Beowulf: Comparing The Book And The Movie

It is not uncommon to see that a book is different than a movie. It also isnt very uncommon to see the same story is altered when it hits the big screen. There are stories such as the Harry Potter series that some say are undoubtedly different. Some of that may be because of people reading a story and them having an image in their head of what a character looks like, then they see the movie and that same character is nothing like they imagined. However, the story that will be discussed in this story is Beowulf. The discussion will be a comparison of the book and the movie. In the movie, Beowulf shows many similar qualities that he shows in the book. The qualities that were shown throughout both the movie and the epic were strength, loyalty, courage, and above all else,

It seemed like he could do no wrong and that he was this idol that only did good. In the cinematic film, it is shown that Beowulf in fact, did have a little bit of a dark side. In the movie, Beowulf on multiple occasions showed that he wasn’t a saint. The film-makers wanted to make something known. Everything good is always a little bad, and everything bad is always a little good. This idea or way of thinking is known as Moral Ambiguity. There are also quite a few other reasons that Cinema and film-makers may have changed and altered movies that correlate to one another. A few popular reasons as to why Cinema changes movies would involve Moral Ambiguity, to make movies more understandable, Cycle of corruption, Absence of a father, Women sexual wiles. A more in depth explanation of Cycle of corruption would be that a reoccuring theme is present. In Beowulf, the cyle or reoccuring theme is that someone gets seduced by Grendel’s mother. Therefore, making a new monster. Grendel is Hrothgar’s son. The dragon was Beowulf’s son. This also goes along with the theme of Women sexual wiles. Meaning that the seducing of women was