In the film Shrek, the narcissus myth has a decisive influence over the whole story. In the following, several characters will be analyzed for their narcissistic symptoms.
The most obvious narcissistic character in Shrek is Lord Farquaad, who was absolutely in love with his own “perfectness”. The scene that Farquaad looking at the mirror satisfactorily while enjoying the praise by his subordinate shows that he admired his physical appearance and loved to be or/and needed to be admired. Although he was actually short in stature, the miniature of Farquaad on the wedding cake, however, was made as tall as that of Princess Fiona. This is so clear that he had “magnificent fantasies” (note 3) about himself. He was a, in his word, “perfect” king in his imagination. Therefore, when the Magic Mirror told him that, “You’re not a king yet. But you can become one. All you have to do is to marry a princess.”
Farquaad immediately decided “I will make this Princess Fiona my queen, and Duloc will finally have the perfect king!” He did not love Fiona with heart and soul, he just meant to use the marriage to make himself a “perfect king”. Hence, when he was lying on bed at night, required the Magic Mirror to show him the picture of Princess Fiona again and again and sighing “Ah, perfect.”, he was, instead of praising the beauty of Fiona, actually looking at and glorifying the imaginary perfect image of his own. Marring Fiona is the way to acquire “perfectness”.
In the end, even though he found her becoming an ugly ogre and felt that she was “disgusting”, he still claimed that, “This hocus-pocus alters nothing. This marriage is binding, and that makes me king!” Nothing was more important than a perfect him, he was unable to love the others, especially Fiona was no more a perfect bride for him anymore, so he just asked his guards to imprison Fiona for the rest of her life. He was “a self sitting on its throne, unconcerned about anything else in life” (note 3). Not only being unconcerned about his wife, as a king, Farquaad was also indifferent to his people. It was he Farquaad who wanted to marry Princess Fiona, yet he ordered his knights to rescue Fiona from the keep of the fire-breathing dragon. “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” He was willing to let his people to sacrifice but not himself to sacrifice since he was waiting to become the perfect king.
“Mirror Mirror on the wall! Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all?” From his point of view, a perfect kingdom was an essential element of his perfectness. When Shrek and Donkey first came to Duloc, they saw an interesting information counter, which was actually a giant music box. Once they opened it, many little dolls came out and sang, “Welcome to Duloc such a perfect town……Duloc is a perfect place.” This little music box show implied the self-image of Duloc was a perfect place. In fact, as we can see later on in this film, Duloc people were just identical to the music box dolls—absolutely controlled by Farquaad, who arranged some subordinates to show some boards that indicated what people should do, say, “Applause” or “Laugh” The whole kingdom was constructed as a perfect kingdom just as Farquaad wanted. He told the gingerbread man that, “I’m not the monster here. You are. You and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world.” He ordered to catch all those fairy tale creatures, as he would not let anything to affect his perfect kingdom cause that would in turn harm his perfectness.
Now let’s move on to discuss Princess Fiona, who was waiting her true love to rescue her from the castle and to give her a kiss which can break the spell that turned her into an ogre every night. When Shrek arrived at her room in the castle, she picked up a bunch of flowers and lay down immediately, and when Shrek asked her to go with him, she even lay down back on the bed sexily and said, “But wait, Sir Knight. This be-ith our first meeting. Should it not be a wonderful, romantic moment?” These show that Fiona was expecting all things would happen in a fairy tale way. She even refused to leave with Shrek when she got to know that Shrek was not the one who was going to marry her. She was so stubborn because she trapped herself in fairy tale, in which princess should be saved by prince, kissed by prince and then “happily ever after”. That’s why when she found that it was an ogre who had saved her, she said “Oh, no. this is all wrong.” Fiona felt desperate as her fantasy was harmed.
What made her felt desperate was not only her knight was an ogre, but also the spell that made her ugly. When Donkey comforted her that, “But you only look like this at night. Shrek’s ugly 24-7.” She replied, “But Donkey, I’m a princess and this is not how a princess is meant to look…….’princess’ and ‘ugly’ don’t go together.” Her night talk with Donkey revealed that she was also a narcissist. She loved her beautiful princess image, and hoped to remain beautiful, so she chose to marry Farquaad whom she thought could break the spell. “My only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love……that’s just how it has to be.” Fiona thought she should live in a princess way and the only way is to be beautiful, which is the quality she should have and love to have.
