Resourceful Westley In William Goldman's The Princess Bride

Resourceful Westley

There are many memorable heroes in classic literature. One such protagonist is in William Goldman’s classic novel The Princess Bride. This character, Westley, showed throughout the novel that he is resourceful.

Westley is resourceful because he constantly uses objects in innovative ways to solve his problems. This occurs because Westley is frequently in situations in which what he really needs is not available to him. Thus, he is forced to improvise and use his intelligence and quick-thinking ability. In these situations, he use items in ways other than the ways they were intended. In doing so, Westley shows he can think “outside the box” and take advantage of everything available to him to formulate plans, no matter the

They were hired to take Buttercup across the Florin Channel to the neighboring country of Guilder to kill her. This would then provide the Prince with the perfect excuse to start a war with Guilder. The plan was ruined, however, when a mysterious man dressed entirely in black defeated the Sicilian Crowd and saved Buttercup. Soon after this, the mysterious stranger revealed to Buttercup that he was actually Westley, Buttercup’s true love who she thought died three years earlier. Now united with Buttercup, Westley was forced to evade the Prince and his men. To do this, he chose to take Buttercup into the dangerous Fire Swamp. Since normally no one dared to enter the Fire Swamp, Westley hoped the Prince and his men would be too scared to follow. Soon after entering the swamp, Westley cut a long vine as a precautionary measure so he could later tie himself to Buttercup if needed. At first, this looked unnecessary because things were going fine. This changed, however, when Buttercup walked into a quicksand-like substance called Snow Sand and quickly sank. Westley reacted quickly and got “the vine coil from his shoulder. It took him next to no time to knot one end around a giant tree, and, holding tight to the free end, he simply dove...kicking for greater speed” (206). Unfortunately, Westley could not reach Buttercup

Prince Humperdinck then promised Buttercup that Westley would be unharmed if they surrendered. Consequently, they surrendered, and Prince Humperdinck took his bride-to-be back with him. He then secretly had Count Rugen, the Prince’s right-hand-man, take Westley to the Zoo of Death, the Prince’s private underground facility. There, Count Rugen tortured Westley for weeks. While this was happening, Inigo and Fezzik, two of the members of the Sicilian Crowd, were reunited for the first time since Westley had defeated both of them. This was when Inigo discovered Count Rugen was the man who killed Inigo’s father 12 years earlier. Since Inigo had been waiting for an opportunity to avenge his father’s death, he knew he needed a plan to break into the heavily guarded castle. Normally, Inigo would have turned to Vizzini, the third member of the Sicilian Crowd, for help, but he could not since Westley killed Vizzini. Consequently, Inigo concluded any man who could kill the genius Vizzini could probably devise a clever plan to break into a castle. This led Inigo and Fezzik to hunt for Westley, although they only knew him as “the man in black.” At the same time Inigo and Fezzik were searching for Westley, Prince Humperdinck turned a torture device Westley was on to its highest setting. This caused