Although I am not very familiar with poetic readings and readings from our Literature book, I did enjoy and was able to comprehend the book Daphnis and Chloe by Longus because it was fairly easy wording and I am somewhat familiar and interested in Greek mythology. Upon reading Daphnis and Chloe, I found a connection to a movie and novel I have seen before. I couldn’t figure out what it was until the professor brought it up in class. It was tied to The Princess Bride movie. I remember watching this movie over and over again and now | can see why I loved reading this novel in class and being able to understand its context.
This essay will evaluate the movie The Princess Bride and the novel Daphnis and Chloe. I believe both of these stories’ timelines and context share a Greek literary convention of elaborate plotlines; they have mean characters, and show the power of love. The film Princess Bride was created in 1987 by Rob Reiner and was adapted by William Goldman from his 1973 novel of the same name. This film tells a story about a farmhand named Westley, who is accompanied by befriended companions along the way, and must rescue his true love, Princess Buttercup, from the awful and cruel Prince Humperdinck.
The film starts out with a grandfather reading a book to his sick grandson, thus making the story a narrative style presents the story. The film has all elements of Grimm tradition like pirates, giants, swordfights, torture, and the rescue of a princess. When looking back at the 1973 book, but looking at the content back to its historic origins, the film could have been an adaptation of something much older like prosaic Greek novels; also known as Daphnis and Chloe.
Daphnis and Chloe is similar to the movie because it involves two lovers who are young and they both come across pirates who take away Daphnis and how the pain of their own love-sickness is taunting them. Both of the stories end up having the two young loves marry and live out their lives together. It may not be a happily ever after for both, but they still get together in the end. In Longus’ prologue, he says that his story is “something to heal the sick and comfort the afflicted, to refresh the memory of those who have been in love and educate those who have not” (pg. 17, sec. 2).
The Princess Bride movie opens the same way when the grandfather reads to the sick boy in bed. The boy’s reaction to the romantic fairytale is a sign of disgust and reflects the attitude toward pastoral romances. The ending of Daphnis and Chloe focuses on two young sheep and goat herders that fall in love in rural Lesbos, living it an even older literary style by the word usage, setting, and pastoral themes. The Greek ideality revolves around a young couple that proves their love and fidelity through an almost impossible length of obstacles, only to be together happily in the end.
The movies’ long storyline comes at the price of any significant character development, an aspect that The Princess Bride uses comedic advantage. The movie places a large amount of insane barriers between Westley and Buttercup knowing about what they have both been through psychologically. Our knowledge of the characters is based only on their relation to the plotline. Their motivation to get passed these obstacles is simple, “true love”. This is the big theme that consumes the otherwise a hero for both man and woman.
The characters of Daphnis and Chloe are similarly love-struck, caving-in to their devotion regardless of their loyalty. The storytelling processes are fundamentally alike through rich plotlines, reduced characterization, and an overlying in the power of love. In this way Reiner, film creator, uses the ideals made by the Greek romantic novel as a structured support for his story while humorously over exaggerating its three facts. The first point, lavish plotline, is accomplished through a series of trials and sufferings that prove Westley’s and Buttercup’s ever-enduring love for each other.
Like all other Greek novels still around today, the movie is mainly an action-adventure, constantly putting its main characters to extreme levels like the Cliffs of Insanity, the Fire Swamp, and the Pit of Despair. The difference is that the names aren’t taken seriously, which lighten the mood while keeping a certain distance from the Greek romantic novel’s sternness. The music and set design used are equally monstrous, with swelling musically passages that intensify even the slightest hint at love or danger, and old-fashioned painted skylines made up of many of the sets.
When describing Westley and Buttercup’s first kiss, it can be over the top because of the guitar music and timed sunset in the background at Buttercup’s scenic country farmhouse. While Daphnis and Chloe prove their main characters’ loyalty through a similarly elaborate plotline, its story is unique to the Greek novel genre in its rather unchanged environment. I believe that Longus’ reasoning for the same location throughout the story is a literary interest in the pastoral ideal, making the characters stay close and not travel far from outside the country area.
Daphnis and Chloe become fonder of each other as time passes and Chloe’s parents decide she is ready for marriage. Foreign visitors promise adventure but failed a lot. Example were when a gang of pirates attempted to kidnap Daphnis to a faraway land, but Chloe used a heard of cattle, sounded by the Pan-Pipe, to sink their ship before it could leave; a naval battalion took Chloe and her livestock as spoils of but Nymphs appeared to the captain in a dream and said that he needs to return them all before he reaches his final destination.
Even though the story doesn’t move away from its setting, the Greek sense of adventure is kept with Daphnis and Chloe’s sexual exploration, which begins when a local famer suggests kissing and nude embracing as a means of easing their so called “sickness of love”. Daphnis remains sexually curious throughout the entire novel until he loses his virginity to a seducing mistress in the woods. Daphnis and Chloe’s final consummation of their sexual desire upon their wedding is similar by the sense of the adventure in The Princess Bride’s inal scene where Westley and Buttercup ride away on white horses into their unknown future. Not only does the likelihood of new adventure for the travelers relate to Daphnis’ and Chloe’s adventure of breaking new erotic grounds: Like Longus’ highly ordinary marriage ending, the ending scene of The Princess Bride also reflects a old saying of its own American movie context, riding off into the glorious, unknown sunset. It’s a hopelessly overused ending by present standards, but a humorous analogy for the similar ending of Daphnis and Chloe.
The theme of abiding love between the hero and heroine is used a lot to the point of exhaustion in these ancient works, which provides a leverage that the author can take over the lead couple. The Princess Bride keeps this concept, renamed “true love”, as a central theme that brings together the main characters, moving their actions and eventually the plotline, too.
The movie tagline says true love is the driving force behind Westley’s quest: “Scaling The Cliffs of Insanity, battling huge rats, facing the torture in The Pit of Despair: True Love has never been a snap. True love’s ability to meet these sorts of limits comes from the Greek romantic prototype, in which love in and of itself is a cause of suffering. In the Greek novel, love is treated as a disease reduced by violent means of Eros’ archery; it is a “tragic madness” with physical as well has behavioral signs. As Longus write about Chloe’s love-struck condition: Her heart ached; her eyes wandered uncontrollably… She took no interest in food; she lay awake at night… her face went pale and the, in turn, blushed red.
Even a cow stung by a gadfly does not behave so madly. ” (pg. 27) Daphnis’ signs were similar: He ate none of his food except just a taste; when he had to drink, he didn’t no more than to moisten his lips. He was quiet, even though before he had chattered more than the grasshoppers; he did nothing, although before he had been more energetic than the goats… his face was paler than the grass in the summer (pg. 30-31).
He felt pain in his heart, as though it were being eaten by poisons; sometimes he panted as though someone’s was chasing him, nd sometimes he was short of breath, as though it had all been used up in the attacks he had just survived” (pg. 34). Unlike Daphnis and Chloe who suffer with or without each other’s company, Westley and Buttercup only suffer when they’re separated. Westley’s suffering is physically manifested when Prince Humperdinck, angered by Buttercup’s insults and undying obsession with Westley, literally sucks the life out of Westley with a torture machine in the Pit of Despair.
Before starting the machine, Humperdinck warns Westley, “No man in a century will suffer as greatly as you will. ” Westley accepts this awful and cruel torture, proving the strength of his love for Buttercup. Although Greek readings and myths are not as popular today as they were back then, Reiner still has an easier version of the classic love story that a lot of audiences today are a huge fan of. Instead of looking passed the points that disagree with modern day writing, he builds off the differences so it has some humor.