Beowulf’s
similarities and differences
There were a lot of
differences and some similarities from both the movie and text Beowulf. In both
the film and text Beowulf has a right hand man, Wiglaf. A difference is that in
the film when Beowulf went to kill Grendel’s mother he doesn’t kill her and in
the film when he goes to battle with her he kills her immediately. Another
difference is that Beowulf kills the dragon with more action in the film, in
the text the dragon melted Beowulf shield and almost burned Beowulf to dead.
In both the film
and the text Beowulf always had a right hand man. A man who has always
supported him and was there for all the battles that Beowulf had been in. His
name is Wiglaf. Wiglaf stood with Beowulf even if he thought he was wrong. He believed
that Beowulf was a good man and was proud he was an epic hero. I think that the
director didn’t change it that because Wiglaf was a loyal man and every epic
hero needs at least one good friend or a right hand man.
The first major different in the film that’s
not in the text is that, when Beowulf went to go kill Grendel’s mother, he
didn’t kill her. She convinced him to not kill her because he had killed her
only son. She promises Beowulf that if he gave her a son she would make him the
king of Demark, and any other fine promises. That caught Beowulf’s eyes and he
fell for her trap and later when he went back to Herot he lied to everybody
saying that he had killed Grendel’s mother and that everyone in demark was
safe. While in the text when Beowulf entered the swamp he had a big battle with
an ugly monster and ended up killing her. The reason I think the director
changed this so that the curse of the kings would continue, because at first in
the film king Hrouhgar was curse. Hrouhgar had fallen into Grendel’s mothers
trap once upon a time to and now Beowulf was curse and anyone else that was king
of Demark will be curse to.
Another
difference between the text and the film was that when Beowulf had finished
killing Grendel’s mother he when straight back to Sweden and became king over
there. While he was over there he battled a dragon. Beowulf man had gone to
help him but they ended up leaving Beowulf alone with the dragon. Beowulf had
no protection to service from the dragons flaming breath Beowulf ended up
suffering, wrapped around in swirling flames. Yet in the movie Beowulf fought
the dragon in demark and became king in demark. Since Beowulf had been with Grendel’s
mother Beowulf knew that that dragon was his son but since he was destroying
his kingdom he had to do something about it. Beowulf fought the dragon up in
the air and even underwater. At the end Beowulf was
hanging from the dragon’s month in was right under its weak spot here his heart
was and Beowulf tore it open and yanked his heart out. I think the reason being
that the director did it this way was so Beowulf would realize that you can’t
trust just anyone that comes your way.
In conclusion,
there both the film and text where wonderful. Even though there were a lot of
differences and similarities. Like Beowulf was having Waglaf as his right hand
man in both text and film. The differences that caught my eyes were Beowulf
lied about killing Grendel’s mother and about where and how he fought the
dragon.
