Guillermo Del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth and Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five mirror each other in that they both feature a main character who struggles to accept the reality of war, but the works vary in various ways. The details of both Pan's Labyrinth and Slaughterhouse Five highlight different 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 Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The juxtaposition of birth and death between the two works, both about war, provides an intriguing comparison of the works' concepts. In Slaughterhouse Five, Vonnegut focuses the narrative on death as he repeats a statement after every single death, regardless of place, purpose, or person, a statement that finds its form in the phrase "So it goes." Vonnegut chooses to incorporate the repetition of this phrase to act as a bridge between time periods and settings, highlighting the futility and inevitability of each and every death caused by war by framing all deaths in such a casual and dismissive manner. There is no choice but to accept that death goes hand in hand with war, and the only option people have is to accept this as true. Vonnegut writes short, declarative sentences to emphasize the dryness and stark reality of war deaths, because there is no need to add details that will make war deaths seem more glorious and less horrible than they are. He also uses irony to highlight the absurdities of war and the ridiculousness of so many large-scale deaths. Vonnegut captures this irony by describing Billy Pilgrim as a very poorly trained and poorly supplied soldier who was captured early by adversaries, but writes that he was one of the few people in Dresden to survive the fire bombing, demonstrating how much death makes sense in Billy Pilgrim's survival after the attack in a slaughterhouse, a place that usually ends life and does not preserve it, exemplifies this irony and absurdity. In contrast, Del Toro emphasizes the birth in Pan's Labyrinth. Del Toro begins Pan's Labyrinth with an eye-level shot of Ophelia lying on the ground, but reverses the frames to show a resurrection as the blood retreats into her body instead of showing a death as the blood flows out from his body. The eye-level shot connects the audience with Ophelia and allows them to immediately begin their relationship with her that will last from the first scene to the last. Images of birth fill the film, from the blood-red ink in Ophelia's book to the final scene. Del Toro cleverly begins spreading crimson ink into the Faun's horn-shaped book that predicts Ophelia's rebirth in the fantasy world before it transforms into the shape of a uterus that predicts the complications Carmen will have with her pregnancy. In the final scene, Del Toro pans to the fig tree, the location of the first task, which is shaped like a womb, signifying that she is truly reborn into the fantasy world after Captain Vidal shoots her. In these images she is not truly dead and continues to live in her Faunus world after her rebirth. Another built-in juxtaposition portrays that while the world in Slaughterhouse Five does not exist, the world in Pan's Labyrinth does. Vonnegut's main clue that Billy's world full of Tralfamadorians does not exist is the way he presents the events in a chaotic and disorganized way in Slaughterhouse Five. It presents Billy Pilgrim as a man who suffers from the mental trauma he experienced during the war and resorts to a method oftime jump to deal with that trauma (Vonnegut). Writing in a manner parallel to the ideas of Tralfamadorian time in an inconstant time stream, Vonnegut groups various events spread across several years according to logic rather than according to chronology into a stream of consciousness. This style better reflects the mental chaos that Billy Pilgrim is forced to deal with and illuminates the confusion he feels in the world. The stream of consciousness highlights the impact the war has had on Billy Pilgram as certain objects or events act as triggers between different times as his mind struggles to focus on one aspect of his life. To further demonstrate the non-existence of the Tralfamadorian world of Billy Pilgrim, Vonnegut creates the symbol of the bird 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, causing Billy's mental disorder and invention of the world because he cannot find a way to deal with the world he truly lives in. 