In this story, the most important character, Shrek, was not a narcissistic character. At the opening part of this film, when Shrek brushed his teeth before the mirror, the mirror broke suddenly. This implies that Shrek, unlike the others, was not in any love with his own image. Yet, he was the mirror of the others, showing their worship of self-image. When he brought some flowers for Fiona, he practiced what to say to her, “I saw this flower and thought of you because it’s pretty and—well, I don’t really like it, but I thought you might like it cause you’re pretty.” He supposed people should like pretty flowers, and we may deduce that people should dislike ugly things. That’s the real case, the man wearing a big Farquaad head mask escaped desperately when he saw Shrek, later on Shrek told Donkey that, “It’s the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go. ‘Aah! Help! Run! A big, stupid, ugly ogre!’ They judge me before they even know me.” The reason why people were afraid of Shrek is that, he reminded them of their own ugliness. He was an honest mirror, telling people that there are imperfect things in this world. But what most people want is a magic mirror like that one owned by Farquaad, telling them they’re beautiful, they’re perfect. Therefore, they tried to escape from Shrek, just like that big head man, who was actually as queer as an ogre.
In the last scene of this film, Shrek broke the spell by kissing Fiona. Yet Fiona
did not become what she expected and so she said, “But I don’t understand. I’m supposed to be beautiful.” Sherk replied, “But you are beautiful.” We can see that, Shrek in this film not only is a reflection of others’ narcissism, he even saved Fiona from the destructive narcissistic personality. He reminded us the love of appearance is of no use, that “sometimes things are more than they appear.”
From the above discussion, we can conclude that in this animated film, the narcissus myth is used as a tool to teach us that it is common to long to have a pleasant appearance, yet we must understand that no one in this world could be perfect. Being imperfect, not only in appearance but also in talent or anything else, could do no harm to the goodness of our hearts, which is much more important than physical appearance.
Works Cited
Shrek. Dir. Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson. DVD. Ted Elliott & Rossio, 2001.
Note 3—The Narcissus Myth. Prof. Clayton G MacKenzie. 2005.
到現時為止, 雖說明白到問題出在哪裡, 但我依然覺得自己寫得不錯, 可能是我不願意接受現實, 又或許, 我是被hum的老師們寵壞了, 做功課永遠都只會跟隨自己的心意去寫, 從未明白要跟遊戲規則才可以玩下去.......此外, 大概我還有點自戀傾向^___^
The most obvious narcissistic character in Shrek is Lord Farquaad, who was absolutely in love with his own “perfectness”. The scene that Farquaad looking at the mirror satisfactorily while enjoying the praise by his subordinate shows that he admired his physical appearance and loved to be or/and needed to be admired. Although he was actually short in stature, the miniature of Farquaad on the wedding cake, however, was made as tall as that of Princess Fiona. This is so clear that he had “magnificent fantasies” (note 3) about himself. He was a, in his word, “perfect” king in his imagination. Therefore, when the Magic Mirror told him that, “You’re not a king yet. But you can become one. All you have to do is to marry a princess.”
Farquaad immediately decided “I will make this Princess Fiona my queen, and Duloc will finally have the perfect king!” He did not love Fiona with heart and soul, he just meant to use the marriage to make himself a “perfect king”. Hence, when he was lying on bed at night, required the Magic Mirror to show him the picture of Princess Fiona again and again and sighing “Ah, perfect.”, he was, instead of praising the beauty of Fiona, actually looking at and glorifying the imaginary perfect image of his own. Marring Fiona is the way to acquire “perfectness”.
In the end, even though he found her becoming an ugly ogre and felt that she was “disgusting”, he still claimed that, “This hocus-pocus alters nothing. This marriage is binding, and that makes me king!” Nothing was more important than a perfect him, he was unable to love the others, especially Fiona was no more a perfect bride for him anymore, so he just asked his guards to imprison Fiona for the rest of her life. He was “a self sitting on its throne, unconcerned about anything else in life” (note 3). Not only being unconcerned about his wife, as a king, Farquaad was also indifferent to his people. It was he Farquaad who wanted to marry Princess Fiona, yet he ordered his knights to rescue Fiona from the keep of the fire-breathing dragon. “Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make.” He was willing to let his people to sacrifice but not himself to sacrifice since he was waiting to become the perfect king.
