Examples Of Prejudice In Beowulf

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Prejudice is a preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience. Beowulf (Heaney, 2000) the epic has many examples of prejudice and displays them throughout the entire story. As a result, the concept of prejudice finds its way into the movie Beowulf and Grendel (Gundarsson, 2005) but is dealt with very differently. In the epic version of Beowulf, prejudice results from a simplistic view of good and evil, and this is displayed in the killing of Grendel and his mother. While in the movie version of Beowulf and Grendel prejudice is shown with the trolls that Hrothgar and Beowulf killed. Both of the novels deal with prejudice, but they deal with them in many different ways. In the epic version of Beowulf prejudice is shown …show more content…

Grendel’s father was a troll and this is what got him killed by the Danes. The danes hated the trolls because they were different and didn't speak like them. The Danes had not seen a troll for a really long time, but when they saw Grendel's dad they were filled with hatred. This led them to track him down and kill him. The troll never did any harm to any of the Danish settlers, and they obviously lived in peace since the Danes did not know that the trolls were there. As soon as one of the Danes saw him or heard him they were disgusted and this led them to kill him. Grendel’s father was prejudiced just because he was a troll. He never harmed any of the Danish and was just trying to raise his family peacefully. So the Danish people were really prejudice towards his father because he was different. This was the only reason that they hated him and wanted to kill him. When Grendel’s father is forced off the cliff Hrothgar sees Grendel and chooses not to kill him. He believed that without its dad the troll would die by itself, so he did not kill him. After the death of Grendel’s dad the Danes did not show any respect by leaving the dead father at the bottom of the cliff. So the Danes were very prejudiced towards the troll just because he was different and this led to the death of Grendel’s father. The movie shows that this is the reason for Grendel killing so many of the Danish. Grendel hates the …show more content…

After Beowulf kills Grendel he goes after his mother because if Grendel was a descendant of Cain so was she. She did not do anything that was not reasonable. The Danes killed her son so she sought out revenge for killing her son. So the Danes found where the evil witch was living and attacked her. Beowulf killed the witch because she was evil just like Grendel. Since Grendel and his mother were descendants of Cain they were considered evil, and monsters. They were killed for honor and for Beowulf’s reputation. Later on in Beowulf’s life he encounters a fire breathing demon that was awoken by a thief that stole a goblet from the greedy beast. The dragon was seeking revenge on whoever took his goblet and was killed for it. The dragon was ugly and looked different than that of Geats so it was considered evil, and because it was destroying homes Beowulf killed the monster. The dragon was being prejudiced against because it was seeking revenge. It was angered that someone stole from him so it punished anybody and everybody that was nearby. Both Grendel's mom and the dragon were killed because they sought revenge for something that the Geats

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