Author: Magnolia

In the article “The Paratext and Literary Narration: Authorship, Institutions, Historiographies,” Florian Sedlmeier, an Assistant Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, explores the concept of paratext. Over the weekend I was browsing the databases for any additional texts on paratext that might be a better fit for my project and came across this piece. What drew me to this article initially was how the title promised discussion of paratext in relation to both authorship and narration, topics which I thought would be interesting when looking at The Princess Bride. 

While discussing authorship, Sedlmeier brings up a quote from Genette that explains how paratext acts as commentary from the author of the piece (67). I think this idea is interesting given how Goldman acts as the abridger of the novel because every note he has explaining he edits to the “original” text is based on his own opinion and perspective. Sedlmeier also introduces Genette’s concept of “autographic paratexts,” which are paratexts specifically attributed to the author (prefaces, titles, epigraphs, etc.) (69). In the article, Sedlmeier and Genette present paratext as a kind of link between the author, the text and literary historiography. This being said, Sedlmeier doesn’t explore how paratext could be used to mislead readers and spread misinformation. 

As stated earlier, The Princess Bride does display aspects of paratext that Sedlmeier describes in the article, but it also uses paratext to create an illusion of reality. In the introduction, notes and epigraph of the novel, Goldman talks about Florin and Guilder as if they were real places with lengthy histories. Paratexts also complicate Goldman’s connection with the text because while his own opinions are explicitly stated in some paratext, the S. Morgenstern pseudonym that Goldman writes the novel under and his constant claim to being only the abridger in other paratextual elements limit his connection to the original piece. This divide between Goldman and the text also complicates my previous ideas regarding escapism because if The Princess Bride is supposed to be Goldman’s way of escaping reality, why does he try to distance himself from it by hiding behind a pseudonym? Or does Goldman’s escape lie in the paratexts where he takes on a narratorial role and becomes part of the story in that sense? 

Sedlmeier, Florian. “The Paratext and Literary Narration: Authorship, Institutions, Historiographies.” Narrative, vol. 26, no. 1, 2018, pp. 63–80. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26405564. Accessed 11 Nov. 2024.

While browsing Mythlore’s Spring/Summer 2024 issue, I came across an article discussing The Princess Bride and the state of scholarly research on William Goldman’s work. As G. Connor Salter confirms in his article “Whatever Happened to The Princess Bride?: Thoughts for Further William Goldman Research,” there are very few scholarly sources on both Goldman and the novel, so when I found the article, I knew I had to take a closer look. The article itself is only a few pages long, but it was filled with information on both existing research on Goldman and ideas for more exploration. 

While the article didn’t provide any deep analysis on The Princess Bride, it did shed some light on both Goldman’s history and some popular themes in his works. One of the themes Salter mentions in connection with The Princess Bride, however, is escapism. This stood out to me because I discussed escapism in my previous blog post while analyzing a December 1973 New York Times issue. When the novel came out in 1973, the US was in the midst of the Cold War and the Vietnam War, so it makes sense that people wanted an escape from reality. Salter references Richard Anderson’s 1979 book William Goldman, connecting this idea of escapism, which Anderson claims is apparent in all of Goldman’s work, to mythopoeia and the grandson’s interactions with the text in the film adaptation (185-186). 

Salter’s introduction to mythopoeia also stood out to me while reading the article, initially because of its unfamiliarity. The OED defines “mythopoeia” as “the creation of a myth or myths” (“Mythopoeia, N.”). I think connecting The Princess Bride to mythopoeia is interesting given that Goldman spends so much time trying to convince his audience that the entire story is true, along with the existence of S. Morgenstern. Furthermore, myths tend to explain something or feature some sort of lesson. If The Princess Bride is supposed to be read as a myth, what is the lesson it’s teaching and how does Goldman communicate it? As I continue my research on The Princess Bride, I hope to explore its potential connection between mythopoeia and paratext.

 

“Mythopoeia, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/2378832276. 

Salter, G. Connor. “Whatever Happened to The Princess Bride?: Thoughts for Further William Goldman Research.” Mythlore, vol. 42, no. 2 (144), 2024, pp. 181–87. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48771997. Accessed 27 Oct. 2024. 

