Compare And Contrast: The Princess Bride

Compare and Contrast The Princess Bride

Some movies are based on a certain time period, but do they always represent it accurately? The movie The Princess Bride was formed around the Middle Ages. This movie is similar, yet different from the time it is attempting to portray. A quick summary of this story is a farm boy and lady fall in love with each other, they get separated, and they endure many obstacles to become one again. This film is packed with romance, adventure, and faithfulness. However, the actual Middle Ages rarely had romance, and was full of fear, death, and sadness. The movie can be compared and contrasted with the actual Middle Ages using the concept of love, loyalty, and the appearance of the people.

First, The Princess

Bride was very accurate pertaining the appearance of people from the Middle Ages. The appearance of a person normally depended on their social class. In this movie, it displayed all of the classes (except for serfs), which are peasants, clergy, and nobility. Living in poverty, peasants could not afford much to wear. A peasant man would wear tunics and long stockings made of either wool or linen. Most of the time, a peasant man would have hair about to their shoulders, but sometimes it would be very short. A peasant woman wore a long dress and stockings, both made of the same material as a man’s. Never having short hair, the peasant woman always let her hair grow out. Both peasant men and women wore thick leather clogs or boots, and the color of their clothing usually consisted of brown, red, or gray. The children of the peasants dressed similarly to their parents. Working very hard for a living, all of the peasants seemed very exhausted. In addition, the merit clergy were of high salience, so their clothing was made with higher quality. In The Princess Bride, the only clergymen shown were monks and a high priest. Committed to a life dedicated to God, monks did not own nice clothing. Similar to the peasants, they wore long tunics and leather shoes. Also, their hair was cut in a bowl shape, shaved on the top. In the movie, the color of their tunic was blue, but in the actual Middle Ages it was often white, brown, or black, which signified what type of monk they were. The high priest had very fine clothing. He wore a long white gown with beautiful embroiderment, a tall embroidered headdress, and leather shoes. Also, he was often bald. Furthermore, the nobles wore the highest quality clothing. Nobility consisted of many classes, but in this movie the knights, and the king and queen were shown. Knights wore underclothes similar to the peasants regular clothing, which was a linen shirt and stockings. Made of a series of garments, chain mail, and iron plating, Knights always wore their suit of armor over their underclothing to provide them with protection. A little higher up from the knights is the king and the queen. Having an abundance of money, the king and queen buy the finest clothing they desire. Both the king and queen’s clothing consisted of bright colors, exotic furs and skins, silk, and velvet. A typical medieval king wore a long, ornate, silk robe with fur trimming, a shirt, pants, and curly-toed shoes. He also wore expensive, delicate jewelry. The queen had a very large variety of clothing in her wardrobe. She wore a long flowing dress made of silk, tall handcrafted headdresses, and high quality shoes. Every piece of clothing owned by the queen was carefully crafted with alluring embroiderment. Every separate social class of the Medieval Ages dressed according to their group. The Princess Bride was capable of presenting this very alike the Medieval Ages.
Next, the concept of “loyalty” was an extremely influential moral in The Middle Ages. This principle was appropriately presented in the movie, The Princess Bride, as well. Strong dedication to a person or place, the feeling of allegiance, loyalty was practiced everywhere in the Medieval Times, and the movie. During the time period, even though the quality of allegiance was adhered to by everyone, the most commonly practiced loyalty was between a lord and a vassal. The vassal pledged to honor his lord, provide protection for his family and people, and always take his thoughts into consideration. The vassal fought gallantly for his lord with twenty strong, noble knights. In addition, those knights were loyal to the vassals because they were their lords. Knights swore loyalty to their vassal (or their lord in this situation), and would fight for him. The lord of the vassals and knights was loyal to the king, providing protection and a large army. Feudalism, a system created in the Middle Ages, set the main foundation for the concept of loyalty, and the lord vassal relationship. In return for the lord’s allegiance to the king, he was given land. The lord bestowed some land to vassals and they gave some land to knights. Land was only gained through this system by loyalty though. In the feudal system, every person was given the responsibility of being loyal to each other. Otherwise, privileges and fiefs would be revoked. The moral code everyone was required to conform to was loyalty. The lord-vassal relationship wasn’t depicted often in the movie, but it was visible between the king and his knights. In addition, another situation shown in both the movie and actual life is when loyalty was used between a worker and a boss. When a peasant was hired to work, whether it be farming or crafting, he or she would pledge allegiance to their boss. Obeying commands, carrying out precious labor, workers had been always very loyal to their boss. When one committed to a job, he would carry it out even if he perished from it. Men would put their life on the line for their boss. An example of this situation in the movie is with Vizzini when he hired Fezzik and Inigo Montoya to service him in capturing Buttercup. Even to the point where it was against Inigo and Fezzik’s morals, they were still faithful and loyal to Vizzini. These men were willing to die for the man to whom they pledged their allegiance. This is how it truly was in the Medieval Times. One last situation where loyalty was shown in relation to the Middle Ages was with Inigo Montoya. Inigo Montoya expressed a charismatic devotion to avenging his beloved father. Living during this time period, family was very important. A tight bond was established between someone and their family, and they became very loyal to each other. Inigo Montoya’s father was killed by a wicked man, and since that event occurred, he vowed to never give up on his loyalty to his father, for he would murder the man who murdered his father. Every family member was loyal to one another, which ended up forming a system of protection because everyone was given respect. The Princess Bride expressed the concept of loyalty in a very similar way to the Middle Ages.
Finally, the concept of affectionate love was a very complex subject even with reasoning.

