How do the makers of 'shrek' use presentational devices to reverse this tradition, to reveal the ogre as good, and the prince as evil?

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In traditional fairytales, ogres are man-eating beasts. The prince usually rescues the princess, they marry and live happily every after. How do the makers of ‘shrek’ use presentational devices to reverse this tradition, to reveal the ogre as good, and the prince as evil?

In this essay I am going to analyse the characters of Shrek and Lord Farquaad and write about how the makers of the film use different presentational devices to create an unusual fairy tale.

In traditional fairy tales, Ogres are man-eating beasts. The Prince usually kills the Ogre, rescues the Princess, marry and live happily ever after. In ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, Jack’s mother is the heroine as she cuts down the beanstalk and kills the Giant whereas the Giant is the beast trying to eat Jack.

In Snow White, the evil character is Snow White’s ‘Evil’ Step-Mother and the Prince is the hero who rescues Snow White.

In Shrek, the roles are reversed using presentational devices so that Shrek (the Ogre) is soon seen as the sensitive hero and the Prince as the evil selfish beast.

When the storybook characters arrive Shrek tries to threaten them by showing them that he is a scary, evil monster. There are too many storybook characters for him to scare away so he asks why the characters had arrived and finds out that the characters where forced to stay on his land. Shrek goes to see Lord Farquaad to get rid of the characters for his own benefit. When Shrek tells the storybook characters that he is going to get them off his land, they all applaud which suggests that Shrek is a hero.

Language is an important device, and I am going to write about how language can create the impression of good and evil in both characters and films. The film ‘Shrek’ opens with Shrek reading out a fairy tale making you believe that he is the narrator and the film is going to be a traditional fairy tale but the scene is soon turned into a joke when Shrek uses the story book as toilet paper. This is different to a conventional fairy tale as it is more comical. The opening suggests that the film will be comical and there will be many jokes about traditional fairy tales. Viewers would be surprised as fairy tales have never been ‘taken the mick of’ like in Shrek.

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When Donkey approaches, Shrek roars at him and tries to intimidate him, Donkey isn’t frightened as he doesn’t judge Shrek by his looks and believes that Shrek and himself are very similar. Donkey continuously irritates Shrek by being a ‘chatterbox’ and disrespecting Shrek’s home. When the three blind mice tease Shrek, it is funny because Shrek is a big, strong Ogre and three tiny blind mice are teasing him.

Donkey’s behaviour and the mice’s behaviour suggest that Shrek is not the typical scary Ogre that he seems to be. Donkey and the three mice did not fear Shrek at ...

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