Beowulf 2007

If you ever pay attention to my previous logs, you probably have noticed this novel actually had an animation movie from the pictures I posted, The movie Beowulf is a 2007 3D computer-animated fantasy action film directed and co-produced by Robert Zemeckis, written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary and based on the Old English epic poem of the same name. And so, in this log, I will be comparing and contrasting the Beowulf novel and film, I can see that the film was not effective in conveying the themes of this classic story. In the classic story, there are many themes present such as: good vs. evil, strength and skill, courage, etc. In the film version of Beowulf, these elements are also present; however, they do not give merit to the classic story by the way the characters in the film are portrayed. Although both have similar plots and many similar scenes, the way that the main characters such as Beowulf and Hrothgar were portrayed in the film gave the audience a much different view. The film version of Beowulf does not give these characters the true value and honor in which they deserve, as the way they were depicted through the classic story, which in turn does not give the film much merit in conveying the true themes of the classic story.

    In the classic story of Beowulf and throughout literature, Beowulf has been portrayed as the true epic hero. His unselfishness and deep compassion for his people made him into the true hero that he is known as today, along with his strict adherence to the heroic code of honor. In the contrast, in the film version, Beowulf was also portrayed as a hero but was also portrayed as much more arrogant and also more sexual, and how is that? As has been mentioned above, the movie is based on the epic. However, it is an interpretation rather than a screening as, though major events are quite close to the text, the characters are very different from the original. First, Beowulf is not a very good example of a conventional warrior of the Middle Ages as he is less masculine and he is half naked throughout most of the film. Grendel is also depicted as a victim rather than hideous monster that is to be destroyed. The film version does not portray Beowulf as the true hero that the classic story describes to the audience. In the story version of Beowulf, when Beowulf had slain Grendel and was preparing to battle Grendel’s mother, Beowulf says to his king, “First, O King of the Danes, remember that whatever happens, I hold you as my father. It was you who so swore. Then I ask you to send my wealth to my king, Hygelac of the Geats. My sword I bequeath to Unferth. I hold you to your word as regards the safety of my followers. With Hrunting I shall live or shall die”. This quote shows Beowulf’s true heroism.

Watching this film is like reading the story from a different perspective, although there are a lot differences from the original or the novels, but I really love how they made the dragon in the end so sick and shocking. In the novel, it didn’t talk about the dragon’s origin, but in the movie , Beowulf and Grendel’s mother actually make a deal and the warrior becomes the next king while the Water Demon gives birth to Beowulf’s son. Many years later, when Beowulf is old, the deal between him and Grendel’s mother is broken and Water Demon’s son, a dragon, attacks the kingdom. And of course, I’m not going to be a spoiler for the ending, I suggest for those who love epic stories should watch this and maybe you will have different ideas than mine.

Revenge from Grendel’s mother

    In my previous blog, I talk about how Beowulf fought Grendel, but in the earlier story, which is after Grendel’s defeat, there are frequent suggestions from the people in the Danes. When the Danes were celebrating by singing the poetry in Heorot. Some of them think Grendel himself is still alive, though Beowulf rips his arm off, because as I mentioned, it didn't talk about Grendel's death, and so the remaining threat proves instead to be Grendel’s mother. From Line 1028 to 1850. It talks about Grendel’s mother avenging her son by attacking Heorot at night, killing King Hrothgar’s friend Aeschere, and taking with her the trophy of her son’s dismembered arm.

    From this part of the story, I would say Grendel and his mother’s killing motivation it’s very different. Grendel’s motivation is by hearing Hrothgar's bard sing songs about God's creation of the world, which rubs his demonic nature the wrong way. Unlike Grendel, the mother’s motivation seems purely retaliatory, because she is less interested in plunder than she is in making the Danes pay, and I believe this is why she leaves a clear trail behind and marks the spot for Hrothgar and Beowulf to discover. Grendel’s mother is luring Beowulf into the lake, so she can have her final revenge; And of course, Beowulf is totally more than up to the challenge, just by knowing what kind of personality he had from the previous blog I wrote.

