Targeting your audience: The Princess Bride in Film and Book

Different media target their audience differently by using different story-telling techniques and adaptation to make the story more suitable for its audience. William Goldman’s The Princess Bride in 1973 has multiple narrators forming a complex story structure that allows the adults with more experience in the realistic world to comprehend the meaning. The story contains various adventures between Princess Buttercup and her love, Westley, and the plot contains many subordinated details from every character that forms a complex structure of the book. On the other hand, the film in 1987 by Rob Reiner adapts a simpler conventional fairy tale which allows his familial audience to purely enjoy the conventional fairy tale rather than encountering complex realistic issue from the book.

In the novel, Princess Bride, William Goldman embeds a child’s perspective in his narration to invite his adult audience to shift their mature understanding to a naïve viewpoint. Oral “narratives often incorporate verbal formulas that call attention to their antiquity, conformity with generic conventions and collective origins” (Attebery 18). Audiences are always looking for expected convention through the story, and the narrator often tries to meet with their expectation or overthrow their anticipation. Goldman uses his narration to imply a certain perspective that he wants his audience to comprehend while reading his book. He uses the interruption from little Billy to suggest his audience to recall their memory and feeling in their childhood. When Buttercup is going to marry Prince Humperdinck (who is the villain that a heroine should not marry), Billy screams out “You read that wrong” (234) to his father since Willy believes “that in the long run justice is going to win out, and Buttercup and Westley……are going to get married and live happily ever after” (234). Billy reminds the readers about what they are expecting in the conventional story through his reaction to the marriage, but the readers failing to find out. The adult readers might anticipate a more different transition from the conventional fairy tale since they already know it is a different story through Billy’s narration. Also, with little Billy’s narration in the book, the audience can have a more complicated understanding to the story since it combines both adult and child’s perspective in it.

Similar interruption by the little boy is also adapted in the movie, directed by Rob Reiner. Rather than using the interruption to deepen the story, the interference by the young boy in the film is reflecting audience themselves to the story by putting their mind on one of the character. He keeps interrupting with questions that the audience might have toward the movie. For example, in the movie, when Buttercup finally discovers her true feeling to Westley, they are holding their hands with their eyes softly staring into each other eyes. As the romantic music is heard in the background with the beautiful sunset behind them, the lovely couple is about to kiss. The boy suddenly holds up the scene by questioning his grandfather whether it is a “kissing book” while looking suspiciously at his grandfather. His abrupt question is actually some of the audience’s question to the movie since the beginning scene is depicted like a pure romantic movie. His interruption “[allows the audience] to see themselves in what they’re [watching]” (Doll). When the grandfather tells him to be patient and reassures him that the adventure scene will come out soon, the answer is also helping to smooth the audience’s emotion and solve their puzzle to the film. The intruding question by the boy reflects what the audience wants to ask about the film, and invites the audience to see themselves in the movie.

Not only Reiner encourages his audience to see themselves in the story but also Goldman invites his audience to think as a child in his novel. Furthermore, he even invites them to read his book as a reflection of the real world. In the novel, his narration shows the readers to be aware of the notion that life isn’t fair. He constantly pulls his readers out from the fictional world, and talks about the realistic world. Goldman “suggests that our illusion-blasting world can’t support such perfect romantic fantasy” (Wilmington). Even his narrator’s own life is not as perfect as the stereotypical fairy tale should be. He has a cold wife who is brilliant and smart, but there is no love existing between them. The narrator has the responsibility to transmit the meaning of the story to his audience. The narrator keeps telling the readers that “[in the book] ‘life isn’t fair’... [And] you better believe it” (237), but he still allow the readers to determine whether it is true or not by claiming that it is still his favorite book in the world. The real life is harsh, but people can still find happiness within it. Goldman provides a hope in the unfair world with the tone of Billy while creating a story that the adult narrator keeps reminding some realistic aspect to the readers. Unlike the conventional fairy tale which conveys how beautiful the world could be, Goldman reveals more on how cruel the real world could be to his audience.

