Comm. 403: Psycho-Comm.-A Psychoanalytic Criticism of Jim
Henson’s Labyrinth
By: Sammi Young
“Who is the self that observes the self?”
Psychoanalysis can easily be defined as “a theory of interpretation that
questions the common sense notion of “conciousness.” In speech, one must be
conditioned to talk about a certain subject matter. Hence, analyzing the psyche
pertains to the aspiration of uncovering the force of desire in discourse. For
example, if we take a subject of desire in a narrative, the subject often desires an
object. Taking a text such as Jim Henson’s Labyrinth into consideration, one can
easily conduct both a Freudian and Lacanian (or as I call it, post-Freudian or poststructural) psychoanalytic criticism. In doing so, one must first take a look at Freud,
and then follow his theory with a Lacanian position. Throughout the film, young
Sarah Williams ventures through the labyrinth learning life’s lessons that reference
coming of age, responsibility, rejecting childhood, life isn’t fair, etc. It is a coming of
age story as Sarah grows as does the Labyrinth’s difficulty. It is plain to see that even
the labyrinth itself can symbolize and represent Sarah’s subconscious. Not to
mention, each fall Sarah undergoes; she learns more and more every time. Her
various falls only bring her deeper into the subconscious.
The first time she falls into the two-door trap in which she figures out the riddle
between the liar and the truth-teller. Her lesson here deals with her ego as it teaches
her not to open her mind. Hence “things aren’t always what they seem.” She learns
not to always assume things are highly logical (For all Trekkies, there’s a “highly
illogical” reference here). Sarah’s ego (or sense of “I”) is questioned here as desires
are repressed. Thus, repressing her desires creates the unconscious mindset.
Repression is after all what creates the unconscious. The unconscious and conscious
are therefore diacritical. As Freud states “psychoanalysis questions what happens
when primordial desire gets directed into social goals.” In this sense, diacritics
relates to the conflicts that move us link between nature and culture, body and
mind, pleasure and principle. It is important to note that even within this simple
scene, Sarah’s ego is at first driven to the social formation of that which is
considered “logical.”
So she must journey into the realms of the ID-which only communicates below the
threshold of human consciousness. The super-ego is brought about here as one of
these guys is the truth-teller and one is the liar. Hence, the door tellers here
represent the angel and devil that defines Sarah’s super-ego. Sarah’s next fall
happens in the ballroom her it represents her fantasy of fairytales with happy
endings. She learns that the masquerade ball is only an illusion. Thus, real life entails
responsibility. Knowing this, she returns to her natural state on her journey to save
her baby brother, Toby.
In Sarah’s final fall during the Escher staircase scene, she becomes insightful as she
proceeds to ignore her romantic fantasies about Jareth. In this, she shows a
dedication to reality. She realizes that becoming an adult entails responsibility and
commitment to her life, her brother Toby, and to her family. Sarah whisks through
broken staircase shards. This visual represents an understanding that it her “fall”
into the deepest, or “fragmented” subconscious level. In this sense, a willing
suspension of disbelief occurs. Hence, this is known as Sarah’s regression as it
happens with the suspension of disbelief. She realizes the difference between reality
and fantasy through encountering an experience that teaches her life’s lessons.
According to Freud, regression happens with the suspension of disbelief, while
watching films, looking at texts, and this regression is appealed to through certain
signifiers.
Sex in Labyrinth and Sarah’s entrance to adulthood:
The sexual themes in Labyrinth do not go un-recognized. As much as one may love
to define it solely a children’s film, they must deny it in this sense. As the film has
been defined as “a symbolic tale of a young girl’s acceptance of her sexuality,” it is
nearly impossible to not take notice of these sexual themes. From the beginning of
the movie, we notice Sarah’s sexual attraction towards the Goblin King, Jareth. Not
to mention, that huge “Bowie Bulge” between his legs. As Scarlett states:
“As I see it, the film symbolically represents the move, not from innocence, but instead from
an unformed, childish, hedonistic sexuality to mature, socially acceptable sexual behavior,
involving the “dates” encouraged by Sarah’s stepmother, and eventually, motherhood.”
Scarlett, Into The Labyrinth
Here we can see that Sarah has never even encountered the experience of a date.
