Beowulf: Poem Analysis

Another big difference from the poem that can be seen in the movie is the portrayal of the main character, Beowulf. In the poem, Beowulf is shown to be a big hero to everyone around him. The movie shows Beowulf's heroism as an issue instead of being the solution. Although the movie follows the same storyline as the poem, they have different depictions of Beowulf's courage. To show the difference of Beowulf's courage in the poem and movie, Beowulf's enemy, Grendel must be described first. In the movie, Grendel is shown as a childlike, innocent, and sad monster. Annoyed by the music and happiness of Heorot, Grendel came and started fighting and killing Danes. This is when Beowulf arrives to help Hrothgar and his people. Beowulf decides to take on Grendel without using weapons to keep the fight fair. Beowulf said, "this evil beast in his …show more content…
Those differences were utilized to make the movie better suited for the current time period. The plots from the poem, Grendel’s mother, the events after the killing of Grendel’s mother, and the dragon fight scenes, were changed by Zemeckis in the movie to make the storyline a little more interesting instead of following the poem’s storyline strictly. Also, the character of Beowulf in the poem was displayed as brave and courageous all throughout the poem. A story involving a brave hero that defeats monsters and saves people is a cliché story line used in Old English writing. The movie is changed to view the protagonist in a different way. Beowulf is displayed as a brave hero at first but as the movie progressed, he is shown to be less hero like and have more average man traits. Showing that the protagonist of the story is actually flawed and more human is more idealistic for the modern age. This is how the poem and movie differ because it seems as though the movie’s plots and characters were changed to make it more realistic and