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 witnessed. While Vonnegut portrayed 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 in which to escape, Del Toro presents Pan's Labyrinth in an extremely structured manner. This careful structure, embodied by the Hero's Journey, key details, and light inversion among various other cinematic techniques, presents the primary evidence that Ophelia's world is real in contrast to the evidence that Billy Pilgrim's world is not real. In Pan's Labyrinth, del Toro uses the panning technique to establish the setting of the story that the off-screen narrator is telling. As the pan continues outward into the fantasy world, the white light suddenly changes to yellow light as the narrator states that the princess died after failing to adapt to the world outside her kingdom, but that her father believed that one day he would. return in a different form. Indeed, this princess returns in the form of Ophelia. Del Toro includes these narratives to prepare the ground for the development of the plot and to demonstrate that the fantasy world exists, since even Ofelia cannot survive in the reality of fascist Spain in which she lives. This time, however, his death brings her home to the kingdom. Del Toro places Ophelia in Joseph Cambell's Hero's Journey, a collection of characteristics universally common in fairy tales, myths, and various tales. Ophelia 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 pops out, as the insect subsequently transforms into a fairy which will lead her to cross the threshold embodied as the entrance to the Labyrinth. Del Toro presents the Faun as a threshold guardian and mentor figure, and during the first meeting between Ophelia and the Faun, a low angle captures the Faun while a high angle captures Ophelia. This low angle indicates the importance of the Faun and the vital role he will play in bringing Ophelia back to the kingdom, and the high angle of Ophelia emphasizes the initial difference between the Faun, a representation of the fantasy world, and Ophelia, a representation of the real world . The Faun presents her with supernatural help in the form of magical gifts, first the book and then the chalk, the mandrake, the hourglass and the fairieswho will guide her on her journey. Del Toro catches Ophelia's refusal of the call in doubt about the Faun's honesty, but ultimately accepts what he tells her, spotting a moon-shaped birthmark, as a physical mark is often a characteristic of the hero in the Hero's Journey , and finally opening the magic book for the first time. Following this acceptance of her journey, Del Toro presents her with a path of trials that will face trials, allies and enemies. The Faun gives her three tasks: go to the fig tree to retrieve the golden key from the frog, obtain the sword from the Pale Man's lair, and bring her little brother into the labyrinth so that a drop of his blood can be used to open the portal. Each of these tasks represents a different test that has a parallel in the war-affected real world as the first task is a test of courage, the second test is a test of obedience and temptation, and the last test is a test of self-sacrifice . The rebels hiding in the forest represent this courage as they too challenge the beliefs of what is established – while Ofelia challenges the real world by entering the fantasy world of the tree in her first task, the rebels challenge the fascist regime in Spain. During the second task, Del Toro has the fairies act as heralds of the hero's journey, trying to warn Ofelia of the dangers of eating the food and awaken the Pale Man who represents the fantasy world's Captain Vidal. Medium shots of both characters are used as each sits at the head of the table, putting 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 create a connection with the grapes that were also present on Captain Vidal's table, but to represent Ofelia's focus on the food rather than the dangers and warnings presented to her . When Ophelia does not obey her orders and eats the grapes, she causes the deaths of two fairies and almost loses her own life as well, representing a disobedience that also shows up in the doctor's actions. Although the doctor is ordered to keep the stutterer alive by Captain Vidal, he chooses to kill the man out of mercy, an action which costs him his life as well as Carmen's as an army paramedic is forced to deliver the baby rather than an expert doctor. . The ultimate test of self-sacrifice merges between the real world and the fantasy world as Ophelia finally becomes the master of the two worlds. A close-up of the blood dripping from her hands in the labyrinth draws the audience's attention to this detail marking her sacrifice, and the tilt of the pillar in the labyrinth indicates her supernatural characteristics as she carries Ophelia from Spain into the throne room. His choice to prevent harm from being done to his brother represents his refusal to return to the Hero's Journey and leads to his death, but also leads to his definitive entry into the fantasy world and his kingdom as soon as he 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 disease and violence of reality. Yet, in the final scene in the throne room, the yellow light representing reality bathes Ophelia as she comes face to face with the king and her mother as she dies in the white light, an indication that perhaps the fantasy world was real all along, but it was only truly accessible to Ophelia after completing her Hero's Journey. Many other details support the claim that the fantasy world existed, the first of which is the chalk door, as Ophelia could not have escaped from her locked room to join her brother without her,.