Points of Entry into and out of the Fairy Tale Setting

Throughout the movie, Ofelia made continuous entries into and out of the labyrinth. The first entry was when she initially came to the Captain’s home. Ofelia was going through many changes at the moment. Her father had died and she was now forced to give a stranger she doesn’t trust the honorary position. Her mother is completely preoccupied with her pregnancy, except when to chastise her for getting her shoes dirty or for reading too many fairy tales. What her mother does not understand, however, is that these fairy tales are Ofelia’s only escape from a really scary and confusing world. She is desperate to make sense of the many daunting changes in her life, and her books are the only way she sees to do that. If these stories are so wonderful, wouldn’t they be even more amazing if they were true? Through fantasy, Ofelia can escape reality. Her points of entry into fantasy occur most frequently when she goes through dramatic events in reality.
Ofelia is so willing to believe in fairy tales that she saw what the audience clearly viewed as quite a disgusting bug as a fairy. Meeting the bug is nothing out of the ordinary but Ofelia makes it spectacular. This is right after her mother tells her that she is too old for her books. There is a gap here between mother and daughter. Ofelia is obviously not ready to give up her stories and she proves that by instantly getting her shoes dirty to explore in the forest and “find” the fairy that her mother so disapproves of for her.
Furthermore, when Ofelia finally finds herself in her new house she runs away. The house is not her home and she would rather follow her “fairy” into the forest than succumb to the strict, military way of life she just cannot accept. It is just too much for her to handle. Ironically, her first exposure to the labyrinth is just as she goes to the Captain’s house and her mother is taken away in a wheelchair.
At night, Ofelia first goes into the labyrinth. This is the first point of entry into a fairytale setting. It is ironically in the middle of the night as Ofelia is sleeping in her new bed. Could Ofelia be dreaming it all? Also, isn’t the nighttime symbolically when evil creatures come out? And then, Ofelia takes a long tunnel down underground; underground where the mythical Hades lives of where Hell supposedly resides. Like Persephone, the Princess of Hades who spent half of her life in the Underworld and half of it on Earth with her mother, Ofelia eats fruit when told not to and is then stuck between a life half in fantasy and half in reality. When both of her mothers leave her (her real mother and Mercedes) there is nothing left for her on Earth and she gives herself completely to Pan. The question between reality and fantasy is which is evil? Is it the real gun that kills her or is it the faun that leads her into the labyrinth with her infant brother?
Finally, the image of when Ophelia dies brings us back to the beginning of the story. The same image of her was seen from the beginning of the movie. This is symbolic of Ofelia’s cycle of life, which is like a hero’s cycle that ends prematurely. Instead of winning in the end after completing the three tasks she dies. Ofelia can only enter the realm of royalty and achieve her wish after she is killed by a real monster, the Captain. Her final entry into fantasy is unlike any other. Unlike the dark and dismal settings like the labyrinth, the creature’s buffet room, the Captain’s house, or even under the tree where the toad lived, the Princess Ofelia’s new castle is filled with bright light and warmth. Everything is made out of gold and the roof is made out of the sky. It is perfect. Beautiful. Is this entry real? The real Ophelia died, but where is her princess spirit? If she really did become a princess, then why didn’t she take her brother? The image of her death is heartbreaking, but her entry into a better world relieves the pain a little bit. Ofelia is still a child. She can imagine a better world and, through her, so can we. Mercedes, on the other hand, cannot. She is so involved in the real world that she has to take all of the pain of Ofelia’s death onto herself. There is nowhere for her to escape and we feel even worse for Mercedes than for Ofelia. Ofelia’s last entry into her castle has a double irony to it. Ofelia’s greatest desires can only come at the expense of Ofelia’s death and, at the same time, along with the paint and agony of the one person left on the Earth who cared about Ofelia.
Children are known for their imaginations. They can pretend anything. I remember that when my brother was about three years old everything he touched turned into some sort of tool. A hammer. A saw. A belt. How he turned a banana into a screwdriver still daunts me. Yet, the difference between my brother and Ofelia is that my brother knew the difference between what was real and what was not. He was able to get away from his overactive imagination and grow up. Ofelia, on the other hand, got very confused. She blurred fantasy and reality so much that there was no point of entry from the real world into the fairy world and vice versa. They merged into one. How could Pan get into Ofelia’s room when it was locked? How did the mandrake root appear under the bed if Pan did not exist? All of these questions continue to appear throughout the story, and we are left with more questions than answers.
Another interesting point of entry into the fantastical world was when Ofelia learns to draw a door with a piece of chalk. Ofelia can use the chalk to get into another world whenever she wants to, but she cannot choose where she goes. She can draw a piece of chalk and it will take her to the creature’s buffet table or she can end up somewhere else. Yet, Ofelia knows that, even though the fantastical points of entry are limitless, she can only return to Captain’s house. I was watching the movie with my family; and as Ofelia frightfully drew a door in the ceiling as the creature tried to grab at her, my sister noted that Ofelia never really needed that timer in the first place. If she could just draw another door back home whenever she wanted to, then why did she have to worry so much in the first place? Her fears are irrational, just like the world in which she chooses to live. Furthermore, later when Ofelia has to grab her brother and run away from the Captain, she hangs onto the chalk. Why? Does she think that she can just draw another door and run away? Just the opposite happens. The chalk is what leads the Captain to first know she is in the room. Ofelia cannot escape from real problems in the fantastical world because that world does not exist for anybody but herself. Just like Ofelia could not draw a door to escape the Captain, when Mercedes saw the chalk drawing on the wall she did not see a door that went along with it.
In the end, we see Ofelia running with her brother through the labyrinth, but the walls that she sees appear after she runs through them really don’t appear at all .The Captain ends up catching up to Ofelia in the end and we finally see that Pan never existed, at least not through the eyes of an adult. There was just a desperate, lonely child clutching the only family she has left and the real evil monster, worse than any greedy toads or gaunt creatures that prey off of innocent babies, who she cannot escape from. This continuous interchange of entry and exits into and out of Ofelia’s dream world play an important role in Ofelia’s development. Ofelia learns not to obey without asking questions, but then she is killed by the one person who cannot learn what she just did. Only in the fantastical world can she be happy and loved.