While combing through potential sources, I found an issue of The New York Times, featuring a review on my focal text, The Princess Bride. After reading the review I decided to page through the issue for any articles that could shed light on what was going on around the novel’s publication. For a little context, this issue was published on December 23, 1973, the same year The Princess Bride was published, and consequentially it was filled with advertisements for various Christmas gifts and holiday sales. One advertisement that caught my attention was for a Bonwit Teller swimsuit on page 5. This advertisement takes up almost the entire page and consists of a small paragraph and illustration displaying the product. The tagline of the ad reads, “The Bonwit Tank: Ready to Move Boldly into the Sun Life” (5). What stood out to me about this advertisement was that it was promoting a summer swimsuit in the middle of December, a month when it is too cold for swimming in most places. The winter solstice, which is the day that has the least amount of sunlight hours, also occurs in December. I think these aspects help encourage readers to not only buy the swimsuit, but also hint at a need to travel in order to enjoy their product and escape the cold weather. 

Another thing I noticed was the plethora of pieces on various crises overseas, and on the fuel crisis in the US. One piece in particular was a message from Roots. The message starts with “Winter 1973 hasn’t been all bad” (39) and then continues to list various current issues and good aspects of them, including an “energy crisis,” “foreign conflicts,” “our uncertain economy,” and “Disturbing political incidents have caused us to individually examine our own motives and actions, which can only result in good.” The list created by the message depicts various problems taking place at the time, and consequently, the effect these have on the population. I had wondered why Goldman decided to not only write a fairytale aimed at all ages, but also to interact with the text with his personal perspective and notes; now I think I have a theory. At the time of this New Yorker issue there is a lot happening; people are stressed and struggling and in need of an escape. Maybe The Princess Bride was an escape for Goldman, and by interacting with the text, he felt like he was more of a part of the story.

Works Cited

“Display Ad 11 — no Title.” New York Times (1923-), Dec 23, 1973, pp. 5. ProQuest, https://dickinson.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/display-ad-11-no-title/docview/119732018/se-2. 

“Display Ad 86 — no Title.” New York Times (1923-), Dec 23, 1973, pp. 39. ProQuest, https://dickinson.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/display-ad-86-no-title/docview/119733760/se-2. 

Primary Source: 

• Goldman, William. The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Harcourt, 2007.
• Reiner, Rob, director. The Princess Bride. 20th Century Studios, 9 Oct. 1987.
• Winterson, Jeanette. Frankissstein: A Love Story. Johnathan Cape, 2019.

Secondary/Theoretical Works: 

• Attebery, Brian. Strategies of Fantasy. Indiana University Press, 1992.
• Birke, Dorothee, and Birte Christ. “Paratext and Digitized Narrative: Mapping the Field.” Narrative (Columbus, Ohio), vol. 21, no. 1, 2013, pp. 65–87, https://doi.org/10.1353/nar.2013.0003.
• Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. University of Nebraska Press, 1997.
• James, Edward, and Farah Mendlesohn. The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature. Cambridge University Press, 2012.
• Mendlesohn, Farah. Rhetorics of Fantasy, Wesleyan University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/dickinson/detail.action?docID=1110030.
• Salter, G. Connor. “Whatever Happened to The Princess Bride?: Thoughts for Further William Goldman Research.” Mythlore, vol. 42, no. 2 (144), 2024, pp. 181–87. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48771997. Accessed 3 Nov. 2024.

Academic Journal: 

• Mythlore, vol. 42, no. 2 (144), Mythopoetic Society, 2024, pp. 3–6. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/48771986. 

Keywords: 

• Paratext
• Narratology
• Storytelling
• Fantasy
• Escapism
• Mythopoeia

 

Description: 

I grew up with the movie The Princess Bride, so when I found out it was in fact inspired by a book by William Goldman, I was overjoyed. Aside from the great story, one thing that intrigued me about the novel was how Goldman presented the text. Instead of situating himself as the author, he created the pseudonym S. Morgenstern while he claimed to be abridging the story. In addition to inventing this fictional author, Goldman invents the kingdoms of Florin and Guilder, which he claims to be real places. Using paratext scattered throughout the pages, Goldman explains excerpts he cut from the “original” text and develops a history of the kingdoms and S. Morgenstern. He also reinvents his own history throughout the book, going as far as to tell readers how his father read The Princess Bride to him when he was sick as a child. Even in the novel’s added introductions for the 25th and 30th anniversary editions, Goldman continues with the charade, inventing a museum dedicated to S. Morgenstern (30th anniversary) and referencing a group of “Florinese experts” and Florin’s most popular tourist attraction: the Cliffs of Insanity (25th anniversary).  