    Their fight was savage, when Beowulf jumps into the lake, he was immediately captured by Grendel’s mother to her underwater cave. Beowulf uses the ancient sword Hrunting given by Unferth, and unfortunately, even the sword of Hrunting is unable to pierce the monster’s skin. Therefore, Beowulf tries to fight with her by only using his bare hand, like what he did to Grendel, but she matches him blow for blow. At last, he notices a sword hanging on the wall, which is an enormous weapon forged for giants. Beowulf used that weapon’s blade slices cleanly through Grendel’s mother’s neck, and she falls dead to the floor, gushing with blood. Beowulf looks around, his sword held high in readiness. He spies Grendel's corpse lying in a corner and he decapitates Grendel as a final repayment for all of the lives that Grendel took.

    But, after reading this part, I don't think this fight is worth celebrating, because looking at Grendel's mother’s motivation, you might think of her as an avenging monster, but in my perspective, she is more of a grieving mother who lost her child, and fighting for her son’s justified. And I believe the maternal bond between Grendel and his mother is important during this scene, because a mother can be caring and avenger at the same time. When she fears a threat to her child, she can do anything. The part of the story lacks portray motherly love but I can feel it through her action.

Beowulf and Grendel

 

    From line 703 to 982, It talks about the fight between Beowulf and Grendel. In summary, knowing that Grendel is envious, resentful, and angry toward mankind, and Grendel especially resents the light, joy, and music he observes in Hrothgar's beautiful mead-hall called Heorot. Therefore, Beowulf and his warriors sang poetry and music to kind of spice up the vibe in Heorot. During the night of, Grendel bursts into Heorot. He tears the door from its hinges with his bare hands and immediately devours a Geatish warrior while Beowulf carefully observes. To me, this is probably the most excited part, because in my previous log, I have mentioned, in the story, it didn’t specify whether Grendel is a male or female, but the story made Grendel sounds like a man, so it's quite hard for me to imagine a giant man eating another man in the bloody way so easily. 

    Then when Grendel reaches out to snatch up Beowulf, he is stunned to find his arm gripped with greater strength than he knew possible. He was terrified like a cornered animal, Grendel was about longing to run back to the safety of the swamplands. But Beowulf took him down just in second. The combatants crash around the hall, rattling the walls and smashing the mead-benches. Grendel begins to shriek in pain and fear; the sound terrifies all who hear it. Beowulf’s men heroically hack at the demon as Beowulf fights with him, but no weapon on earth is capable of harming Grendel. Beowulf summons even greater strength and rips Grendel’s arm completely out of its socket. Fatally wounded, Grendel slinks back to his swampy home to die. Back in the mead-hall, Beowulf holds up his glory trophy in triumph. He proudly hangs the arm high on the wall of Heorot as proof of his victory.

    In the battle against Grendel, was so full of determination that he was willing to bear arms and fight with Grendel. When Beowulf fought Grendel, he fought with a courageous and confident attitude, and I believe that his attitude is what made him win, because his attitude gave him the confidence that he needed to stand in front of a huge monster and fight for victory. But when Beowulf won the battle he wasn't satisfied with just knowing his victory, because after the fight, which I didn't mentioned, he actually  cut off Grendel 's arm and mounted it as a trophy of his victory, showing the world how foolhardy his attitude was, proving that a victory isn't enough to  satisfy his needs. So my conclusion is that, is good to show that you are a courageous and confident person, but make sure to stay humble too, otherwise it will make others think you are just too hypocritical.

Beowulf: Argument with Unferth

    According to the previous log, I have talked about the use of writing structure in Beowulf, such as alliterative verse variation, dramatic reversal, and kennings. As I read furthermore, Beowulf is obviously like most of the epic stories, where the main character is always the strongest and most masculine, thus matching the indecisive heroine and the evil monster, but in the first half of the story, of course, some people questioned Beowulf. During the banquet in Heorot, Unferth, the Danish minister who doubted Beowulf's ability, Unferth asked "How could a man who can't win at a swimming contest can kill Grendel ?" Beowulf said that day he and Breca, the god of swimming, were actually evenly matched, mainly because he lost to fight off the sea monster, and retorted that Unferth was famous for killing two brothers who were in bed with his mother. After dealing with Unferth, the king told Beowulf that if he could fight off Gredel, he would give him the golden goblet he had taken from Fafnir.

