The main difference between Beowulf and Superman is that Superman hides his identity and does not boast about his accomplishments while Beowulf will retell his heroic deeds at every chance he gets. There are also differences between the two at different stages of Beowulf's life; such as, at the beginning of Beowulf's life, he was very confident in himself and believed he could accomplish everything; though, he did manage to accomplish anything he decided to do. On the other hand, Superman did not taunt his enemies and would use all he had in all of his fights.

However, through all the differences, there are similarities between Beowulf and Superman. They both come to the rescue of those in need. Both Beowulf and Superman have super-human abilities, such as super-strength. Both of them were just with their powers and did not abuse them. Finally, neither of them married.

In these ways Beowulf and Superman are similar and different. The differences can mainly be attributed to the time periods they lived in. The similarities are attributed to the main idea of a super-hero that has been preserved through centuries of cultures and over miles of ocean.

Grendel the monster is evil because in our point of view killing a person and bringing pain and discord to those that stand for justice is wrong. His continuous thirst for blood leads to many deaths. The fact that God rejects his being from the start shows that to Christians he is not good. Evil, as seen during this time period, was mainly rooted to opposition to God.

By placing Grendel in a position against God one sees that in accordance with the times back then Grendel meets all the requirements to be categorized as “Evil”. But to Grendel he himself is not evil since from the beginning he has been forsaken. Thus he in turn carries out his soul mission: Oppose those that stand for Gods justice. It is unfortunate that he is subject to this situation but this is what also makes him different from Unferth since he was born into it.

Unferth:

Unferth is viewed as evil because he betrayed his kin and killed them. This makes him evil because this takes him down to Grendels level. By killing his kin he repeats the whole Caine and Abel scenario. This sin against God and kin is taken seriously because family is a common thing to identify with. This quite possibly sinks Unferth lower than Grendel.

The reason, Unferth chose to kill where Grendel was born into his role and had no say. Thus one sees that Unferth is a sort of mirror to that of Grendel in the sense that both did an action opposing God. One was indirectly affected by the action where the other committed the action.

Note: Reference to the story of Beowulf where Grendel is a monster that Beowulf must fight and Unferth is a rival jealous of Beowulf. Unferth actually was willing to kill his family in order to get ahead.