Analysis Of Jim Henson's Labyrinth

Jim Henson’s “Labyrinth”, reflect aspects of Bettelheim, and Freud’s theories. Both revolve around the subconscious, but Bettelheim’s theory compliments Freud’s. Bettelheim believes “Fairytales with the darkness of abandonment, death, witches, and injuries, allowed children to grapple with their fears in remote, symbolic terms which allow them to resolve conflicts within themselves (Armstrong)”. Whenever conflicts are aroused or being resolved within the person, it is often through their subconscious that these conflicts are being resolved. But in “Labyrinth” Sarah’s case merges both theories together and creates the concepts of threat, recovery, escape, and consolation. When Sarah is introduced into the film, she is reciting lines from a play, ironically from a play book titled “Labyrinth”. “Through reading about these heroes and heroines, then acting out the stories in their play, children learn strategies for dealing with different problems along the way” (BETTELHEIM 10). Knowing this much, we become …show more content…
“In The uses of enchantment, Bettelheim puts forward the thesis that fairy tales give children the opportunity to understand inner conflicts which they experience in the phases of their spiritual and intellectual development, and to act these out and resolve them in their imagination (ucy.ac.cy).” If children did not have the sense of wonder they would not have the ability to resolve inner conflicts thus leaving them in a state of fixation. “Each of the psychosexual stages is associated with a particular conflict that must be resolved before the individual can successfully advance to the next stage (simplypsychology.org)”. It is crucial to be able to advance to the next stage because if fixation does occur in a certain stage the person “will behave in some ways that are characteristic of infancy, or early childhood