Sarah does sexually express herself as feminine by wearing princess-like attire, but
her sexuality has not yet matured. Her positioning between child and adult is thus
noticed as the wise man in the Labyrinth’s court calls her “young girl” followed by
the Fieries calling her “little lady.”
Just as the Labyrinth remains in flux, so does Sarah. In a sense, the Labyrinth itself
can represent Sarah’s body or temple. During puberty, the body changes; leaving no
familiarity whatsoever for the newly evolved child. Once one reaches adolescence,
their body begins to change and continues to change throughout life. As Sarah marks
her path with her lipstick, the Labyrinth proceeds in its constant state of change
when small creatures decide to move the floor stones she’s marked in a different
direction. Sarah’s use of the red lipstick alone represents a young woman’s state of
maturity.
“Perhaps the fact that the lipstick markers were unreliable indicates that Sarah’s dabbling in
the world of adolescence (via the lipstick) leaves her only more confused and physically
unsure.” Hogbrain
Oedipal Stages:
The importance of Sarah’s family situation comes into play as she is stuck with an
“evil stepmother” The story begins with her complication and struggle to get along
with a woman that is not her true maternal being. In reading this, one can assume
that Sarah’s real mother has walked away a few years prior to the text’s beginning.
In this sense, the actual mother has been replaced by her father’s new partner. Just
like in Cinderella, Sarah is stuck with an “wicked stepmother” Undertones of
jealousy abide as Sarah resents the stepmother for taking away the attention of her
father. Sarah ‘s father tells her that the stepmother and he are leaving. Sarah is quick
to become easily hurt by this action. “You really wanted to talk to me, didn’t you?”
Sarah states as if she wants her father only to herself. Freud would define Sarah’s
position as the Oedipal stage. She even creates a dreamy man (Jareth) to aid her in
directing her affection away from her father and towards other masculine figures.
Sarah desires her father while hating her stepmother. All the same, she envys her
actual mother and desires her mother’s boyfriend. As Scarlett states:
“This latter tension may be an attempt to rewrite the Oedipal theme in a more
appropriate form: Sarah cannot be portrayed as desiring her father sexually, so
instead, her mother’s new boyfriend becomes the object of Sarah’s desire-the mirror
that would allow her to become a sexually desirable, mature woman, like her
mother.” Into The Labyrinth
Another sign of Oedipal mother-daughter struggles is depicted in Sarah’s owning ot
the fairytale Snow White. In the story, the evil Queen is inspired by vanity. In this ,
she sets out to stop Snow White from growing up and becoming more beautiful.
Similar to this tale, Sarah is living in her mother’s shadow. Her mother’s existence is
depicted as beautiful, successful, and quite the charmer to male attention. This
obstructs Sarah’s view into becoming an adult woman herself.
More Freudian Oedipal complex in the Masquerade Ball: “The Willing
Suspension of Disbelief”
According to Freud, regression happens with the suspension of disbelief. Dreams
are the symbolic fulfillment of unconscious wishes. Within Sarah’s character, we can
define these ideas. Sarah’s dress at the ball resembles a white wedding dress. She
stands out in the scene almost as if she is a “virgin bride” The scene depicts her as
the fantasy princess meeting her prince. In it, she is captured in the hypnotizing
state and seduced by Jareth’s power over her imaginative state. In a sense, she is
ready and willing to give herself to a man. Early stages of sexual maturity are
depicted as she is grossed out by all of the phallic masks and drunken behavior at
the ball. Although Sarah is seduced into the world of an adult-like sexuality, she is
rejecting it all the same. The long beaked, also phallic-shaped noses serve as a
sexual threat as in one shot, a woman’s mouth comes close to a man’s penis-like
nose encircling it in a strange gesture resembling masturbation.
“The masked ball scene portrays a hedonistic and unrestrained sexuality that can be linked
to Freud’s theory of ‘polymorphous perversity.” (Scarlett, Into The Labyrinth)
Freud’s polymorphous perversity states that a young child’s libidinal instincts are in
flux as they shift and remain un-gendered while directing toward different objects
and body parts. “Pre-Oedipal children are “anarchic, sadistic, aggressive, selfinvolved, and remorselessly pleasure-seeking.” Not to mention Jareth attempts to
seduce Sarah into joining his kinky sexual ways by “masking” the sex with her
fairytale delight and traditional romance. The Goblin King proceeds to twirl her
around and serenade her with music. The beautiful yet ugly men and women who
surround her laugh mockingly as they dance. This scares Sarah as she is intimidated
by all of the sexual innuendos. Therefore, she leaves the ball sexually frustrated and
rejects the sexual model.
