What Do Frame Narratives Do? – Forrest Gump vs Princess Bride
The frame story technique has been around since Ancient Egyptian Pypyrus writings. Yes, that long! What makes this technique so special? It has been used throughout literature history and even in recent movies like 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger.
You might think that the frame story cliché of a story told within a story has been overdone by now, but the effectiveness of this technique is only just beginning to be explored. Famous film adaptations of Forrest Gump and Princess Bride use the frame technique in similar ways but for very different effects. Once a writer understands how frame narratives work, there’s no limit to the creative ways a frame story can be used.
What is a Frame Narrative?
Picture a frame around a painting. The painting is the beautiful art piece that has all the attention, but the frame is very important. It holds the artwork and directs the viewers attention to the painting. A frame narrative works in a similar way. The frame story is placed around the main story to draw attention to it. This is done by starting with one storyline, then jumping to another storyline and resolving it before returning to the original storyline.
The basic structure of a frame narrative is in the order of prologue, embedded story, and epilogue. The best way to understand each part is to follow the classic example of a horror story being told around a campfire. The prologue starts off by showing a bunch of people around a campfire until one character begins telling a spooky story. The embedded story is the spooky story that takes our attention until it finally finishes. Finally, the epilogue will return to the people around the fire and show their reaction to being scared out of their minds.
A frame narrative can go even further by placing a story within a story within a story and so on until you have an Inception situation and don’t know up from down anymore. Right now, lets focus on the basic structure and what it is used for.
The Prologue
The prologue introduces us to the story and the start of any story is very important. What is said now sets up the entire book or film. Since the prologue is the first part of the frame story, it has to show its importance and how it connects to the embedded story to come. Background information can be placed here to help us understand the embedded story on a deeper level. The main purpose of the prologue is to convey tone.
In Forrest Gump, the movie begins in the present with Forrest sitting on a bench at a bus stop. The scene sets up the tone as light-hearted but meaningful. Even the feather floating down to his feet conveys a peaceful and childlike tone. The famous line, “Mama always said life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get,” introduces us to the idea of unpredictability. As the movie goes on to show Forrest’s life, we are more receptive to the random events. Instead of feeling that they’re ridiculous and unrealistic, we are pleasantly amused by them and may even relate some situations to our own lives. The question of why Forrest is at a bus stop spurs us on to watch to find out.
Princess Bride, on the other hand, uses the prologue to introduce two characters who are not in the embedded story at all. The movie opens with an old man getting ready to read a young boy a bed time story. The book he wants to read is a fantasy tale called Princess Bride. This prologue is more cliché in the sense that it transitions to the main story with “Once upon a time,” but it still serves an interesting purpose. The Princess Bride is a book in reality as well and showing it as a book in the prologue scene gives a nod to the original author and sets up the fantastical tone of the movie. The fictional tale is rooted in reality. We become just like the boy who is listening intensely as the story unfolds. The Princess Bride could easily have left out the frame story of the old man and boy, but if it had, the crucial set up of tone would’ve been lost.
The Embedded Story
The embedded story takes up most of the frame narrative. It is the beautiful canvas that has been set up to shine. The main idea is for this story to live up to expectations. Consistency is key. If the prologue set up a sombre tone, then the embedded story must carry out that tone. Details revealed in the prologue should carry through into the embedded story. Sometimes the embedded story can be interrupted with brief returns to the frame story to remind us about the beginning events and create tension. Embedded stories have different purposes. They can be an elaborate explanation, a moral story, or more, depending on the author’s wishes.
Forrest Gump tells his life story to people who sit next to him at the bus stop. The events of his life make up the embedded story with short interruptions to Forrest back on the bench. The entire series ultimately explains why Forrest is at the bus stop while expertly factoring in the United States’ most historical moments. Without the development of the characters, we wouldn’t be so emotionally invested in the movie’s next scenes of Jenny and Forrest being reunited. The explanation was needed, and the light childish tone remains consistent even when the movie touches on serious subjects like war. The embedded story lived out Forrest’s comment about life as a box of chocolates.
The Princess Bride brings the events of a fantasy adventure book alive onscreen. The story enters the realm of imagination as we can assume what we are seeing is the result of the boy envisioning the story that his grandfather is reading to him. Tension is created whenever the movie cuts back to the boy and grandfather. We identify with the boy each time as he becomes absorbed in the story and hurries his grandfather along to tell him what happens next. Coupling the adventure with the realistic bedroom scenes allowed the movie to be grounded and gave us the opportunity to feel a part of the movie ourselves.
The Epilogue
The last part of a frame story is given in the epilogue. It wraps up the entire narrative and ties up any loose ends. The epilogue not only concludes the frame story, but also delivers the punchline for the embedded story. By ‘punchline’ I mean a last send off that brings the story full circle. The epilogue completes everything and often reveals the point of it all.
The epilogue in Forrest Gump plays out the conclusion of the love story between Forrest and Jenny. His voice over ends and we see everything happen at the same time he does. Forrest’s entire motivation throughout the movie was driven by his love for Jenny and in these final scenes that love story is finally resolved. The punchline comes when it is revealed that Forrest has a son named after himself. The story truly swings full circle. After Jenny’s death, the movie ends with Forrest waiting for another bus to take his son to his first day of school. Even the feather makes a return, but instead of keeping it, Forrest lets it float away, signifying that he was letting go of his obsession. The point of the movie is to show a different perspective of life through Forrest’s eyes.
Princess Bride had a much shorter epilogue, but it also delivers a punchline. The grandfather finishes his reading and we see the boy’s delight at the happy ending. The point revealed in this epilogue is reemphasising the unconditional and beautiful aspects of love. The punchline comes when the grandfather says, “As you wish,” to the boy’s request for him to read the story again tomorrow night. That particular line was linked to Wesley, a main character in the embedded story who was revealed to be actually saying “I love you” each time he said the line to Buttercup. When the grandfather uses it, he reveals his own love for his grandson and possibly reveals that the entire point of the movie is to learn to fight for love and accept love from others.
So Why Tell You This?
Now you should be able to spot a frame narrative easily. As you see more examples of how writers use frames, you can see how you might use one too. Frame stories should have a purpose in mind. When executed right, frame narratives can be legendary.
And never forget, we are writers and that means we can bend the rules. Modern authors have experimented with the frame technique in surprising creative ways. A great example is Henry James’s novella Turn of the Screw which completely unravels the usual functions of framing, but a more recent example is the Netflix TV series 13 Reasons Why which experiments with the frame story by telling it at the same time as the Hanna’s embedded story.
Masterpieces are being made by taking the basic structure that I explained above and twisting it to the author’s own purposes. There is no limit to what you can create.
Get writing!
