"Beowulf the Movie" aka "nooooo hahaha no please no stop"

              Firstly, if you have ever seen Beowulf the movie, please join me in a quick laugh followed closely by a terrified and disgusted groan: hahahahaaaaaaa ughhhhhh. Thank you. Now that we have gotten that out of our systems, we can discuss how absolutely ridiculous that movie is. In Beowulf the epic poem, Beowulf is a strong hero who has come to boast and destroy the evil in this forsaken land, but in the movie, Beowulf is a half naked liar, who seems to be strong enough, but insists on wooing Wealtheow and shutting down Unferth. I feel like there is not much to analyze in this movie, but I still need to talk about it you know? Like why did the director decide to make the movie only 2% like the book? That 2% being that Beowulf is the guy, Grendel is the first monster, and Hrothgar is the king. However, while those characters kept their names and basic roles, none of them kept their traits or characteristics. I almost don't even want to talk about Grendel. For the first half of the movie I honestly had to continuously repeat to myself  "this is not my Grendy, this is not my Grendy", because like seriously come on mr director what is going on. The first seen in this movie is seriously Grendel, who is a huge, seriously deformed, human type thing, ripping his head open with his hand/claw because his disgusting exposed eardrum is being hurt by the Danes' merrymaking. Now honestly, I feel for the guy, I understand why he did what he did. He just seemed like a big baby to me, but why did he have to be so gross? I just connected so much with Grendel from his book that now the Grendel, the way he was portrayed, it probably affected me more than most people. Okay, moving on from the worst part of the movie, lets talk about Grendel's stupid origins. Grendel is Hrothgar's son. Funny right? First of all Hrothgar's character in this movie is disappointing. He is drunk and old and fat and extremely rude to Wealtheow. Now, I may just be being forgetful, but I don't remember him being any of that in the book. Okay so Hrothgar was 'seduced' by Grendel's mother, a serpent-like form of Angelina Jolie, like she is literally Angelina Jolie with some scales. She doesn't even live in a cave guarded by fire snakes like come on mr director you missed the descent! Okay, but yeah she seduced Hrothgar so now Grendel is his son, and honestly they did a good job of showing the resemblance, especially after Grendel freaking shrank and shriveled like what. Okay yeah but that's his son so that is a big plot twist and Wealtheow is all mad about it and I thought it was very, very dumb. But then, skipping around a bit, it gets much, much worse. After Grendel dies, instead of attempting to seek revenge, Grendel's mother just makes Bewoulf spawn her another child, which I think is a total blow on female kind. Apparently all we're good at is seduction and child rearing? But yeah so Beowulf impregnates Grendel's mother, then marries Wealtheow after Hrothgar dies, then after several years this dragon starts attacking the land, but it is really Beowulf's shapeshifting-monster-son? They did not explain that very well and it was very dumb and I hated this movie. Okay also who is Beowulf's faithful brother-man supposed to be? I didn't recognize his name, which sounded like a mixture of wheat and Wealtheow. Okay so lets throw some analysis in here. Lets try to analyze the hero's journey. First Beowulf arrives, his call to action was knowing that Hrothgar needed help, but he must have skipped the refusal of the call stage. Next he was supposed to meet his mentor, I guess this could be Hrothgar since he gives him that stupid dragon horn that makes him have sex with Grendel's mother. Next hes supposed to cross the threshold, honestly I don't know what this would have been in the movie. Next he has tests, allies and enemies, This part is easy to identify, all the danes and geats are his friends, Grendel and Grendel's mother are his enemies, and facing them are his tests, one of which he failed. Like his only job was to not have sex with Grendel's mother and to kill her, but no instead he does it and then lies about it to everyone like yeah okay. Next is the approach, I guess this is the whole time until the dragon-boy-man-son comes. No actual this is probably before he goes to see Grendel's mother. So then he does that, which is the ordeal where he is supposed to face his greatest fear. Next is the reward, this would be him becoming king and getting Wealtheow. Next is the road back which is when the slave finds the stupid dragon horn. Next the resurrection, so this is when the dragon-thing comes. Then he is supposed to return with the elixir, but he fails and dies. So yeah honestly the whole movie was confusing and I just felt like I needed to share my feelings with a community that may have seen the movie because my mom did not understand why I was so distressed during the movie. So basically in my opinion, the director just wanted to make a fast paced adventure hero story that had absolutely no meaning to it, and he succeeded in that. But in the processes, he soiled a great classic, confused thousands of viewers, and severely scared a little eight year old me and made me leave the theater.

Once I was innocent, but then I experience the pain of procrastination

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Innocence)

‘Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,

The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green,

Grey headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow,

Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames’ waters flow.

Oh what a multitude they seem’d, these flowers of London town!

Seated in companies they sit with radiance all their own.

The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,

Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,

Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of Heaven among.

Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;

Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

"Holy Thursday" (Songs of Experience)

Is this a holy thing to see

In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?

Can it be a song of joy?

And so many children poor?

It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare,

And their ways are filled with thorns:

It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,

And where'er the rain does fall,

Babes should never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appall.

