Archetypes In Pan's Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth takes place after the Spanish Civil War. It intertwines the real world of hardship and war, with a mythical world, the labyrinth. Pan’s Labyrinth is a film, which takes on many myths and symbols from Greek mythology and it encompasses everything from the underworld to femininity all while telling an extraordinary story. The myths of the ascent and descent to the underworld are displayed in the film when Ofelia completes her tasks by going to the underworld. What she accomplishes when she is in the underworld has an effect on the world above. A good example of this is when the Faun gives Ofelia a mandrake root. The faun tells her this is a myth from the underworld and it will help her mother get better. She needs to place it …show more content…
In Greek mythology we learned that Persephone has a conflict between choosing her mother, Demeter, and Hades, the god of the underworld. Nevertheless, Persephone is able to solve her dilemma by eating pomegranate seeds, which allows her to spend six months with Hades and six months being a daughter to her mother. This relates to Pan’s Labyrinth because when Ofelia is accomplishing her second task. The faun tells her not to eat anything, however Ofelia disobeys causing her to almost not make it out alive, in which she would have never returned to her mother. It also shows how Ofelia choses between life and death. Unlike Persephone who was able to compromise in order to remain a daughter to Demeter, Ofelia choses to die and live eternally with her father and mother in order to save her baby brother. Therefore, she chose to remain a daughter instead of a mother figure to her …show more content…
In the beginning of the film Ofelia is seen as a youthful child. She reads fairytales, sleeps in the same bed as her mother, and is afraid of the unfamiliar sounds that are in the old house. Nevertheless, as the film progresses Ofelia has to make adult choices without anyone else’s help. She undergoes a series of tests that lead her from being an innocent child to a woman of maturity and responsibility. For example in Ofelia’s second task the Faun warns her to not eat any food. Nevertheless she does not listen and eats two grapes. The white child-eating monster at the head of the table wakes up and Ofelia barely makes it out alive. This task was one of Ofelia’s first encounters of coming of age. Prior to this task she never had to make any choices on her own, and in making this childish decision to eat the grapes Ofelia learned that there were consequences to her actions. As the film progresses Ofelia has no choice but to become responsible and take on a more maternal role. Furthermore, the labyrinth, which is a maze, can be seen as Ofelia struggling to find her