The Hidden Depth of 'The Princess Bride'

I've been rereading the one true love of my life The Princess Bride this January, so I thought that now would be the perfect time to share an article I wrote about the novel for the online magazine Femnista back in autumn 2020.  As with the Broken Trail piece I posted for last year's Legends of Western Cinema Week, what you'll read below is my initial submission to Femnista, not the version that appeared on the website after a few moderator edits.  I've also added a couple of my own tweaks to the original (i.e., adding an additional quotation, etc.).  But the gist is very much the same; never fear.

So, if you want to learn more about just one of the manifold reasons this book is so dear to me — and if you don't mind spoilers — then I echo to you Mr. Bennet's immortal advice:  Read on, Lizzy!

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What if I told you that the real story of The Princess Bride was not that of Buttercup and Westley? Or of Inigo and his revenge? What if I told you that, instead, the heart of this fairytale lies in the “real world,” in the parallel plotline of a little boy hearing it for the first time from his father?

To see what I mean, you have to read the 1973 book by William Goldman, not just watch the 1987 movie.  Because, about midway through the novel, Goldman reveals what he sees as the point of his story:  that life is unfair.  Hardly original, I know — but the genius of Goldman’s style is not that he writes about unfairness; it’s the way in which he does so.

The Princess Bride doesn’t peddle its "life's not fair" motif through the embedded narrative plot — not through the story of a shallow (?) beauty and her valiant (?) hero.  After all, who should care whether or not Westley actually dies?  The universe will not be shaken to its foundations should one measly princess not get her happily ever after.  We all know that, and would probably all say, quite literally, "Suck it up, Buttercup."  No, the reason this book can claim that it's about the inequity of existence is that it's actually an "innocence lost" story.

Innocence lost and, arguably more importantly, salvaged.

Not quite regained, let's be clear on that. J.M. Barrie observes in Peter Pan that once we're dealt that initial, disillusioning blow of reality as children, we'll never be precisely as carefree and confident of resolution as we were before.

But we can — we do — come to grips with our new reality as it now presents itself.  The optimist within us is dazed, and he doesn't rule the roost so completely as he used to, but he still lives.  We all still have sparks of improbable hope in us, however deeply they may be buried.  And the remarkable thing about The Princess Bride, in my opinion, is that it presents us with both sides of that coming-of-age coin.  

First, it captures the exact moment that a ten-year-old’s idealism dies its first complete death.

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"Westley dies," my father said.

I said, "What do you mean, 'Westley dies'? You mean dies?"

My father nodded. "Prince Humperdinck kills him."

"He's only faking though, right?"

My father shook his head, and closed the book all the way.

"Aw [profanity redacted]," I said and I started to cry.

. . .

"Who gets Humperdinck?" I screamed after him.

He stopped in the hall. "I don't understand."

"Who kills Prince Humperdinck? At the end, somebody's got to get him. Is it Fezzik? Who?"

"Nobody kills him. He lives."

"You mean he wins, Daddy? [profanity redacted], what did you read me this thing for?" and I buried my head in my pillow and I never cried like that again, not once to this day.

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The great secret of the plot is not that it should matter so terribly much to us whether or not the hero survives. It's that it matters so terribly much to a sick little boy — one who's learning, for the first time, that perhaps the universe doesn't always operate on the basis of justice.

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I spent that whole night thinking Buttercup married Humperdinck.  It just rocked me.  How can I explain it, but the world didn't work that way.  Good got attracted to good, evil you flushed down the john and that was that.

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Now, it could be argued that this whole premise falls apart due to what most of us already know: namely, that Westley does not, in fact, stay dead.  Through a humorous and fantastical series of events, his former nemeses track him down, hire a miracle man, and the castle is stormed after all.

"Foul," we may cry.  It's important for children to learn that things really don't always "work out".  Why promise to teach them that if you end up essentially giving them fairy godmothers and wishing stars anyway?

Because once our eyes have been opened, they stay opened — that's why.  Fortune may come in to save the day, and often does, thank heaven.  But, as Goldman goes on to explain, we're no longer left with that sense of certainty.  

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Something was wrong and I couldn't lose it.  Suddenly there was this discontent gnawing away until it had a place big enough to settle in and then it curled up and stayed there and it's still inside me lurking as I write this now.

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We no longer know that everything will be alright.  All we can do is pray for the best.  And, in the end, that's what The Princess Bride does.  We're not told for sure whether or not everyone we love "gets away".  We don't know how long their ride into the sunset lasts.  But at least there's a chance for it.

As adult readers, that hope is all the magic we need.

Westley, babe, that ponytail is not it