Pan's Labyrinth & Peter Pan

For my film analysis I've decided to compare the story of Peter Pan to Pan's Labyrinth, I knew that this would be a good choice as soon as I saw the fairies in Pan's Labyrinth. When I started looking into the stories more deeply I saw a lot more similarities than just the fairies but what was the most intriguing, or ironic I should say, is that one main character's mission is to get back to the fantasy
world and the other is trying to get back to the world before its too late. Both of these stories are about a girl stuck in a world in which they do not belong - at least not completely - as they are approaching womanhood and leaving their childhood innocence behind.

Pan's Labyrinth is about a young girl named Ofelia during the Spanish Civil War, who is given a set of tasks by an ancient fawn who tells her that she is actual Princess Moanna. In order to get back to the underworld with her father and keep her immortality as a princess she must complete a set of tasks within three moons or be stranded in the human world for the rest of her life. Similarly, Wendy from Peter Pan is on a mission to get back to the real world before she and her brothers lose memory of their parents and their life on earth forever. Both girls have one foot in the real world and one in the fantasy world throughout their story and are connected to both in some strange way.




In the story of Peter Pan, a girl named Wendy and her two younger brothers a whisked away by a mystical flying boy named Peter Pan who brings them to a fantasy where nothing ever changes and people never age. Although parts of Wendy wants to remain a child with her brothers, she is torn between living in a fantasy world with her brothers on a forever adventure where she would eventually forget her parents and everything  she's ever known or going back to earth to be with her parents and becoming a woman. In both cases, if Wendy and Ofelia do not fulfill their destiny they will be stuck in a world in which they do not necessarily belong for all eternity. In many ways, these are coming of age stories where the girl must challenge herself in order to fulfill her destiny.

When analyzing the two coming of age stories, one theme stands out and is symbolic to the characters as females. In both stories, in a way both girls become mothers and take on the responsibilities of caring for other beings. Pan's Labyrinth shows this in two different scenarios, one in which Ofelia has to tend to the root under her mother's bed in order to heal her baby brother. Ofelia has to give it fresh milk and a few drops of blood everyday in order to keep the root healthy and growing. Once her brother is born, Ofelia's mother dies and she is left to save her brother from the hands of the captain and care for him to be able to get back home to the underworld. In the case of Peter Pan, Wendy is brought to Neverland in order to become a mother and storyteller to all of the lost boys. Not only does she have to her brothers around on their adventures to ensure their safety, she also has to look after Peter Pan himself and all of the other lost boys of the island.

In this essay I also want to briefly discuss the mythical creatures found in both of these stories, especially the fairies. Fairies important in both stories and provide some sort of guidance to the main characters while testing them at the same time. In Peter Pan, Tinker Bell is portrayed as beautiful and innocent even though she is revealed as spiteful and mischievous; she is not very kind to Wendy and causes trouble for her as she tries to complete her tasks. In Pan's Labyrinth on the other hand, the Fawn's fairies are a little more dark and gritty, though they still provide guidance for Ofelia in their own mischievous way. These fairies try to challenge Ofelia by guiding her to the wrong door in one of her tasks and later tattling on her for eating some of the Pale Man's food. Another similarity between the fairies is the fact that they have some sort of master. Tinker Bell accompanies Peter Pan almost everywhere he goes and for the most part, does what he says and the same goes for the Fawn's fairies. Although he calls them his pets, they do accompany him throughout the story and follow his instructions when he tells them to guide Ofelia.

One last point that I would like to address is having an adult as the antagonist of the story. Oddly enough, both antagonists are captains who are adult males set on controlling everything around them and destroying childhood and innocence. At some point in the story, both girls are yelled at and told that they need to grow up. Wendy's parents tell her that it is time for her to grow up and move out of the nursery as she is too old for her imaginary stories of magic and adventure. Ofelia is also told to grow up and stop believing in magic after her mother discovers the root under the bed. The captain also reprimands her for being childish throughout the film because of the way she always seems to mess up his plans.

Ofelia, Wendy, and Peter Pan are symbols are childhood and innocence which their antagonists are intent on destroying. Captain Hook's mission is to kill Peter Pan in the form of revenge and uses Wendy and the other lost boys as a way to get to him. The Captain in Pan's Labyrinth is cruel and controlling to everyone and everything around him, just as Captain Hook controls his crew. The Captain does not care for Ofelia or her mother and only wants a son to bare his name and even though he succeeds in killing Ofelia, he also releases her back into the underworld where she is reunited with her family. Both captains are eventually destroyed which enables both girls to return home, completing their transition into womanhood but at the same time giving up their childhood innocence.