Labyrinth Analysis Part 3- The Leave Your Quest Tests

   Our protagonist must face two different tests before she can meet her goal. Both give her two different temptations- which the hero in any hero’s journey story is almost required to face. Since she is a teenager, she is leaving childhood and entering adulthood. She must face the two tempting extremes of either side.

  Earlier, Jareth had given Hoggle a crystal dream ball turned into a peach, and ordered him to give it to her and make her eat it. When the hungry Sarah is finally tricked into eating it, she is physically weakened and falls to the ground. The motif of dangerous fruit is one common throughout fairy tales, and mythology; from Eve to Persephone to Snow White. Besides physical weakness, another crystal ball floating down sucks her into the dream ballet.

   What is inside? Well, one of the most famous scenes in the whole film. Inside is a surreal masquerade ball full of guests in pretty dresses, and grotesque masks. The song “As the World Falls Down” plays throughout this scene. Sarah is dressed up in a sparkly white ball gown with big marshmallow sleeves. Here, she looks innocent- the image of the child-like, ingenue princess. She is very juvenile compared to everyone else and sees that she is in an adult situation. She sees Jareth ,in all his lip-glossed, blue bedazzled suit glory, remove his mask, stare at her and vanish.

   Sarah does not have a mask, unlike everyone else, and wanders through the scene. At one point the prank her by showing her a chicken head popping out of a box (just guess what that could symbolize). Jareth, being the dream prince of a young girls fantasy, stalks and spies on her, and then finally pulls her down for a dance. Other than the romantic, dreamy music of the song playing, we do not hear a single line of coherent dialogue. We do not even hear a single “What the crap?” from Sarah.

   Sarah is facing the new, exciting temptation of adulthood in the form of romantic and sexual awakening. She has already taken big girl steps toward responsibility. But what about the more glamorous world of adulthood? The world of dress-up that her mother conveys? Here, it is offered to her on a silver platter. Forget living up to your mistakes and becoming a hero, be like your princess mother. You’ll wear pretty gowns and dance with the exact same men who court her.

   It seems too good to be true, because it is.

   The temptation of sexuality is a common theme throughout hero’s journey stories. Usually, they involve a mythical being trying to seduce the young hero or heroine out of the way of their goal. One example is in the Epic of Gilgamesh. When Gilgamesh is close to the end of his first journey, he bathes and puts on new clothes (like Sarah in the fantasy). Ishthar, the Babylonian goddess of love and beauty, arrives to him. She offers him to become her lover, and that she will give him all the possessions he desires if he does. Already this paints a strong liking to this scene; the ball of Sarah's dreams complete with costumes and jewelry. One lyric of the song claims that Jareth “will paint you (Sarah) mornings of gold, I’ll spin you Valentine evenings”. Gilgamesh turns her down, since she is an untrustworthy goddess. He knows that each of her previous lovers died due to displeasing her in some way.

   Sarah has conflicting feelings about dating and romance. On one hand, as we have already discussed, she wants boys to pay attention to her and to feel desired. But those steps are frightening and give her a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of others to become what they consider “desirable.” They laugh at her in this scene because they are judging her, mocking her for her childishness.

      What about Jareth's motivations in this scene? Is he trying to earnestly win her love? The answer is most likely yes. But there is more to it than that. He is using that infatuation as a distraction. .  He is narcissistic and vain to an extreme extent (he wants to re-name Toby after himself!). He knows that he is the image of a “dream celebrity prince” and decides to use it to manipulate a hormonal teenage girl. According to the novelization, Sarah can only “think about Jareth”, once she eats the peach  He wants to be the one in control of everything, as alluded by the rape imagery of the cleaner, the chicken head, and the drugged peach. Second, he wants to keep Toby for himself (we'll discuss why in the last part), and that means stopping this girl with whatever means possible. He says to Toby that once she eats the peach she will “forget all about you.”  During their first scene, he tells her “forget about the baby.” He says to “run back, play with your toys and costumes” so that she will not challenge him. Heck, what’s to stop him from turning her into a goblin himself once he got tired of her?

   Look at the brief smile he gives her once the clock strikes twelve.