Lacanian psychoanalysis and Entering the Mirror stage: “Language is the
condition of the unconscious”- Jaques Lacan
Jacques Lacan re-conceptualized Freud through post-structuralism. He stated
that “the unconscious is the discourse of the “Other” In this sense, human passion is
structured by the desire of others and we express deep feelings through the “relay”
of others. He saw the desire as a social phenomenon and psychoanalysis as a theory
of how the subject is created through social interaction. According to Lacan, desire
appears through a combination of language, culture, and the spaces between people.
Focusing largely on Freud’s work, Lacan took it further concentrating on structures
and infant sexuality. He aspired to interpret how the human subject became the
“other” through unconscious repression and mirror phase. The mirror phase is that
which an infant looks into a mirror and experiences an identity conflict. Here the
conscious, ego and unconscious desire are thus divided. According to Dr. Williams,
“the demand of the child, then, is to make the other a part of itself, as it seemed to be
in the child’s now lost state of nature.” The Imaginary and the symbolic are thus
(according to Lacan) inextricably intertwined and work in tension with the real.
Thus, all is displaced to “cool stuff.”
The Imaginary Order is the concept that corresponds to the mirror stage and marks
the movement of the subject from primal need to what Lacan terms “demand.” In
Labyrinth, the mirror stage is depicted as Jareth sends Sarah crystal balls containing
images of her as a musical doll. As Sarah watches, Sarah becomes the princess doll.
She then attempts to escape from the ballroom and is faced with her own reflection
in the glass bubble at the masquerade ball. As the connection to the mirror stage
suggests, the “imaginary” is primarily narcissistic even though it sets the stage for
the fantasies of desire. The reflection is very much distorted so that is becomes a
giant and towers over her. Sarah takes action by grabbing a chair and smashing it
against her gigantic reflection. Following her action, the ballroom breaks into
shards. This echoes hints of Lacan’s “fragmented.” The demand of the child is to
make the other a part of itself, as it seemed to be in the child’s now lost state of
nature. Again, the imaginary and the symbolic are, according to Lacan, inextricably
intertwined. In the symbolic order, the symbolic relates to language and narrative.
This is different because the imaginary is all about equations and identification.
Once a child enters into language and accepts rules and dictates of society, the
Symbolic is made possible. Following her first taste of sexual familiarity, Sarah is
then thrown from this dreamlike state into the junk heap where she meets the Junk
Lady.
The junk lady may represent a mother figure-thus serving as Sarah’s desire to gain
back her relationship with her Mom and remain a child. In the junk heap scene, the
lady leads Sarah back into her bedroom. In a sense, this could be considered the egg,
or the “womb” in which she was born into. Sarah is then surrounded by all of her
favorite toys and childhood books. The lady even talks to her in baby-talk language.
“Oh and there’s Betsy Boo! And Charley Horse ohhh you love your Charlie Horse
dontcha?” The junk lady even insists that Sarah stay as she states “there’s nothing
you want out there. Everything in the world you’ve ever cared about is ALL right
here.” This language perks up Sarah’s sense of security surrounding her in her
center, a small world centered around herself. Although she feels secure, Sarah
comes across the realization that “It’s all junk!” and only an illusion She proceeds to
reject it, thus breaking herself away from her “mother.” In this stage of
psychoanalysis, the child starts to break away from its mom and becomes a separate
being (subject). In a sense, Labyrinth is the tale of “the self” and its breaking away
from the mother.
All the same, it’s a move towards the father. If one looks deeper into it, they may see
Jareth as an apparent father-like figure as he deeply cares for Sarah. He pursues the
fatherly roles of discipline as well as protector. He invokes the phallic power (note
that bulge once again) described in psychoanalysis. There is a quite apparent penis
envy here if he is considered Sarah’s dream man. He can be viewed as one tempting
Sarah towards the dominant phallus and sexualized father. The junk lady also
proceeds to lure her back to her Mommy. In this sense, both (m)other and father are
only trying to keep Sarah inside of the tricky labyrinth. The offering is therefore a
choice between returning to the womb or growing towards womanhood.
