Analyzing Characteristics of Shrek and Lord Farquaad

Analyzing Characteristics of Shrek and Lord Farquaad

In this essay, I am going to analyse the characters of Shrek and Lord

Farquaad, and write about how film makers use different presentational

devices to create an unusual fairytale.

In 'Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs' the Prince freed Snow White from

the spell by kissing her. In 'Jack And The Beanstalk' the giant chases

Jack and wants to eat him. In Shrek we see a different type of

fairytale which shows that Shrek is a modern fairytale.

Language is an important device, and I am going to write about how

language can create the impression of good and evil in both characters

and in films. The film, 'Shrek', opens with the usual, man telling the

story about a Princess and how she is trapped in a tower waiting for

her Prince to rescue her. Then a hand comes in and tears out the page.

Then Shrek comes out of the toilet wiping his arse. I think that the

viewers are surprised because they're expecting an old fashioned

fairytale. I think that the opening suggests it's a modern fairytale,

with a different ending.

When the storybook characters arrive Shrek threatens them by saying he

will 'Grind your bones, and make jelly from your eyes'. He tries to

frighten them by saying 'Orges are worse than giants'. They react by

running away screaming.

At first Shrek seems like a traditional orge because he's horrible,

ugly and says nasty things like orges and giants do in traditional

fairytales.

When Donkey approaches Shrek, Shrek roars at him and tries to

intimidate him, but Donkey isn't frightened and says 'You need some

tic-tacs' talking about Shrek's bad breath. Donkey is persisten...

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...Farquaad looks like a Lord, his actions suggest that he

is evil. Examples of Lord Farquaad's evil side is when he tortures the

gingerbread man, when he dumps all the fairytale creatures in Shrek's

swamp, he gets the knights to try and beat up Shrek and when he sees

what Princess Fiona looks like when the sun goes down he says 'Get

that out of my sight' and because he wants to become king so bad he

says the marriage is legal.

The story of Shrek uses presentational devices to reverse our

expectations, so that by the end of the film the viewers know that

'Shrek' is a modern fairytale, because the characters of Lord Farquaad

and Shrek have been switched.

What I learnt from this story is that the times are changing and that

fairytales are becoming modern and all the characters are switched or

the story plots change.