“Mirror Mirror on the wall! Is this not the most perfect kingdom of them all?” From his point of view, a perfect kingdom was an essential element of his perfectness. When Shrek and Donkey first came to Duloc, they saw an interesting information counter, which was actually a giant music box. Once they opened it, many little dolls came out and sang, “Welcome to Duloc such a perfect town……Duloc is a perfect place.” This little music box show implied the self-image of Duloc was a perfect place. In fact, as we can see later on in this film, Duloc people were just identical to the music box dolls—absolutely controlled by Farquaad, who arranged some subordinates to show some boards that indicated what people should do, say, “Applause” or “Laugh” The whole kingdom was constructed as a perfect kingdom just as Farquaad wanted. He told the gingerbread man that, “I’m not the monster here. You are. You and the rest of that fairy tale trash, poisoning my perfect world.” He ordered to catch all those fairy tale creatures, as he would not let anything to affect his perfect kingdom cause that would in turn harm his perfectness.
Now let’s move on to discuss Princess Fiona, who was waiting her true love to rescue her from the castle and to give her a kiss which can break the spell that turned her into an ogre every night. When Shrek arrived at her room in the castle, she picked up a bunch of flowers and lay down immediately, and when Shrek asked her to go with him, she even lay down back on the bed sexily and said, “But wait, Sir Knight. This be-ith our first meeting. Should it not be a wonderful, romantic moment?” These show that Fiona was expecting all things would happen in a fairy tale way. She even refused to leave with Shrek when she got to know that Shrek was not the one who was going to marry her. She was so stubborn because she trapped herself in fairy tale, in which princess should be saved by prince, kissed by prince and then “happily ever after”. That’s why when she found that it was an ogre who had saved her, she said “Oh, no. this is all wrong.” Fiona felt desperate as her fantasy was harmed.
What made her felt desperate was not only her knight was an ogre, but also the spell that made her ugly. When Donkey comforted her that, “But you only look like this at night. Shrek’s ugly 24-7.” She replied, “But Donkey, I’m a princess and this is not how a princess is meant to look…….’princess’ and ‘ugly’ don’t go together.” Her night talk with Donkey revealed that she was also a narcissist. She loved her beautiful princess image, and hoped to remain beautiful, so she chose to marry Farquaad whom she thought could break the spell. “My only chance to live happily ever after is to marry my true love……that’s just how it has to be.” Fiona thought she should live in a princess way and the only way is to be beautiful, which is the quality she should have and love to have.
In this story, the most important character, Shrek, was not a narcissistic character. At the opening part of this film, when Shrek brushed his teeth before the mirror, the mirror broke suddenly. This implies that Shrek, unlike the others, was not in any love with his own image. Yet, he was the mirror of the others, showing their worship of self-image. When he brought some flowers for Fiona, he practiced what to say to her, “I saw this flower and thought of you because it’s pretty and—well, I don’t really like it, but I thought you might like it cause you’re pretty.” He supposed people should like pretty flowers, and we may deduce that people should dislike ugly things. That’s the real case, the man wearing a big Farquaad head mask escaped desperately when he saw Shrek, later on Shrek told Donkey that, “It’s the world that seems to have a problem with me. People take one look at me and go. ‘Aah! Help! Run! A big, stupid, ugly ogre!’ They judge me before they even know me.” The reason why people were afraid of Shrek is that, he reminded them of their own ugliness. He was an honest mirror, telling people that there are imperfect things in this world. But what most people want is a magic mirror like that one owned by Farquaad, telling them they’re beautiful, they’re perfect. Therefore, they tried to escape from Shrek, just like that big head man, who was actually as queer as an ogre.
In the last scene of this film, Shrek broke the spell by kissing Fiona. Yet Fiona
did not become what she expected and so she said, “But I don’t understand. I’m supposed to be beautiful.” Sherk replied, “But you are beautiful.” We can see that, Shrek in this film not only is a reflection of others’ narcissism, he even saved Fiona from the destructive narcissistic personality. He reminded us the love of appearance is of no use, that “sometimes things are more than they appear.”
From the above discussion, we can conclude that in this animated film, the narcissus myth is used as a tool to teach us that it is common to long to have a pleasant appearance, yet we must understand that no one in this world could be perfect. Being imperfect, not only in appearance but also in talent or anything else, could do no harm to the goodness of our hearts, which is much more important than physical appearance.
Works Cited
Shrek. Dir. Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson. DVD. Ted Elliott & Rossio, 2001.
Note 3—The Narcissus Myth. Prof. Clayton G MacKenzie. 2005.
到現時為止, 雖說明白到問題出在哪裡, 但我依然覺得自己寫得不錯, 可能是我不願意接受現實, 又或許, 我是被hum的老師們寵壞了, 做功課永遠都只會跟隨自己的心意去寫, 從未明白要跟遊戲規則才可以玩下去.......此外, 大概我還有點自戀傾向^___^
No comments:
Post a Comment