On the other hand, The Princess Bride film has a more light-hearted tone and the story tends to follow the stereotype of the romantic fairy tale. The story is more suitable for family with children since it gives an impression that love can conquer all even shorten the generation gap between the grandfather and grandson. At the end of the movie, Buttercup and Westley are riding into a boundless beautiful canvas and embrace their freedom which ends their adventure with a happy image. Their powerful love can defeat death and the villain, Prince Humperdinck. If love did not exist between them, they will not successfully conquer every obstacle and lead to a fantastical life. Love not only exists in the fictional world but also exists in the narration from the grandfather to his grandson; audience can see how love can shorten the distance between them. In the beginning of the film, the boy is playing the video game and barely shows any interest in his grandfather’s story when his grandfather tells him “when [he] was in [the boy’s] age, television was called books”. It shows how the generation gap has distanced their relation and prevented the boy to read the book and experience the world in it at the first place. However, after the grandfather finishes the story, the boy sincerely smiles at his grandfather and asks him to visit him again tomorrow. “As you wish” is what the grandfather answers to his grandson which is actually reminding the audience that the grandfather is telling his grandson that he loves him. After the grandfather’s narration, their relation is more intimate which provides children with their expected happy ending. Reiner shows his audience to believe that love can conquer every difficulty by presenting a conventional fairy tale to them.

Reiner and Goldman target specific group of audience with different story styles and the narrative tones. They also need to slightly adapt the character to fit in their media. In the novel, Goldman develops his characters with great details in order to create a more realistic structure for his audience, so he can bring a closer relation between the character and the readers. The audience can understand more about the character as if he is a real complicated person. The fully-developed character can have a deeper influence to the readers and invoke more critical understanding to the character. Take Inigo as an example; unlike conventional fairy tale’s supporting character that did not have a chance to develop his own story, Goldman shows his heroic characteristic when he is rescuing the man in black with Fezzik. In the Zoo of Death, Inigo challenges the king bat without any fear by shouting out “I am Inigo Montoya and still the Wizard; come for me” (302). He faces the danger bravely and fights against the beast in the darkness with his legendary six-fingered sword. Even though Inigo is only a supporting role in the book, Goldman still allows Inigo to develop his personal story in the book. He creates his character with depth by revealing his background story on how he decides to become a skillful swordsman and develops his heroic personality. Therefore, the character seems to be more like a real person with complicated background and affection. With the development of Inigo, the audience can have a deepened understanding about him since they go through an adventure with him.

Unlike the novel where Inigo is fully developed as a brave hero saving Westley out from death, the film shallows him to be a conventional supporting character and a sidekick with Westley. Reiner eliminates the whole courageous adventure in the zoo of death and replaces it as the pit of despair. Reiner does not want the development of Inigo to separate the audience’s attention from the couple’s adventure. He wants his audience to focus on how the power of true love can be, and how the leading role, Westley, can conquer the death instead of depicting Inigo as a talented swordsman or mentioning his wizard identity. In the movie, Inigo does not know how to find the man in black. He prays to his father’s sword and asks it guides him to find the right path to Westley. The praying scene shows the audiences how Inigo lack of leadership ability and desperately need a leader to order him to action. When he luckily finds the secret door in the tree trunk, the scene is cut through to the dead body of Westley without mentioning any challenge Inigo meets on his way to the body. In the movie, the purpose of this journey of Inigo and Fezzik is to rescue Westley instead of developing their stories more in depth. This adventurous scene in the zoo of death can be easily ignore since there did not have any exciting adventure within it, and it is also Reiner’s intention to make the movie focus more on the story of true love.

When we are writing our own work and share it with other people, we will shift the way we convey the idea in order to target different audience to view our works. The film is for familial audience, and Reiner needs to alter some part from the book to attract his audience since the book reflects some pessimistic cruel things in the real world that some children might not be ready to embrace it. However, the book is for adult audiences who have mature perspective to embrace harsh realistic idea within the story. Therefore, the book has more pessimistic tone for its adult audiences. It is different target audience that the author and the director adapt multiple story-telling techniques to convey their ideas.

Work Cited

Attebery, Brian. “Fantasy and the Narrative Transaction.” State of the Fantastic Studies in the Theory and Practice of Fantastic Literature and Film. Ed. Nicholas Ruddick. CT: Greenwood Press of Westport 1992. Print.

Doll, Jen. "How 'The Princess Bride' Became the Quintessential Teen Read." The Wire. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2015.Web.

Goldman, William. The Princess Bride. New York: Harcourt, Inc, 2007. Print.

The Princess Bride. Dir. Rob Reiner. 1987.

Wilmington, Michael. "Romance and Adventure in the Right Hands : 'The Princess Bride': Light as Air and True to Romantic Traditions." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 25 Sept. 1987. Web. 22 Apr. 2015.Web.

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