Guillermo Del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five are reflected in the fact that both feature a main character struggling to accept realities of the war, but the works vary in various ways. The details of Pan's Labyrinth and Slaughterhouse Five illuminate several juxtapositions of birth, death, fantasy, and reality highlighted by Del Toro and Vonnegut. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The juxtaposition of birth and death between the two works that both deal with war provides an intriguing comparison between the works' concepts. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut focuses the short story on death by repeating a statement after each death, regardless of location, purpose, or person, a statement that finds form in the phrase "So it goes." Vonnegut chooses to incorporate the repetition of this phrase to serve as a bridge across time periods and contexts, emphasizing the pointlessness and inevitability of every death caused by war by framing all deaths so casually and disdainfully. There is no choice but to accept that death accompanies war, and the only option people have is to accept this as true. Vonnegut writes short, declarative sentences to emphasize the dryness and harsh reality of the deaths in the war, because there is no need to add details that will make the war of the dead seem more glorious and less horrible than 'she doesn't. He also uses irony to highlight the absurdities of war and the ridiculousness of so much death on a massive scale. Vonnegut captures this irony by describing Billy Pilgrim as a very undertrained and undersupplied soldier who was captured early on by the opponents, yet writes that he was one of the only ones in Dresden to survive the firebombings, proving just how many deaths there were. it doesn't make sense. Billy Pilgrim's survival after the bombing of a slaughterhouse, a place that usually ends life and does not preserve it, illustrates this irony and absurdity. In contrast, Del Toro emphasizes birth in Pan's Labyrinth. Del Toro begins Pan's Labyrinth with a shot of Ofelia lying on the ground at eye level, but reverses the footage so that it shows a resurrection as the blood retreats into her body rather than showing a death so let the blood flow out of his body. The eye-level shot connects the audience to Ofelia and allows them to immediately initiate their relationship with her which will last from the first scene to the last. Images of birth fill the film, from the blood-red ink of Ofelia's book to the final scene. Del Toro cleverly begins the spread of crimson ink in the book in the shape of faun horns that predicts Ofelia's rebirth into the fantasy world before morphing into the outline of a womb that foretells the complications Carmen will have with her pregnancy. In the final scene, Del Toro pans to the fig tree, the site of the first task, which is shaped like a womb, meaning that she was truly reborn in the fantasy world after Captain Vidal gave her shot at. These images, she is not really dead and continues to live on her in the world of Faun after her rebirth. Another incorporated juxtaposition shows that while the world of Slaughterhouse Five does not exist, the world of Pan's Labyrinth does. Vonnegut's main clue that proves Billy's world full of Tralfamadorians is non-existent isthe way he presents events in a chaotic and messy way in Slaughterhouse Five. It presents Billy Pilgrim as a man who suffers from the mental trauma he suffered during the war and who resorts to a method of time jumping to deal with this trauma (Vonnegut). Writing in a manner that parallels ideas of Tralfamadorian time in an inconstant temporal flow, Vonnegut groups various events spread over several years by logic rather than chronology into a stream of consciousness. This style better reflects the mental chaos that Billy Pilgrim is forced to face and highlights the confusion he feels in the world. Stream of consciousness highlights the impact of the war on Billy Pilgram, as certain objects or events act as triggers between different moments as his mind struggles to focus on one aspect of his life. To further demonstrate the non-existence of Billy Pilgrim's Tralfamadorian world, Vonnegut creates the bird symbol that constantly says "Poo-tee-weet?" ". This bird conveys the message that there is nothing intelligent to say about war and that words cannot adequately express the horrors of war and death. There is nothing intelligent to say about the war and nothing intelligent to think after the war, which is the root of Billy's mental problems and his invention of the world because he cannot find way to manage the world in which he actually lives. He can't find a way to understand the war or understand it, so he ends up inventing a kingdom that helps him deal with the horrors he's witnessed. While Vonnegut depicts Slaughterhouse Five in a less orderly manner to reflect the mental chaos generated by the traumatic experiences of war and Billy's need to create a world into which he could escape, Del Toro presents Pan's Labyrinth d 'an extremely structured way. This careful structure, embodied by the hero's journey, key details, and inversion of light among various other cinematic techniques, presents the primary