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How religion affects literature
How religion affects literature
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Yann Martel’s magic realism novel Life of Pi (2006) and Guillermo Del Toro’s dark fantasy film Pan’s Labyrinth (2002) fuses fiction with reality as they explore shared concerns such as faith, survival and the importance of narration. These bildungsroman tales feature teenage protagonists who undergo profound transformations as they strive to overcome confronting challenges.
Yann Martel is able to blend real elements with the surreal through the use of storytelling. “Without Richard Parker, I wouldn't be alive today to tell you my story.” Yann Martel not only forewarns of the future events but also demonstrates the characteristics that Piscine has. Animal allegories are used as a recurring motif in the novel and are used to symbolise coping mechanisms. “Did you notice that the zebra and the Taiwanese sailor broke a leg?” Yann Martel uses these allegories to help hide the dark and sinister side of survival with natural animal behaviour and instincts. The blind Frenchman not only acts as an outlet for Piscine’s savagery but also provides a new perception of Piscine. “He was such an evil man. Worse still, he met evil in me…I must live with that.” Piscine’s statement shows that he was once a humble boy with no intent of murder; however the sea transformed him into the greater of two evils. Yann Martel uses the bildungsroman genre to help emphasise the feats that people will perform to survive.
Guillermo Del Toro’s film Pan’s Labyrinth is set in 1944, shortly after the conclusion of Spanish civil war. Despite the difference in settings, both texts are examples of bildungsroman, and share a variety of different themes.Del Toro intertwines reality with fiction through the use of the main protagonist Ofelia. Ofelia a young girl assis...
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...k the boundaries of conventual narratives. Martel continues with this new style of writing with fictional authors notes at the start of the novel to set the context for the rest of his novel. The fictional author’s notes are extremely post modern and as a result the boundaries of fiction and reality are blurred. Like Martel, Del Toro uses a dual plot line to help break the convention of the narrative structure. “That's what I love about fairy tales; they tell the truth, not organized politics, religion or economics.” This helps to stress the importance that both Martel and Del Toro believe in the power of narrative.
Despite being set shortly after the Spanish civil war, Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth has many distinct connections with Yann Martel’s novel Life of Pi. These texts both discuss commonalities such as the power of narrative, genre and religion.
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) written and directed by Guillermo del Toro is a dark fantasy film that uses fantasy and inspired true events of the after effects of the Spanish Civil War to create a symbolic parable that was influenced by fairy tales and myths. Even though this film is explicitly about the times during Franco it is also a film that can speak for any time period, past, present, and future. Through the use of phantasmagorical elements in the fantasy sequences del Toro uses doubling to reinforce the horrific events that have and can happen again in reality. The film takes place five years after the Spanish Civil War during Francisco Franco’s reign of terror. The story focuses on Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) as well as Ofelia’s evil stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez). Both characters represent something bigger than they actually are; Ofelia is seen to represent Spain and the antifascists whereas Captain Vidal represents Franco and fascism. Ofelia has to complete three daunting tasks given to her by the Faun (Doug Jones) that is said to reunite her with her family, the King and Queen of the Underworld. Del Toro uses doubling of the mythical realm with the ‘real world’ throughout the film that emphasizes the underlying meaning of the film. The film also follows the story of the anti-fascists rebels that are hidden amongst the trees and mountains. The character Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) is able to fool Captain Vidal for most of the film and help the rebels. It is not until the near end of the film where Captain Vidal realizes that Mercedes has been helping the rebels the entire time and it is due partly because of his misogyny that he is unable to see her as a threat to his cause.
During a time where Franco was in power, Rebels had to live in a world where to take risks and disobey was the only way to survive. Rebels were tortured, mistreated and killed due to not believing in the Sadist lifestyle and that they held resistance to the Fascist. In the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, Fascism is an underlying theme that was commonly shown through the characters actions and beliefs. The Autocracy and the resistance fighters clash to fight over who will have the ruling of Spain. Pan’s Labyrinth uses the interpretation of fairy tale and contrasts it with horrific reality to express the main character’s view of living in a Sadist society.While to take in everything that is going on around her, Ofelia tries
During the gruesome and bloody Spanish Civil War, tens of thousands of innocent civilians and refugees died, but even more shocking, close to 200,000 people were deliberately executed (Hochschild). In the 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth, Ofelia is a young girl living in Spain after the war who, along with her pregnant mother, joins the family of Captain Vidal. He is the sadistic leader of a Fascist regime and Ofelia’s new abusive step-father. A lover of fairy tales, Ofelia fantasizes that she is secretly a princess who must complete three tasks in order to escape her current reality and return to her true home in the underworld. During the movie, she is faced with the harsh realities of war and death, which are mirrored in the creatures she faces during her mystical endeavors. Director Guillermo del Toro along with cinematographer Guillermo Navaro and editor Bernet Vilaplana perfectly personify the cruelness she experiences almost an hour into the film with Ofelia’s encounter of the horrifying Pale Man, an eyeless creature with an
The Chronicles of Narnia are enticing books, which offer a wonderful fictional plot line, but also a deeper philosophical importance if one analyzes the series. Many religious allusions can be found between characters in Narnia and biblical people. Deeper understanding can be found throughout the stories even in many overlooked aspects of everyday life. “The Chronicles of Narnia” is a piece of literature filled with religious symbols and allusions, such as the actions of Aslan and the personality of Peter, that enhance one’s perception and understanding of the books.