                 For this blog I'm supposed to take a Blake poem, analyze it, and then connect it back to Grendel if possible. Luckily, I noticed a connection or a similarity between Blake's things and Grendel. Blake has this theme of Innocence vs Experience and Grendel lives that theme. He goes from the innocent baby in his cave, to the experienced one who "create[s] the world blink by blink". He goes from that innocent boy, to the one who knows violence and is appalled by it. Then he goes from that boy to the boy dazzled by poetry, having gained the knowledge of his purpose in life. Then he goes from this content boy to one filed with malice and violence, the most experienced of all of his stages. In Blake's poems, specifically the two above, there is not an obvious listed occurrence that banishes the children from the happy realm of innocence to the dark one of experience, it just seems to be a natural pathway through life. If you examine the rhyme schemes and line lengths in the above poems, it is apparent that the Innocence poem has a constant AA BB type rhyme scheme, while the Experience poem has a broken rhyme scheme that only appears occasionally. The rhyme scheme in the innocence poem represents how happy and hopeful and joyous the children are. It brings the feeling of prancing around and just being happy. Then in the experience poem, the broken rhyme scheme represents the broken hope and happiness within the people. Occasionally there is a glimpse of happiness, but for the most part it is all dreary and glum. Then looking at the actual lines' lengths, the lines that make up the innocent poem are long, with little punctuation. In contrast, the lines within the experience poem are very short, and have much more punctuation, especially in the second stanza where there is a mark every line. The short lines seem to show how little hope the experienced people are. They seem to be too tired to expand on what they are saying. The punctuation seems to signify like discipline within these people. The exclamation points and question marks create a feeling of harshness maybe even punishment. It seems as though the experienced people have been taught not to talk too much, or that they have learned through their experience that it is better for them to keep their mouths shut. Okay now connecting back to Grendel, his innocence and experience are the most evident when looking at his  encounters with the shaper and the dragon. When Grendel first saw the shaper, he had been pretty innocent up until then, but then the shaper filled him with a childlike joy that caused him to weep with joy. This is very highly contrasted with his time with the dragon. The dragon soiled Grendel's mind, telling him that he must be violent towards the humans because he is the only thing that gives them meaning. Also looking at meaning, the shaper gave him a purpose, he made him feel like he belonged in their society, even if he was the bad guy.On the other hand, the dragon took away his meaning, telling him that he was easily replaceable. This all connects back to Blake because the shaper signifies the happy, innocence of the children seen in the innocent poem above,  while the dragon signifies the dark, hopelessness of the people within the experienced poem.

554 words about Grendel

Honestly, I thought Grendel was a stellar novel and that is not just because my Grandpa's doppelganger wrote it (John Gardiner vs John Gardner heh heh). I'm not exactly sure why, but I really relate to Grendel, although that does sound a bit odd, me having a connection with a giant, furry, monster, man-baby. Well no matter how odd my connection was, I did gain a pretty impactful take away from this novel. Out of all of the ruckus and nihilism and false meaning, I found the tale to be a warning. If your life is out of balance, you are going to end u;p being ripped apart, maybe even literally by a dreamy, horse-shouldered, oven-chested evil hero. Ever since chapter five, when the dragon ruined poor little pacifist Grendel, Grendel was fighting an inner war between two very contrasting sides. When Grendel first meets the Shaper, he is presented with beauty, art, meaning, purpose, family, even friendship. The Shaper unintentionally teaches him to be calm, to only kill when he feels it is necessary, to observe from a quiet place among the trees, even to desire friendship. In my opinion, Grendel seems pretty happy during this part of his life, if we omit the part where he begs and sobs for a friend of course. Then, mystified by the Shaper's mystical ways, Grendel feels like he needs some sort of explanation; he knows that the Shaper is a liar and the wants to know why it feels so real, so he goes down to meet the dragon. One important thing that I found here is that while under the Shaper's wing, Grendel is above the people, up in the trees, but when he goes to see the dragon, Grendel must go down below the ground into a dark, dirty cave. It is almost as if he is falling down into the dark side. When he gets down there, the dragon just rips him apart. He plants this idea that nothing matters, that Grendel himself does not matter, that the world is a cycle, so what you do really does not matter because it will happen anyway. He makes Grendel feel small and insignificant. After his dumb encounter with the dragon, Grendel becomes a different monster-person-thing. Grendel decides that he might as well completely destroy the men, since it does not matter whether he does it or not, so he rips them apart. He goes into their village and, upon finding that he is invulnerable, he just kills a bunch of people. The Shaper never bred this sort of violence within Grendel, even though he did sing of wars and rivalries and such. So basically my main point of this blog is to show how contrasting these two sides of Grendel are. He's got his peaceful little, softhearted, poetry loving side. But then he also has his horridly mean, torturous, ugly, murderous side. So from all of this, I felt like Gardner was really telling his readers that they need to find a balance within their own lives, take all of the bad influences and all of the good influences and find a good, neutral central point to live in. Because if you do not, you will end up going crazy, singing songs, dancing, killing, and maybe even in the end desiring death.