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Similarities Between Macbeth And Grendel

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How could you ever compare a huge burly monster to a royal, wealthy king of Scotland? Well, when both of these contrasting characters both scare their entire society around them, the comparison is easy to make. The titles of these two novels, Grendel and Macbeth, are just simply named after the main characters is not just the only similarity between these two works but they are have the same themes and character traits that contribute to them. John Gardner’s novel Grendel and Shakespeare’s play Macbeth were written in completely different time periods but these classics are similar actions, character development, beliefs, and morals of the story.
The biggest themes in these works is the meaning of life. The meaning of life is questioned in both of these novels. Both Grendel and Macbeth think that life is absolutely meaningless. For example, when Macbeth is …show more content…

Grendel and Macbeth both depend on advice from characters that see the future. These classics is very dependent on characters that no one else has seen, with the exception of Banquo, and that can see the future. Instead of making decisions for themselves and think about the consequences, Grendel gets convinced by the dragon’s wisdom and philosophy to even think for himself and Macbeth cares too much about making the witch’s prophecies come true to even care about his morals as a Thane and a King.
Not only these main characters comparable, but their societies that they live in are comparable as well. Both the citizens of Scotland in Macbeth and the Hrothgar’s thanes in Grendel wanted to execute the main characters for their brutal crimes. Also, in both situations, the societies seek help from another country. Hrothgar's Thanes seek help from Sweden to get the Beowulf’s Geats to kill Grendel. Also, in Macbeth, Macduff and the rest of Scotland went to England to find Malcolm to battle Macbeth and get him ripped from the

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