After reading the Horror Reader I am seeing some representations in Pan’s Labyrinth of monsters that are born from their mothers. I am starting to wonder if the baby in Ofelia’s mother is a monster and having some evil intentions. The baby appears to be making the mother extremely ill and at the early part of the movie almost appears as if the baby could cause the death of the mother. Ofelia even appears to view the baby as something bad describing to Mercedes that her mother is “sick with a baby” instead of her mother is having a baby. This leads me to believe that the pregnancy could be a precursor that the mother is going to die from this evil thing that is growing inside of her. This is a little backwards with the book by reflecting the evils of the baby’s father the Captain instead of the mother’s evils (since Ofelia’s mother has not been shown as a bad person) like proposed in the book.
However the evil monster could also be Ofelia because the Faun, who historically represents the devil, clamming to be a servant of her father’s from the realm of the Underground (anyone thinking underworld / hell?) believes that Ofelia is Princess Moanna who I believe will end up being the princess of the Underground or Hell. (However with this thinking I am confused with the opening description of the Underground Realm that was not described as you would expect Hell to be described).
Sallie- you make an interesting point that I didn’t think about- the child could be evil and making the mother sick. I did note to myself when Ofelia said her mother was “sick with a baby.” However, I interpreted that to mean that Ofelia wasn’t too excited about her new little brother. But if the sadistic captain is the father of the baby then it is very possible that the child could be the embodiment of evil. Also, the whole concept of Ofelia’s father being “king of the underground” and her absurd fantasies walk a fine line between evil and the innocence of childhood dreams. I have never seen this movie before this class so I’m anxious to see how it turns out.
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