When I first read this book, I wondered why Goldman decided to present The Princess Bride in this way, instead of admitting to being the author upfront. Fueled by this curiosity, I decided to take a narratological approach to Goldman’s novel for my thesis. What is the point of inventing a fake author and incorporating personal notes into the novel? What do these elements do for the story? What do they do for the reader?  

After a meeting with Professor Seiler, I learned that those “personal notes” I wanted to investigate were considered paratext, giving me my first keyword and research topic. My meeting with Professor Skalak helped me decide my other keywords, directing me to the theory of narratology and to my second through fourth secondary sources. With “Paratext and Digitized Narrative: Mapping the Field” and Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree I hope to further my understanding of what paratext is and how it can contribute to a text. The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature and the journal Mythlore will help me explore the fantasy genre in general and narrow my research. Using Attebery’s Strategies of Fantasy I will explore the uses narratology and storytelling within the genre. With Rhetorics of Fantasy I will examine the development of fictional worlds by various authors, which will hopefully give me some insight into Goldman’s creation of Florin and Guilder. Although the discourse on The Princess Bride is limited and mostly focuses on the movie, I plan to continue sifting through what I can find in case there is something I can apply to my own investigation.

Update:

Since my original post, I have decided to add both the film for The Princess Bride and the novel Frankissstein to my primary sources since both weave together different stories like Goldman does. With the movie we see the story of Buttercup and Westley alongside the story of the grandfather and grandson. In Frankissstein, Jeanette Winterson layers her modern Frankenstein retelling with a storyline following the creation of Mary Shelley’s novel. With both sources, I hope to explore the narratives and how the creators combine different storylines together. I have also added a specific article by Connor G. Salter from Mythlore to my secondary sources. This article not only describes the current scholarly field surrounding Goldman and The Princess Bride, but it also makes some interesting suggestions for further research. For example, this article emphasizes the idea of escapism in Goldman’s works which I had already been curious about. The article also introduced the idea of mythopoeia in connection to the novel which is something I hope to explore as I continue to research The Princess Bride. 

William Goldman’s novel The Princess Bride is famous for its iconic characters. One thing I noticed while reading was how Goldman depicts masculinity in the book, namely how it manages to create a divide between the heroes of the story and the villains. On one hand, the villains are tied to traits of “toxic masculinity,” while on the other, the heroes have traits that relate to a more positive version of masculinity. 

For our three villains Prince Humperdinck and Count Rugen, this idea of “toxic masculinity” is clear in their need for control and dominance and their display of limited emotions. Count Rugen asserts his dominance in a few violent ways: killing Inigo’s father (131), defeating 10-year-old Inigo in a duel (132-133), torturing Westley (261-263) and almost killing Inigo (344-345). Once again, Rugen doesn’t show much when it comes to emotions, but he does have moments of arrogance and fear, which are both present when he faces Inigo at the end of the novel. With Humperdinck, we are shown these same emotions, but his most often shown emotion is anger. One display of his anger is during chapter six as Buttercup realizes he lied to her; during this fit of rage, he locks Buttercup in her room and then goes to “kill” Westley, both actions allowing him to assert his power. Earlier in the book Goldman show’s us two other instances in which Humperdinck asserts his dominance, one being his “Zoo of Death”. The “Zoo of Death” is a structure built under the castle with five different levels, four of which are filled with animals for Humperdinck to go hunt and assert his dominance over animals for whenever he pleases (74-76). On page 90 Goldman depicts Buttercup and Humperdinck’s first meeting where he asks for her hand, tells her because he’s the prince she can’t say no, and then threatens to kill her if she refuses again. Here Humperdinck makes his power clear as he threatens her with death to get what he wants. 

Turning to our heroes Westley and Inigo, we don’t see as much need for control or dominance. An exception to this might be the duel between the two but the goal of said fight was more so to survive than to “show who’s boss”. Furthermore, we see a larger range of emotions from these two heroes over the story. During Inigo’s backstory (120-142), we see his love towards his father, his anger and grief at his murder, and his hopelessness at never avenging him. Right after he offers compassion towards “the man in black”, helping him up the cliff and allowing him to rest before they duel (144) and towards Fezzik as he tries to cheer him up with rhymes throughout the story. With Westley we are primarily shown his love for Buttercup and his despair at losing her. The important thing about their emotions is that they can be vulnerable within the text, they can show compassion and despair, which goes against the idea of “toxic masculinity”. Since Goldman connects “positive” masculinity with the heroes and “toxic masculinity” with the villains, he also ends up pairing the binary of “positive” masculinity vs “toxic masculinity” with the binary of good vs evil. As a result, the text criticizes the traits of “toxic masculinity” while encouraging vulnerability. 

