written on parchment, story retold many times over the centuries, his name is Beowulf!

There are minor and yet very major differences between the book and the movie. First lets start with the battle of Grendel. One difference that seem to ‘catch’ a lot of attention was that in the film Beowulf fought Grendel completely naked! In the book(poem) Beowulf boasted it would only be a fair fight, for both parties, if he only fought Grendel with no weapons and armor, which he did has he had said. Another difference is that in the film a character named Wiglaf, who does not appear till Beowulf becomes elderly, is in the battle against Grendel to help him. At this point in the storyline of the book ‘Beowulf’, Wiglaf does not yet exist to help Beowulf until he is king over the Geats and very old, which changes a lot of the actual events within the story. Lastly the ripping of Grendel’s arm, within the movie Beowulf uses a chain to assume control of his arm, eventually trapping Grendel’s arm in the door’s of Heorot, and ripping his arm off in the process. In the book the monster storms in Heorot begins his attack, while the demon makes his attack on Beowulf, it is caught off guard when Beowulf grips the demon with strength far greater than the demon has ever known. Beowulf eventually rips off the arm.

Eventually Beowulf is confronted by Grendel’s twisted, demented, crazed mother, which is also a Shapeshifter in the film. In the film her revenge started the slaughter of all the people that slept in Heorot that night, except for Beowulf, and cast a tormenting nightmare on Beowulf, which woke him up to the massacre. Now in the book she only claims one victim, Aeschere who is Hrothgar’s most trusted friend, then flees when it wakes the warriors sleeping within the hall. In the film Beowulf hunted her down to her lair, which was a cave, and also a belly of an unidentified creature. Did not really fight her at all, and he made a deal with her to keep his new Kingdom ‘safe’. In the book Beowulf swam in a lake filled of blood for a day until being dragged by Grendel’s mother into her lair. There they battled, Beowulf’s sword broke acrossed GM’s head, they wrestled, Beo picked a legendary sword of the giants and used it to chop off GM’s head. He claimed his trophy before leaving, and brought it back up to Hrothgar.

Finally Beowulf’s last foe the Dragon. In the film the Dragon is depicted has Beo’s son and is hell bent on destroying Beo’s kingdom. In the book the Dragon is a majestic yet very ferocious creature who protects it’s treasure. In the film Beo chases it down to confront it before it destroys the kingdom, but is too late to save the lives of his soldiers. Eventually jumping on the Dragon’s back and hanging on to a stuck in its mouth, anyways Beo cut through his muscles connecting his arm to his torso to acquire a longer reach and ripped out the demon’s heart. In the book some dude thought who could just steal a goblet from the freaking Dragon ! Of course the Dragon has a temper tantrum and attacks a village. Beo goes and fights the beast with one brave warrior and apparently ten little boys who have a fear of a giant fire breathing lizard with wings and is obsessed with shiny things. But of course Beo does not care ! Because he is obviously B.A. ! He is getting burnt then the freaking dragon just randomly bites Beo in his neck! (because he was scared of Beo! and his Awesome strength!) But of course Beo doesn’t care and Wiglaf comes over stabs the dragon, helps out Beo,and Beo just stabs the Dragon again! Then it DIES!

This is my conclusion to my essay to the Epic Beowulf. If i have ridiculously long run-on sentences then i apologize Mrs.K! Well, there are a great deal of differences between both the book and film. Such has the battle of Grendel which was greatly different yet the same outcome. Battle between GM and Beo, well was a very different fight in the film haha, the outcomes were completely different, in the book she dies , in the film she lives. The thing that wasn’t different about the dragon was that it was a dragon ! Of course Beo slayed his foe, the battles were completely different. Alas even Beo’s death is different as well. In the book he was fatally wounded and poisoned. In the movie he fell to his death directly after slaying the Dragon.

Written by, Anthony Fonseca. 3rd Hour Class Period