    In my opinion, I think Unferth is presented in contrast to Beowulf, providing a glimpse of a poor warrior in contrast to Beowulf's good warrior. Unferth is boastful, just as Beowulf is, but unlike Beowulf, Unferth lacks the moral courage to back up his boasts, and he never does anything to stand against Grendel. I believe this is somehow the reason why he also does not like Beowulf, because the bitterness of Unferth's chiding of Beowulf about his swimming match with Breca clearly reflects his jealousy of the attention that Beowulf receives. It probably also stems from his shame at being unable to protect Heorot himself, he is clearly not the sort of great warrior whom legend will remember.

As I read more, surprisingly, Unferth later admits Beowulf's superiority after the defeat of Grendel and lends him a treasured sword, Hrunting, which is for the battle with Grendel's mother. In this part, I have suspect that Unferth's character flaws will surface again, but he has been humbled and I think he has improved for the purposes of this story, and of course, I am gonna save the most exciting part in my next log on how Beowulf defeat Grandel and the attitude toward both parties.

Beowulf

Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, but According to my high school English teacher, It is possibly the oldest surviving long poem in Old English and is commonly cited as one of the most important works of Old English literature.  It was written in England around the 8th and the early 11th centuries. The author was an anonymous Anglo-Saxon poet, referred to by scholars as to the “Beowulf Poet.” Therefore, it comes with different versions, the one I choose is translated by Stephen Mitchell, and the reason I choose her work is because the spare, sinuous, vigorous in its narration, and translucent in its poetry really catch my eyes.

I actually read some part of the story when I was in high school, and It’s odd, from what I know, Beowulf was never widely read until after it was mass-printed in the 1800s, and no other literary works allude to it or appear to be directly influenced by it. It’s now considered one of the most important canonical works in English, but none of the characters are Anglo-Saxon, it's actually all focusing on the Danes and Geats, and its setting is in Denmark rather than Britain.

When I received this book, I was afraid that I couldn’t understand, but after reading some pages, I noticed it has clever uses of the alliterative verse variation, dramatic reversal, and kennings. Like, two of kennings from Beowulf are "whale-road" in line 10 and "sea-wood" in line 208, and two examples of alliteration are "Then as dawn brightened and the day broke" in line 126 and "the storied leader, sat stricken and helpless" in line 130.

The summary from chapters 1 to 3, is basically talking about where a king named Hrothgar has a splendid mead hall known as “Heorot” A place of celebration and much merriment. However, the joyous noise angers the evil monster named Grendel, It lives in a nearby swamp. For 12 years the creature terrorizes Heorot with nightly visits in which he carries off Hrothgar’s warriors and devours them. And the fun part about Grendel is that, in the story, it didn’t specify whether Grendel is a male or female, although the story made Grendel sound something like a man, by having two arms (or claws), two legs, and one head, but he is much larger and can defeat dozens of men at a time. And I think he is probably the most interesting character so far, not only he is a mix of man and beast; his fury is based on very human feelings of resentment and jealousy.

Who am I ?

Hello, everyone, I am Michelle ( or Mitch), a normal AFL student who loves moto and often walks around in NTSUT.

Hello, everyone, I am Michelle (or Mitch), a normal AFL student who likes to draw, ride moto, and often walks around on the NTUST campus.

At the age of six, my imagination has always been an incredible driving force in my life, and has done and still does have an influence on almost everything I do. It has always been the most natural and easiest way for me to express myself, well…In terms of drawing, not in reading and writing, hehe.

My reading history probably began at the age of eleven or twelve, then it ends at the same period of time, and you probably wonder why is that !? or maybe no. Well, I was super obsessed with scary novels at the time, like the novel Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, my teacher often think I can’t concentrate in class, so they often confiscated my books away.

Therefore, I change my focus to drawing, I love to express my emotion through every artwork that I made because that’s probably the only thing I put so much passion into this interest. Each art piece has its own story and reason why I draw them. My artwork gives me a slight feeling of relief, which helps me cope with different emotions that may limit my productivity, and sometimes I love the exploration of the unknown and visualizing things from a different perspective from others. But, I wouldn’t consider myself a passionate reader or writer. Therefore,  I expect myself to treat reading and writing as I treat drawing as what I do for pleasure, it is one of those unique and diverse subjects that allows one's ideas to be expressed via a number of mediums, whether it’s an essay or blog, I am looking forward the creativity I will be given and have the ability of critical thinking, by reflecting on an issue and learn how to observe different perspectives and views from others.