Beowulf And Grendel: Similarities Between Good And Evil

Society is an ever-changing being, it grows and modifies its ideals according to the what people want to see. In the age of the Anglo-Saxons, their people believed in the simple concept that people were either born good or evil and that evil people had no rationality for behaving evil. Modern society is the antithesis and demands reasoning behind a villain's evil doings. The idea of good and evil is much more complex in the current age and we believe that no one is born evil, that there are always circumstances that alter someone's personality. In the movie adaptation, Beowulf and Grendel (Gunnarsson, 2005), Grendel’s character is sympathized with to show how an audience expects complex backgrounds and developments for characters which contrast with simplistic duality that existed in 700 AD. In the epic Beowulf, (Seamus, 2000) translates the story in a way that shows very little character development of any of the characters. For instance, Beowulf is seen as this almighty, perfect warrior who could do no wrong. He automatically knew what, or who was evil and never questioned if there might be a reason why monsters behaved the way they did. In the first episode, Beowulf arrived …show more content…
After Grendel's first attack, Hrothgar is distraught and turns into a drunk. When Beowulf first arrives at Herot Hrothgar is too drunk to finish his speech and Wealhtheow must finish his toast. Throughout the movie, Hrothgar is constantly dodging Beowulf's questions about Grendel and never reveals the whole truth until after Grendel is killed. Hrothgar finally admits that he only killed Grendel's father because he was the first troll they'd seen in years and goes as far as to defend himself by claiming that trolls are worms that hold no worth. At the end of the movie, Hrothgar goes as far as to convert to Christianity simply out of fear. This unveils the prejudice these people had toward those they could not