   That doesn’t look like a lovers smile. It looks like the smile of a lion finally catching gazelle. Sarah realizes this and runs off. She takes a chair and uses it to smash the crystal walls, destroying that world and making her escape.

   There is another interesting twist considering the feminist interpretation. The fairy tale this scene quotes is the Perrault version of Cinderella. This is the version we get our main image of the story lauding female passivity and reliance on good looks and getting a rich man. Even the lyrics of “As the World Falls Down” can be condescending to her! (“As the Pain sweeps through, makes no sense for you” “There’s such a fooled heart, beating so fast”). She is as much of a fairy tale princess as Jareth is a fairy tale prince.

   This  world of strict gender roles is the sort of dream Jareth is offering Sarah. But Sarah is not some starry-eyed waif who will succumb to his pelvic sorcery. She sees through the pressure to become a wilting damsel. She chooses to become a hero rather than a damsel in distress. She escapes by literally breaking the glass wall, it may not be the ceiling, but its close enough. Once she falls out of the bubble, the peach that once looked so fresh and delicious has now rotted and has worms.

   The second temptation that comes after is the temptation of childhood. It is less ambiguous and more direct and simple than the last scene, so I will not take as long to analyze it. First of all, look at the title of the character Sarah meets- The Junk Lady. 

   That should give you a big clue already. Second, the room is not her real room, but an illusion of her room. Something that can similar, but never exact.

   Sarah has just faced the pressures of a corrupt adulthood. She cannot remember what she has to do, but she knows that she is tired and just wants to rest without any pressure on her at all. She regresses back to her old habits of childishness. As the Junk Lady piles trinket after trinket on her. Any work to be done will be cared for by someone else. In childhood, life is only pleasant and simple.

   Or so it seems.

   Sarah realizes that all her books and stuffed animals are “all junk.” She cannot choose them over a human life. Instead of being a child and having others take care of her, she is going to take care of Toby.

   Childhood is only a stasis, but not moving forward. It is holing yourself up from the rest of the world except for that little paradise where everything is yours. It is denying cruelty and power exist and hiding away, thinking that it will go away if you just avoid it. It is not taking advantage of your human potential. It means staying in a place where you only have to be safe, comfortable, and happy.

    She rejects this temptation, and emerges out, with her loyal companions waiting right outside for her.

Labyrinth Analysis Part 2- The Meat and Potatoes

Now that Sarah started her journey, she is interacting with this strange fantasy world. Sometimes it is wondrous, sometimes it is frightening, and sometimes it is lacking in sense. The first character she encounters, just outside the Labyrinth, is a goblin named Hoggle.

At this point, I am going to throw in crazier interpretations. So let’s pause at Sarah’s meeting with Hoggle and throw in the one that will reappear the most. Labyrinth is a film with strong Feminist subtext. Was this intentional? I do not know. But let’s take a closer look. First, Sarah is a female protagonist who is both dynamic and strong-willed. She stands up and does the heroic thing. She fights the Labyrinth when everyone else tells her it is impossible. She becomes a leader. Her goal is not attaining a man, but saving a life. The film portrays the element of romance connected with Jareth  as a trap. (But we will elaborate later).

                Second, the world of the Labyrinth, especially the goblin city, is a patriarchy. It is a world where men are dominant and women are subservient. The goblin population is, for the most part, male. The city features a fountain where one of the statues urinates into the pool. Jareth’s tights confirm his male-ness and power over everyone else. He later criticizes and mocks Hoggle for feeling empathy for a girl. His sings his first song, “Dance Magic Dance” at Toby. It is a fun number about the spell that will turn Toby into a goblin. The ingredients for the spell include “slime and snails/puppy dog tails.” This is an allusion to the nursery rhyme “What little boys are made of” that glorifies rigid gender roles. This time, the goblins emphasize these elements so Toby will lose his humanity. They will make him a monster (that is, a misogynistic male).

                 

                How does this connect back to Hoggle? When we first meet him, he is urinating. After that, he sprays female fairies with a phallic object to dis-empower them. But, it is Sarah’s friendship that gives him a change of heart. While Jareth abuses his power over Hoggle, Sarah treats him as an equal. She might be a girl, and an enemy, but her companionship treats him as an equal. His empathy and value for friendship wins him over, and he converts to her side.

