The Princess Bride

Art and the artistic temperament is a recurring thread throughout the novel, though aside from Goldman’s blended role as author and character, the story does not focus on “artists” in the traditional sense, nor the place of traditional art forms in society. However, many of the central characters, including Goldman himself, have crafts or skill sets that they approach as artists or through an artistic lens. The clearest example of this is Inigo’s father, Domingo Montoya, who actively rejects the word “artist”: “Not yet. A craftsman only. But I dream to be an artist” (92). In a classic case of the pitfalls of wishing, Domingo has a chance to fulfill this dream and create a truly unique work of art. However, this creation becomes his undoing when his client views his work not as art but as a commodity: “Art was involved and you saw only money. Beauty was here for the taking and you saw only your fat purse” (97). Domingo’s last words are “You’re an enemy of art and I pity your ignorance” (97); he dies standing up for his beliefs.

Ironically, Domingo’s killer is also an artist in his own way. Count Ruben is not an enemy of art, but he does not understand that Domingo approached his artistry with the same level of precision and care as he does his Machine. For the Count, pain is an intellectual practice: “I’ve written, of course, for the more learned journals on the subject. Articles mostly. At the present I’m engaged in writing a book. My book. The book, I hope. The definitive work on pain” (185). Because pain and distress are unquantifiable human emotions, he must examine them through an artistic lens as much as a scientific one. Prince Humperdinck takes a similar approach to his own passion for hunting. Although he hunts in the pursuit of death, death itself is not the true objective; rather, he seeks mastery over another creature. To this end, he teaches himself seemingly impossible skills that allow him to track Westley’s movements and to create the Zoo of Death as a platform to express these skills.

Goldman explores his own role as an artist through the metafictional frame of the story. The fictional Morganstern’s asides and his interjections not only explain his narrative choices in the book but also upend the conventions of storytelling, especially within the fairy tale genre. He comments on artistic choice by analyzing the fictional Morganstern’s decisions:

Either Morgenstern meant them seriously or he didn’t. Or maybe he meant some of them seriously and some others he didn’t. But he never said which were the seriously ones. Or maybe it was the author’s way of telling the reader stylistically that ‘this isn’t real; it never happened’ (34).

This interrogation of artistic intent, and his use of Morganstern as a proxy for himself, highlights his resistance to reader expectations and literary conventions, as well as his shifting perspectives on the craft of storytelling as he ages.

Westley, Inigo, Vizzini, and even the fictional Goldman all exhibit artistic skills or skills they developed through an artistic approach. This speaks to the novel’s overarching attitude that life itself should be viewed as art. Each of these characters turns their passion into an art form, which in turn allows them to live fully and passionately—even at the risk of being consumed by it.