Unfortunately, The Princess Bride inaccurately represented love as a beautiful emotion, filled with love and passion towards someone very dear to you. In reality, love in the Middle Ages seemed rather unfair and somewhat emotionless. Throughout the Middle Ages, love never occurred to be like one’s thoughts of “true love”. Falling in love, sensing a compassionate attraction towards one another, and feeling as strongly as to perish for your partner was not a priority of love and rarely happened. Love during this time period was known as “courtly love”, which was primarily organized by the parents of the beings. Often, the young man or lady would not see eye to eye with whom their parents chose; however, the settlement wasn’t in his or her say. Meeting regularly accompanied by the parents, the two paired young adults would become more familiar with each other, and eventually bewed one another. There was a slim chance they may have actually fallen in love, but it was very rare. On the contrary, The Princess Bride displayed love in Medieval Times as very romantic, passionate, and sentimental in a person’s heart. The main characters, Buttercup and Westley, had a likewise relationship towards one another. After years of completing difficult labor for his most precious master, Westley soon developed feelings for her, which she eventually reciprocated back to him. During the Middle Ages, there

was no relationships between a servant and a master, for it was forbidden. Westley leaves her to earn some wages to have a wedding, but years follow without his return. Moping and unsatisfied with the horrendous situation, Buttercup declared she would never love again. In contrast, in Medieval Times, even when one whom was very close to you died, you were obliged to continue life without them. Sighing and weeping for your dead loved ones for months was classified as very inappropriate for the Middle Ages. Furthermore, a few years after Buttercup’s mourning, she was appointed to marry the prince of the land, which was decided by the prince himself. A royal person marrying a commoner was an extremely unlikely scenario because royalty was often supposed to marry other royalty. It also would have been recognized as strange if the prince had chosen a low class lady. In addition to those examples of love in The Princess Bride, there is one more situation. Kissing passionately and feeling undying affection towards one another, Buttercup and Westley were finally together and lived happily ever after. In contrast to the Medieval Times, this was extremely inaccurate. As said before, there was no “falling in love” or “happily ever after” during this dreary time period. Ending up actually admiring who your parents chose for you would even be a blessing because it was often disagreed upon. The parents chose who they felt was the finest for their beloved child, even if it meant their child being upset with them. The Princess Bride made the concept of love in The Middle Ages seem grand and very romantic; however, this was rarely the case.
In conclusion, The Princess Bride correctly defined the concept of loyalty, and the appearance of people in the Middle Ages, but inaccurately expressed the concept of love.

The appearance of people in the Middle Ages was the same in both the movie and reality. People dressed and looked according to their social class, which was either a peasant, clergy, or nobility. Peasants had a poor, rugged appearance because they barely had enough money to care for themselves, but the clergy and nobility were very important so they often had handmade, beautiful, embroidered clothing. Furthermore, the concept of loyalty in the Middle Ages was well shown in The Princess Bride. In both scenarios, loyalty was a very important concept, and was normally practiced by everyone. The lord-vassal relationship, and the bond between a boss and a worker were the most commonly seen acts of loyalty. In The Princess Bride, the concept of loyalty was shown by the king and his knights, which was similar to the lord-vassal relationship, by Vizzini and his workers, and by Inigo Montoya and his loyalty towards his beloved father. Providing a tight bond between families and feudalism, loyalty was an important moral in the Medieval Times. On the other hand, the movie did not accurately depict the concept of love during the Middle Ages. The Princess Bride expressed love during this time period as very romantic, passionate, exciting, and joyous, and everyone would eventually meet their true love by fate. In

contrast, “true love” wasn’t actually the case in the Middle Ages. In reality, the parents of a person would find a person whom they thought would be the correct match for them, and they would set them up. Being deprived of the choice of whom to marry, people during the Middle Ages did not usually “fall in love” and have a passionate relationship. Overall, The Princess Bride did well depicting the concept of loyalty and a person’s appearance during the Middle Ages; however, the concept of love is large and they did an inaccurate job portraying it.