The film depicting power complex:
Power is also considered a main theme across the film. “You remind me of
the babe (what babe??) The babe with the power.” Bowie recites while singing
gleefully in his Goblin City. Notice the emphasis he puts into the word “power.” In a
sense, Jareth does have power over Sarah as long as she keeps her dream of living
within a fairytale world and seeking her dream lover. In the beginning of the film,
Sarah clearly assumes that she has no control in the world around her. She
constantly whines “It’s not fair.” A term later noticed by the Goblin King himself as
he states “you say that so often.” At the end of the film, she also symbolically fails to
remember her line “You have no power over me.” At the instant that Jareth arrives
into Sarah’s room he notes that she is “no match” for him. Sarah accepts that line
without challenging it and only requesting her brother back with no challenge. This
shows that she has accepted herself as powerless in the beginning.
Later in the film, Jareth offers Sarah her dreams in the form of the crystal balls he
twirls in his hands. Note that in dream-state, one does feel powerless. Sarah’s
dreams are based solely on fairy tales, which makes her even more powerless
within them. Her repetitive remark of “it’s not fair” causes Sarah to see herself as
powerless. When her friend Hoggle states the same phrase, Sarah comes upon a
realization that she can have the power to act out an unfair deed on another. “No it
isn’t, but that’s just the way it is,” she happily accepts. Here, she learns to accept that
the world and life isn’t always fair.
Sarah finally takes control and overall power when she states the line “You have no
power over me.” Notice, the word “power” is once again used by the dominant
character (in this particular scene, Sarah becomes dominant over Jareth who
represents her consuming dreams). The line illustrates the power that fairytales
have over Sarah. It is the Goblin King himself who represents the childhood fantasy
is her addictive way to escape the real world. Only through the labyrinth, her
adventure to self-discovery aids Sarah in giving her the will to free herself. Hence,
her journey seeks her own control over her subconscious. The labyrinth motivates
Sarah in teaching her how her mind works. Jareth must therefore be rejected due to
his representation of her mind’s control in the consumption of Sarah’s dreams as
well as sex. Therefore, Sarah’s childhood fantasies are consuming her to a point
where they are obstructing her overall view of “real life.”
Only a dream?
Freud’s definition of a dream is by far considered the best-the symbolic
fulfillment of unconscious wishes. In this sense, the relationship between dreams
and media texts is tenuous. But the relationship is also intriguing not to say the
least. For example, the communication through the perceptual modes to cite and
sound are brought about through our dreams. Dreams and contemporary multimediated texts are fragmented, composed of symbols. This may break the
conventional expectations. Although dream analyses are mostly done through a
Jungian point of view, Freud has done well in defining them as the “royal road to the
unconscious.” Thus, dreams are followed by a condensation including a range of
associations represented by a single image. Throughout the film, Sarah’s need to
escape is quite apparent. Dreams, fantasy, and their role in real life become a huge
factor in Sarah’s need for escapism. Sarah’s longing for a fairytale romance is
perhaps a result of the Oedipal loss of her father (as he has now taken on a new
partner). Jareth is an overall representation of Sarah as a child as he constantly
offers her dreams. Through it all, Sarah learns that fairytales and fantasy is basically
an illusion and that it is not kosher to dwell upon these dreams. Her Oedipal desire
for her father as well as her conflict from her mother represent a psychoanalytic
interpretative state. Mirrors are used in the film to depict Lacanian mirror stage
representations. I couldn’t put it any more concise, as Scarlett states:
“The enduring power of fairy tales lies in the fact that they represent, in figurative form, the
process of healthy human development. They allow children to explore their own burgeoning and
bewildering psyches. By identifying with the characters, and working through the choices and
struggles depicted in fairy tales, children learn to cope with problems such as "overcoming
narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries; becoming able to relinquish
childhood dependencies; gaining a feeling of selfhood and self-worth, and a sense of moral
obligation" (Bettelheim p6).Labyrinth is a modern fairy tale – perhaps the only contemporary text
deserving of the name.” Into The Labyrinth