Study of death in the novel The Princess Bride: death as part of the adventure

Abstract

In The Princess Bride, an adventure and fantasy epic novel that is intended for an ideal ten-year-old reader, death is only one element together with fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, giants, etc. Its presence is very noticeable, since it is everywhere, both as the motivation and the result of the battles and fights that happen throughout the narration. In this work I analyze the novel through the words of the characters to determine different representations of death offered by its author, as a representation of the end of life, due to varying reasons, and also as a recurrent element of literary discourse. This work is a particular contribution to the area of study of children’s literature that focuses on deaths that are necessary and violent in the narrative fiction. It pursues as a general objective the defense of long books as a learning tool to promote reading and discussion among children about important existential subjects. In particular, it presents the The Princess Bride as an example, proposing a brief study guide of this novel, which consists of some easy tasks for approaching the concept of death.