Beowulf Comparison Essay

In both the 2007 movie and the epic poem Beowulf, it starts out with the celebration of Hrothgar's new mead hall known as Herot. They all are singing, cheering, and dancing very loudly for the majority of the people are quite drunk. None of them pay attention to the consequences of Grendel coming to ruin their fun and games until it is too late. There are several obvious differences between the poem and movie. The movie follows the basic storyline of Beowulf in which he defeats monster-like beasts and is very confident in himself, yet it alos alters the story some. There are differences in how the characters are depicted and described, how the dragon comes to be, how Beowulf defeats Grendel's mother, and many more attributes. Along with the …show more content…
The structure of the mead hall in the poem is described as having high arches and intricate designs which is greatly shown in the movie. The characterization of Beowulf is dramatically similar between the movie and poem. Beowulf makes many boasts about himself saying how great he is and how he is confident that he shall be the only one to defeat the great monsters. Unferth tries to put Beowulf down when he first encounters him by bringing up past events that could possibly make him look bad. The story of the swimming race between Beowulf and Breca, for example. Unferth comes forth saying how Beowulf couldn't possibly be strong, for he lost a simple swimming battle against Breca. Beowulf then shows his over cockiness by saying how he may have lost the battle, but it was only because he had to defeat many sea monsters to protect everyone else from their wrath. Another similarity is the fight between Grendel and Beowulf. Beowulf fights him using no armor or weapons, only his bare hands, and he rips Grendel's arm off as proof of the killing. After killing Grendel, Unferth shows his newfound loyalty towards Beowulf by offering him his sword when he goes to defeat Grendel's mother. This is when the movie and poem become very