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Oedipus The King Pan's Labyrinth Essay

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Through reading Oedipus The King, Slaughterhouse 5, and watching Pan’s Labyrinth there has been one message that is most evident to me; often when humans are faced with difficult lives they resort to a state of denial so they do not have to come to terms with the unsatisfying reality of their lives. Even though morals teach people to face their problems instead of running away from them, the main characters in these three stories seem to live happier lives with denial. In all three of these stories the main character is grappling with an irreversible conflict. In Oedipus The King, Oedipus is told by Teiresias that he did in fact kill King Laius. Instead of considering that he may have in fact committed this crime Oedipus denies this allegation …show more content…

While she reaches the country her Mother is severely ill and she is greeted with an immoral black-hearted new father. Ophelia’s life is terrible and it is clearly only going to get worse as her mom dies and she is left with her new father. When Ophelia dies she does not simply go into darkness but instead she is greeted by her parents in a fictitious kingdom. I believe that the writer did this to create a more uplifting ending and to not leave viewers with the sadness of a little girl dying. The writer uses fictitious elements to prevent Ophelia from facing the dark truth of her circumstances. Coming from living in a world that made her feel insignificant it made her happy to know that there was a place that she was the center of attention. Kids crave attention and love, Ophelia did not get a lot of that in her life on earth so she compensated for that by creating a world in her mind where she would be loved. In the end of the movie Ophelia can be seen bleeding out with a smile on her face, that smile would not have been there if it wasn’t for her unwillingness to accept her current life and create a haven for herself where she would be happy to spend her

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