Assignment six: Internal conflict

Level: Beginner

Labyrinth

I returned to this children's coming-of-age fantasy movie because it presents a straightforward internal conflict.

Protagonist:

Sarah is an adolescent steeped in fantasy. She clings to her fantasies, unwilling to trade her imaginary adventures for real-life responsibility and maturity.

Opening:

Dressed in a medieval fantasy gown, Sarah is role-playing a heroic adventure alone in a park. The sound of a chiming clock is heard. Sarah abruptly breaks off her game, lifts her skirts to reveal blue-jean clad legs and races home through what is clearly a standard, 20^th Century small town. She reaches home and is rebuked. She had promised to babysit her baby brother and she is late.

This first scene pits Sarah's fantasy image against reality. She pretends to be a heroic princess: the reality is that she plays too long and is late for a real-life obligation.

Left home to babysit, Sarah is incensed to discover that her teddy bear, Lancelot, had been given to her brother. Sarah takes the toy away and the baby cries. Sarah role-plays a wish that the goblins will take away the crying baby. But this time, the role-playing has consequences. The Goblin King of her imagination does appear and does take away her brother. She must then embark upon a heroic quest against the Goblin King to recover her brother.

Throughout her quest she is continually hampered by clinging to her fantasy view of the world. Although the world of Labyrinth is a fantasy, it fails to conform to her expectations. Her assumptions are continually proved false as she discovers the fantasy world is no "fairer" than her real life.

For example, she is bitten when she attempts to help a physically appealing fairy; the marks she makes to guide herself through the labyrinth are reversed; she resolves a puzzle within the labyrinth but still falls into a trap; and her defiance to the goblin-king earns not admiration but further danger.

For Sarah, the most dangerous trap is a poisoned peach which gives her the fantasy world she desires: a dream in which she is a beautiful princess at a ball courted by the enigmatic goblin king.

Her emancipation begins with her refusal to be lulled into this appealing fantasy world. She smashes free of the dream ballroom and falls into another refuge, a replica of her bedroom complete with her hoarded childhood toys. Abruptly she realizes that the toys she has kept are not treasures but junk, especially when measured against the welfare of her brother. She claws free and resumes her quest.

Her final victory over the Goblin King occurs when she faces him and acknowledges "you have no power over me" -- a statement which repudiates the power she has given fantasy in her life.

She and her brother are returned home unharmed. Sarah acknowledges imagination will have a part in her life but it will have it's proper place. She starts to put away childish things, starting by giving the teddy bear Lancelot to her brother.

Instructors Comments