Fact vs. Fiction Theme Analysis

Throughout The Princess Bride, author (and character) William Goldman sets out to tell two different stories—neither of which are entirely true, yet both of which are presented as factual history. The first is the “classic tale” of The Princess Bride, which Goldman claims was originally written by a writer named S. Morgenstern from the country of Florin (both Morgenstern and Florin are entirely fictional, though Goldman refers to them as if they truly exist both in the novel and his introductory material). This tale follows the hero Westley as he fights for his love, Buttercup, against the conniving Prince Humperdinck. Goldman says he is abridging this tale for the reader, deeming his telling “the good parts version.” (Again, Goldman is not actually abridging anything, since the “original” is something he made up.) The second story Goldman tells is one from his own fictionalized life—how Goldman's father, a Florinese immigrant to the U.S., read him The Princess Bride as a child, and how Goldman goes on to try to share this story with his own son, Jason. By presenting The Princess Bride as a story within a story, Goldman encourages the reader to consider the purpose of literature itself. Ultimately Goldman blends fact and fiction together in a manner that suggests the line between the two doesn’t matter all that much, because fiction can contain valuable truths.

Within the world of the novel, Goldman comes down with pneumonia as a ten-year-old, which prompts his father to read him The Princess Bride. This experience teaches Goldman how stories can bring people together: apart from their sheer entertainment value, stories provide people with tools to reach out to and more easily interact with each other. Indeed, Goldman grows closer to his father as the latter reads to him; though Goldman never says so outright, it's implied that he and his father weren't close before this experience, if only because of the cultural and language divide between them. He describes his father as unattractive, unlucky, and unsuccessful, and because his father immigrated to the U.S. and never fully learned English, Goldman describes his father's speech as embarrassingly “immigranty.” Reading The Princess Bride to young Goldman allows Goldman's father to connect with his son in an unprecedented way, as Goldman becomes more forgiving of his father's poor English because he's so caught up in the excitement of the story. This suggests the power of storytelling to transcend cultural boundaries.

Goldman notes that in the years after this, he and his father connect exclusively over their love of The Princess Bride, as Goldman would sometimes ask his father to reread him beloved passages. His father would always comply, thereby recreating some of the magic that allowed them to form a relationship when Goldman was a child. Of course, this is entirely fictional: in real life, beyond the world of the novel, Goldman’s father was not a Florinese immigrant, because Florin doesn’t exist; more tragically, he committed suicide when Goldman was a teenager, meaning any sustained relationship was impossible. Yet the fact that this isn't true to Goldman's actual life doesn't matter; he is making the point that literature has the power to connect people regardless of whether or not it tells a truthful story. Indeed, the story itself makes its own kind of truth.

Within The Princess Bride itself, Goldman makes much the same point as he explores the power of the tale of the Dread Pirate Roberts. Westley explains to Buttercup that there have been several incarnations of Dread Pirate Roberts in the two decades that Roberts has been terrorizing the seas: whenever a Roberts decides he wants to retire, he passes the ship on to his first mate. This man assumes the name of Roberts while also changing out the ship’s crew so that the men aren’t aware that their captain Roberts isn't the same as that of the previous crew. Importantly, Westley notes that this works because of the power of the story of the Dread Pirate Roberts; the name itself carries enough weight to inspire fear—even if the man behind the name is the novel's romantic hero, as Westley is, or retired in Patagonia, as the first Roberts is.

Westley later uses this knowledge to great effect when, in order to storm Humperdinck’s castle, he and Inigo dress Fezzik in a holocaust cloak (a cloak that can be lit on fire but protects the wearer from burning) and have Fezzik dramatically announce that he's the Dread Pirate Roberts and will “leave no survivors.” Though Fezzik isn't the Dread Pirate Roberts, simply saying he's Roberts is enough to send the brute squad—a group of 100 trained fighters standing guard—into a terrified frenzy. This is the power of mythmaking in action.

Taken together, Goldman ultimately suggests that the truth of a story matters much less than whether or not the story itself works to reach a given goal, whether that be scaring brutes, entertaining readers, or connecting people around a shared interest. It doesn’t matter whether stories are full of truth, the novel ultimately suggests, because great stories can create their own.