I’ve just begun N.T. Wright’s Surprised by Hope, and though I’m only three chapters in, I’m ready to recommend this book as enthusiastically as it was first recommended to me. Most of my reflections inspired by the book, however, have little to do with eschatology or life after death. Thanks to my recent fascination with Hellboy and other “big” stories, I keep thinking about how Wright’s insights apply to storytelling.
(The following is one such reflection that was helped along by Davey.)
I’ve always found Pan’s Labyrinth unsatisfying, and I know why:
because the movie ends in death. While the little girl is “restored” to her place as princess in a grand kingdom, her restoration is anything but real: it’s ghostly and spiritual. As the little girl’s spirit ascends a throne under the earth, her body is left in the arms of a weeping Spanish woman whose wail guides the moviewatchers into the credits.
Fairy tales, as Davey pointed out, work chiefly as exhortations—matured parables, if you will. This does not mean that the message rules over the story, but merely that it must work within and through the story. Thus, Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling” looks forward to a resurrection that does indeed come when the outcast is reborn as a beautiful swan. (The fairy tales of George MacDonald, as well as the writings of Lewis and Tolkien follow this same example.) Indeed, resurrection is a key element of the fairy tale genre: without it, there is no satisfaction.
Of course, it is possible (as Davey pointed out) to have a tragic fairy tale, like Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.” However, tragic fairy tales only work if the protagonist’s wishes and desires are inappropriate. The Little Mermaid is punished for wanting what she ought not to want, just as Hamlet is punished for seeking only after revenge.
Pan’s Labyrinth, though a beautiful film, falls into neither of these categories. The little girl does everything she should (with the exception of awakening the great eyeball-in-hands monster), and yet her final end is the opposite of resurrection: she dies, not to live again, but to reign among the dead. It’s an unconvincing end, particularly with the last shot of the weeping woman, because death without the hope of resurrection promises and achieves nothing.
But MacDonald also sometimes fails to have real resurrection. In Lilith, there’s a huge climax scene at the end, where Mr. Vane and the Little Ones travel across the newly-restored land and ascend a high mountain. But as Vane reaches the very top, just as he’s about to go through the cloud cover and enter into the presence of God, he’s suddenly yanked out of a little door which locks behind him, and he finds himself alone in his study, not knowing if anything that happened was even real. I’m not sure if it was MacDonald’s bitterness towards the end of life, or his Unitarianism, but his resurrection scene is unfulfilling just like Del Toro’s.
Kate,
You’re absolutely right, and I should have noted that about MacDonald. While I do think an argument could be made that Mr Vane is looking forward to his resurrection at the end of the book, MacDonald’s idea of resurrection in Lilith is both strange and terrifying, so it’s not at all worth defending.