The Princess Bride by William Goldman

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Description:

The Princess Bride is a fantasy novel filled with many familiar fairy-tale elements. William Goldman calls his novel the “good parts version” of a longer work, The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern’s Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. Goldman frames his story with an autobiographical narrative and frequently interjects satiric asides about the “boring parts” he omitted, parodying traditional fairy-tale elements through the humorous juxtaposition of fantasy and reality. This curriculum unit examines Goldman’s novel in the context of the fairy-tale tradition, focusing on ways that it both incorporates and parodies formulaic fairy-tale elements.

Activities:

Lessons examine literary aspects of the work, including context, genre, structure, plot, setting, characterization, theme, parody, and satire. Students rewrite their favorite fairy tale, insert their own commentary anywhere in the novel, draw a map of the geographical setting of the novel as they imagine it, and assume the person of a character in the novel to narrate a scene from that character’s point of view. They also complete vocabulary exercises, write their own epilogue to the novel, and compare the book with the movie.

Supplementary materials include reading and discussion questions for each chapter, quizzes, and a unit test with answer key.

Ethical Values:

Courage, Endurance, Justice, Loyalty, Teamwork