The film comments that patriarchies are built by men “out male-ing” and intimidating those below him in order to be at the top. On the other hand, the visiting woman, calls those she can trust her “friends.” She respects them and sees them as equals. Her “feminine” way is the better way. She takes care of them them just as much as they take care of her, making her their unofficial leader.

But Sarah’s journey is not pleasant all the time. She is in an environment full of different twists and turns. There are many ways to interpret the Labyrinth itself. But the one I will be sticking the closest to is that it represents adolescence itself. In her book, "Labyrinth", she imagines it as a wonderful, magical paradise. It is more beautiful and interesting than her suburban reality, much like how children romanticize adolescence from a distance. They think teenagers are “cool” and wish to be like them. When they reach adolescence, reality hits them. It is unpredictable, filled with tricky illusions and many puzzles (such as the two guards). She must make difficult choices, and encounter characters of questionable trustworthiness. She must meet trials, temptations, goals, friends, enemies, and so on. When you think you have it all figured out and it looks like it is easy, then all of a sudden, some disaster will hit you. The film illustrates this with the “piece of cake” running gag. Whenever a character says something- usually the Labyrinth, is a “piece of cake”, some disaster strikes. When Sarah says it in the forest, Ludo falls through a trap. When she says it in the oubliette, time goes forward, giving her less time to complete her quest, and that’s just to name a few.

       Earlier in her journey, after she figures out the puzzle, and answers it correctly. But even though she made the right choice, she still has to face difficult consequences (sound familiar?). Sarah falls thought the tunnel of “helping hands”, which is literally a bunch of hands pulling her down, into the oubliette. Oubliettes come from the Renaissance period and were torture dungeons for political power. In literature, they represent cruelty, and tyrannical power. So here, Sarah is facing the “heart” of tyranny, having reached the “belly of the whale” step in the traditional Hero’s journey. If we are going to go with the Freudian angle, then since the oubliette is circular and cave-like, it can be a vagina symbol. If this is the case, it marks the beginning of Sarah exploring her sexuality. Its dark, damp, she goes down there by hands touching all over her (a reference to masturbation), it’s frightening and unknown. Once Jareth confronts her and threatens Hoggle, he takes the crystal dream ball and throws it into the dark, summoning a “cleaner.” 

The cleaner is conical shaped and full of spikes and other pointed objects, and goes through the tunnels, rushing toward Sarah and Hoggle to run them down, and tear them to bits. This cleaner could be an allegory for rape since it is painful looking and forcing its way through the tunnel in order to destroy the heroine, and is summoned by the character representing adult sexuality and patriarchy. When she and Hoggle finally escape the cleaner and emerge outside, they are surrounded by bushes and greenery, which could represent pubic hair.

But sometimes a canoe is just a canoe and a cave is just a cave. If so, then the oubliette can represent something much more northern in the body; the womb. Up to this point, the Labyrinth has left the immature Sarah frustrated and stressed. To solve it, she must be ‘reborn.’ This is why she faces in the oubliette with all of its damp, dark ferocity. Once she emerges, her character makes the most changes, and she learns to accept what she cannot change and what is in her power to change. She also learns the importance of friendship and looking after people (or rather, puppets….living things) other than herself.

Her friends, Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didimus, are there for spiritual support. But she learns several lessons through them. They represent the new friendships and loyalties she is learning to value as a burgeoning adult. Each represents different characteristics; Ludo is naiive, kind-hearted strength, Sir Didimus is impulsive gallantry, and Hoggle is cynical and hesitant to companionship. Each one is a piece of a whole; perhaps they are sides of herself she must balance to get mature power. As a group, they complete each other. She sees through them and makes sure that they are well-off and equal (she asks after one if that one is missing, and she calls them all her “friends”). She learns how each one ticks and appeals to them (calling Didimus “noble sir” after asking for his permission).

But although she has already braved many parts of the Labyrinth, she has a long way to go. Some elements are trying to use her own conflicting desires against her...