While watching Rear Window one pattern I noticed was that of women serving as the caretakers of the men in their lives. Take Stella for instance; the first time we see her, Stella is there to take care of Jefferies in his injured state. Even when Stella isn’t acting as Jefferies’ nurse while they spy on Mr. Thorwald towards the end of the film, she is still taking care of Jefferies. Stella does this by checking for evidence in Mr. Thorwald’s garden for Jefferies and going to bail Lisa out of jail since Jefferies is unable to do so himself.

We see this pattern continue in Lisa’s interactions with Jefferies throughout the film. Like Stella, in the sequence where we’re introduced to Lisa, she is taking care of Jefferies by turning on the lights, setting the table and getting dinner together for him. She also tries to cheer him up from his bored and miserable state by chatting and trying to get him to look on the bright side by toasting to the start of his last week in a cast. As the film continues, Lisa continues to visit Jefferies and keep him company while he sits in his apartment. At the climax of the film, Lisa even helps Jefferies with his “investigation” of Mr. Thorwald by checking both his garden and apartment for evidence. As the film ends, Lisa is shown reading a book about the Himalayas in Jefferies’ apartment in jeans and a plain button-up shirt, her most casual outfit in the whole film. As she notices that Jefferies is asleep, she switches from her book to a fashion magazine. This scene shows how Lisa changed her lifestyle to fit into Jefferies’ life by giving up her fancy clothes and suppressing her interest in the fashion industry. While some of these acts just seem like her helping Jefferies, they still put Lisa in the role of caretaker because she does these things to make Jefferies happy.

This being said, there is one important break from this pattern: the Thorwalds. In this relationship, the roles are reversed since Mrs. Thorwald is sick and Mr. Thorwald must take care of her. However, this relationship is shown to be an “unsuccessful” one when Mr. Thorwald murders his wife in the middle of the night. In the cases with women as the caretakers, both Stella and Lisa appear to get happy endings by the film’s end, unlike the Thorwalds. By presenting a pattern like this and depicting violence when the pattern is reversed, it’s difficult to ignore how the film seems to push certain gender roles. By providing the female caretakers with happy endings while punishing the male caretaker and the woman receiving care, the film seems to caution women to be the caretakers in their relationships.

Over the course of the film, Jefferies makes a few comparisons between Lisa and his ballet dancer neighbor, Ms. Torso. However, not once does he draw a comparison between Lisa and his neighbor Ms. Lonelyhearts, whom Lisa herself seems to relate throughout the film. The first scene we get focusing on Ms. Lonelyhearts is the one where she is getting ready for a date. It is soon revealed that Ms. Lonelyhearts’ suitor is an imaginary one and while she tries to pretend to have a romantic dinner with said suitor, she ends up breaking down at the table. At the close of the scene, we see Lisa looking at Ms. Lonelyhearts just before Jefferies compares her to Ms. Torso. 

The scene may only last a few minutes, but it gives the audience a clear picture of Ms. Lonelyhearts’ loneliness and longing for love as she fantasizes about sharing a romantic dinner with a lover. As Lisa watches Ms. Lonelyhearts, her eyes soften and she is not quite frowning, making the expression seem empathetic. Seconds later, Jefferies comments that Lisa will never be like Ms. Lonelyhearts and after a brief hesitation, Lisa questions him. Lisa’s voice, witch at her arrival was upbeat and enthusiastic, now becomes soft and sad as she doubts Jefferies’ judgement. Both the look she casts at Ms. Lonelyhearts and her saddened tone help highlight how Lisa relates to Ms. Lonelyhearts. 

These similarities between the two women help highlight Lisa’s own feelings of longing and loneliness in her relationship with Jefferies as he tries to push her away while she just wants to be with him. The song, To See You Is to Love You (performed by Bing Crosby), which plays throughout the scene further highlights this idea. During the song we hear the line “To see you is to love you” twice and the line “To see you is to want you” once. Over the course of this song, Jefferies is watching Ms. Lonelyhearts, not Lisa, which helps emphasize Lisa’s feeling of loneliness in their relationship.