preview

Essay on Princess Bride: Summary and Analysis

Decent Essays

The Princess Bride by William Goldman is a tale that is rendered new into many different scenarios. William Goldman uses lovers and royalty to play the fairy tale role in this book while also using evil. In the book the Princess Bride there’s a beautiful young women named Buttercup who lives on a Farm with a servant named Westley. As Westley is leaving for America for a better life Buttercup admits her love for him and asks him not to leave for America. While Westley is sailing to America is ship is attacked by the pirate ship Revenge. They leave no survivors! Buttercup hears the news in goes into a deep depression for a little while. (While all of this is happening the Prince of Florin is looking for a bride because his father is very …show more content…

Also Goldman loves using archetypes to help the flow of his story. Here are some major examples of his use of archetypes. The first archetype I would like to talk about is The Creature of Nightmare. The Creature of Nightmare is the R.O.U.S. (Rodents of Unusual Size). These Rodents live in the Fire Swamp were Westley and Buttercup escape to avoid Prince Humperdinck (Goldman 202). The reason these R.O.U.S. represent this archetype is they are used to threaten children that are misbehaving. This archetype is rendered new because people to this day are scared of rodents. Another reason the R.O.U.S. is The Creature of Nightmare is they threaten the life of the hero. While in the Fire Swamp Westley is attacked by three R.O.U.S. and has to fight them off of his body. This is also rendered new because most rodents to this day carry a lot of diseases that can threaten our lives. The next archetype I am going to talk about is Death and Rebirth. Death and Rebirth I think is the most important archetype because it can change the whole tone or mood of the story. In the Princess Bride Buttercup feels she has died because of the news she received about Westleys death (68). This archetype is rendered new because today whenever you lose someone in your life you feel like life has stopped and some people even go into deep depression. After death the rebirth part comes into play whenever Buttercup knows the Man in Black is

Get Access