Symbolism In Pan's Labyrinth

Anuj Bastola
Professor Konstantinidis
CRWT 102-07
17th February, 2017
Ofelia’s Coming of Age In the film ‘Pan’s Labyrinth,” the director Guillermo del Toro juxtaposes the real and imaginary worlds during the time of the Spanish Civil War. The protagonist of this film is a 11-year-old girl named Ofelia who reads fairy tales and believes that everything she reads is real. The film focuses on Ofelia’s struggle to live in the fascist world of her stepfather, Captain Vidal. While she travels to Vidal’s house with her mother, Ofelia encounters an insect who then leads her to a clandestine labyrinth behind Vidal’s house which is inhabited by a stunning faun who hails Ofelia as a Princess. In order to become a Princess, Ofelia must perform terrifying
She immediately sees an insect who she thinks is a fairy, and then her fantastical journey through the fairy world begins. The fairy symbolizes the change in Ofelia’s character as she develops the desire to rebel against her brutal stepfather. She was struggling in her real world and was feeling lonely and desperate. She keeps reading books and engages herself in the fairy world. The fairy helps Ofelia to the end by assisting her to perform the three tasks and to enter the imaginary world. In New Yorker article, Once Upon a Time: The lure of the fairy tale, the author John Acocella explains that someone should refuse or rebel against our brutal society. “Jack Zipes has said the opposite: that the value of fairy tales is that they teach us not to adjust, because the oppressive society in which we live is something we should refuse to adjust to” (34). Ofelia refuses to adjust to society because she should refuse to adjust to an oppressive society. At first, she was an innocent girl struggling to live. Despite her mother’s command to stay with her during travel, she goes to the monument and fixes the eye. Her mother entered the dark side of Captain Vidal. In that situation of desperation and loneliness, Ofelia needed a way to go to the fairy world that she always believed existed. This strong desire turns Ofelia from an innocent child to an independent child in quest of
In this movie, the fantasy world mirrors the fascist rule of Captain Vidal. All the creatures Ofelia deals with depicts the avatar of her stepfather. The monstrous toad inside the tree symbolizes Captain Vidal whereas the sickened and harsh condition of the tree depicts the fragile condition of her pregnant mother. Vidal has been dominating Carmen, mother of his son and Mercedes, his housekeeper. The necessity to recover a key from the gigantic toad represents the escape from the brutality of her cruel stepfather. Ofelia manages to kill the toad by tricking eating magic balls. This action mirrors the end of film when she manages to make Captain Vidal unconscious by putting medicine in his drinks. The only chance she has of gaining independence and meeting her real father in the fairy world is to rebel against Captain