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Prince Humperdinck Of Florin In William Goldman's The Princess Bride

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There are many villains in classic literature. One such memorable, devious, character is in William Goldman’s novel The Princess Bride. Prince Humperdinck of Florin, the hunting fanatic, showed throughout the novel he is a manipulative person. Prince Humperdinck is manipulative because he influences the behavior of others for his own purposes. More to the point, he intentionally deceives and tricks people, whether by blatantly lying, cunningly twisting his words, or deviously pretending to be someone he is not. One reason Prince Humperdinck acts in this way is to skillfully control others for his own advantage. In a sense, he is a puppet master who knows exactly what strings to pull to get people to do what he wants without their ever realizing …show more content…

More to the point, he said the perfect things to get Buttercup to surrender with Westley. He pulled this off by first swearing on the grave of his soon-to-be dead father and his already-dead mother that he would never hurt Westley. This swear was manipulative because Prince Humperdinck cunningly twisted his words to make his blatant lie sound sincere. The lie sounded sincere because even people as devious as the Prince respect their parents. This lie, however, was only part of the Prince’s scheme to get Buttercup to believe him. Prince Humperdinck also claimed that if he did hurt Westley, he would never hunt again if he lived a thousand years. Buttercup believed this false claim because she knew the Prince had a passion for hunting, and she reasoned if he would threaten to give up something so important, he must have told the truth. Buttercup obviously fell for Prince Humperdinck’s devious words because she said that Westley could not ask for more from Prince Humperdinck than that, and what Prince Humperdinck said had to be the truth. Thus, Prince Humperdinck used just the right words to convince Buttercup of his sincerity. The fact that Buttercup and Westley then surrendered is proof that

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