evidence that Ofelia's world is real, unlike the evidence that Billy Pilgrim's world is not real. In the opening sequence of Pan's Labyrinth, Del Toro uses the panning technique to establish the framework of the story the narrator is telling off-screen. As the pan continues outside the fantasy world, the white light suddenly changes to yellow light as the narrator states that the princess perished after failing to adapt to the world outside her kingdom, but that her father believed she would one day. come back in a different form. Indeed, this princess returns in the form of Ofelia. Del Toro includes these narrations to set the stage for the development of the storyline and to prove that the fantasy world exists, as Ofelia also fails to survive in the reality of fascist Spain in which she lives. This time, however, his death brings her home to the kingdom. Del Toro transforms Ofelia into Joseph Cambell's The Hero's Journey, a collection of characteristics universally common in fairy tales, myths, and miscellaneous tales. Ofelia is the hero, and as the film progresses, more and more features of the journey come into play. Her call to adventure occurs after she inserts the eye into the statue and the insect comes out, because the insect later transforms into a fairy who will lead her to cross the threshold embodied as the entrance to the Labyrinth. Del Toro presents the Faun as the threshold guardian and mentor figure, and during Ofelia and the Faun's first meeting, a low angle captures the Faun while a high angle captures Ofelia. This low angle indicates the importance of the Faun and the rolevital he will play in Ofelia's return to the kingdom, and Ofelia's high angle emphasizes the initial difference between the Faun, a representation of the fantasy world, and Ofelia, a representation of the real world. The Faun offers her supernatural help in the form of magical gifts, first the book, then the chalk, the mandrake, the hourglass and the fairies who will guide her on her journey. Del Toro captures the refusal of the call in Ofelia's doubt about the Faun's honesty, but she eventually accepts what he tells her, locating a moon-shaped birthmark, as a physical mark is often a feature of the hero in the hero's journey, and ultimately opening the magical book for the first time. Following this acceptance of her journey, Del Toro presents her with a path of trials on which she will face trials, allies and enemies. The Faun gives him three tasks: go to the fig tree to retrieve the golden key from the frog, retrieve the sword from the Pale Man's lair and bring his little brother to the labyrinth so that a drop of his blood can used to open the maze. the portal. Each of these tasks represents a different test that is paralleled in the real war-stricken world since the first task is a test of courage, the second test is a test of obedience and temptation, and the last test is a self-sacrifice test. The rebels hiding in the forest represent this courage because they too challenge established beliefs. While Ofelia defies the real world by entering the fantasy world of the tree on her first task, the rebels challenge the fascist regime in Spain. During the second task, Del Toro has the fairies act as the heralds of the hero's journey, trying to warn Ofelia of the dangers of eating food and waking up the pale man who represents the fantasy world's Captain Vidal . Medium shots of the two characters are used when each is seated at the head of the table, bringing the audience face to face with these two villains and emphasizing this connection. Del Toro presents a close-up of the grapes not only to establish a connection with the grapes that were also present on Captain Vidal's table, but also to depict Ofelia's focus on the food rather than the dangers and warnings that are presented to him. When Ofelia does not obey his orders and eats the grapes, she causes the deaths of two of the fairies and almost loses her life as well, depicting a disobedience that is also presented in the doctor's actions. Although Captain Vidal ordered the doctor to keep the stutterer alive, he chooses to kill the man out of mercy, an action that costs him and Carmen's lives as an army paramedic is forced to deliver the baby rather than an experienced doctor. . The final test of self-sacrifice merges between the real world and the fantasy world as Ofelia finally becomes the master of two worlds. A close-up of the blood flowing from his hands in the maze draws the audience's attention to this detail which marks his sacrifice, and the tilt of the pillar in the maze indicates his supernatural characteristics as he carries Ofelia from Spain into the throne room. Her choice to avoid harming her brother represents the refusal of return in the Hero's Journey and leads to her demise, but it also leads to her ultimate entry into the fantasy world and its realm as she crosses the threshold of return . Until the final scene of the film, Del Toro used white light to represent innocence, naivety and purity and yellow light to represent the illness and violence of reality. Yet in the final throne room scene, a yellow light that represents reality bathes Ofelia as she comes face to face with the king and her mother as she dies in the white light,,.