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Imagination Leads to Subservience in Pan's Labyrinth and The Company of Wolves

Decent Essays

Guillermo Del Toro, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, and Neil Jordan, the director of The Company of Wolves, use the idea of imagination to escape reality. The movies depict the heroines, Ofelia and Rosaleen using imagination to escape the real world’s despotism. In Pan’s Labyrinth and The Company of Wolves, Ofelia and Rosaleen utilize ire to invent a whimsical world that mirrors the oppression of their physical world and momentarily provides them with control. But, ultimately their minds become a source of enslavement for them.
In Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia’s anguish becomes beneficial for her when she constructs a realm of magical creatures. Ofelia is abused by her fascist step-father, Captain Vidal and has a mother who provides minimal support for her. In the movie, the first instance of abuse is seen when Captain Vidal squeezes Ofelia’s hand. He squeezes her hand to assert dominance and correction on Ofelia. At the same time, her mother, Carmen, does not believe in Ofelia’s fairy tales and assumes Ofelia is behaving mischievously. The mother explains, “Fairy tales- you are a bit too old to be filling your head with such nonsense” (Pan’s Labyrinth). Ofelia becomes embittered by the misery that surrounds her and her anger inspires her to use her imagination. (Prove with examples) Through her fantasies, she is now able to escape her mother’s abandonment and her tyrannical step-father.
These magical world provide power to Ofelia. In the real world, Captain Vidal was in charge

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