The novel Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, and the short story “Miss Brill”, by Katherine Mansfield, appear to contain the same internal ideas. The strongest similarity between the stories are the characters. But that is also the strongest difference. PI and Miss Brill suffer from loneliness, misunderstood simple mindedness, and having to deal with others putting them down.
Fiction often imitates life, as well as life imitates fiction, as we will see in the following comparison between a newspaper article in the Philadelphia Inquire in 1987 and a short story written by William Faulkner in 1930. Although there are some differences such as the time, place and circumstance, the two studies are chillingly similar.
Throughout the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, the notion of how the concepts of idealism and truth mold an individual’s life are vividly displayed. This is emblematized as Pi questions the idea of truth and the affects it has on different aspect of life, as well as his idealistic values being transformed due to the contrast between taking action and sheer belief. The messages generated will alter the way the reader thinks, as well as reshaping their overall perception of truth.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, is a fictional novel written in 2001 that explores the primacy of survival by employing symbolism, foreshadowing and motifs. This story follows the life of the protagonist, Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, as he embarks on his journey as a castaway. After boarding the Tsimtsum which carries Pi and his family along with a menagerie of animals, an abysmal storm capsizes the ship leaving Pi as the only survivor, though he is not alone. The great Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, also survives the shipwreck and during the 227 days that Pi and Richard Parker are stranded at sea together, the two must learn to coexist and trust one another for survival. Through Pi and Richard Parker’s struggles to remain alive, Martel explores the primal idea of survival by employing literary techniques.
When authors set out to impact the lives of readers, a diverse utilization of literary aspects is often required. It is easy to come across many differences and similarities between literary aspects when one delves into a plethora of works. In the book Life of Pi author Yann Martel harnesses the use of a varied first person point of view in order to accurately portray the sense of panic and urgency in given situations; adversely, in the short story “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson, a detached third person point of view is taken into account in order to drag the reader along on the drawn-out, suspenseful journey that the families involved had to endure. Despite the difference in narrators amongst Life of Pi and “The Lottery,” the points of view of both of these works are exercised in order to drive the plot of two very effective literary gems.
Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary
Pan’s Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro takes place following the Spanish Civil War in 1944. The film is told primarily through the point of view of young Ofelia, who is soon to become Princess Moanna. Guillermo relies heavily on magic realism to portray the innocent minds of children during the time of conflict. As a spiritual sequel to The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth displays a first hand account of how children are both directly and indirectly affected by the war. In the film, Ofelia’s mother, Carmen gives birth you a little boy, after the birth of the child the audience is able to see how the innocence of children is restricted during times of adversity.
A quick glance at Life of Pi and a reader may take away the idea that it is an easy read and a novel full of imagination, but take a Freudian view of the work and it transforms into a representation of the human psyche. Martel’s novel takes the reader on a journey with Pi as he struggles for his own survival. Pi experiences a breakdown of each component that makes up one's personality, according to Freud throughout the novel. One by one, ego and super ego both express a huge factor in Pi’s choices and emotions throughout his story. Readers are also introduced to an alternate ending to choose from.
We, as humans, often underestimate the fragility of our morals and “humanity”. In Life of Pi, author Yann Martel tells the story of a young boy named Pi who, after being shipwrecked and losing his entire family, must somehow survive in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with a grown tiger for days on end by abandoning all the morals he once valued. Through Pi’s story, Martel shows how easily humans can become akin to animals when finding themselves in a desperate situation.
The proscription from any domain of memorable works may be due to a major problem both in the novel and film: the ambiguous point of view adopted. The novel is geared for a transposition to the screen. It is no coincidence that the film was scripted by Niccolò Ammaniti, who adapted ...
In drastic situations, human psychology uses coping mechanisms to help them through it. In the novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Pi’s coping mechanism is his religions and his projection of Richard Parker. Martel’s Life of Pi shows how the projection of Richard Parker played a greater role in keeping Pi alive in comparison to his beliefs in his religions. During the period in which Pi was stranded on the lifeboat, Richard Parker kept Pi aware, helped Pi make the right decisions, and was Pi’s sub-consciousness.