• Cartoon and Animation Studies
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• s.24
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• pp.25-48
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• 2011

The fantastic has had various semantic layers between 'the Marvelous' and 'the Uncanny', these has been assorted by historical and synchronic aspects. The Marvelous has been harmonious and abundant world of fantasy which includes metaphysical system and all tradition of magical fence. The Uncanny has been a subversive fantasy world which shows absurdity and negative truths of this very world by modern consciousness. In comics, because of the media features, it is more useful the fantastic than the realistic. However, the relationship about comic and fantasy has rarely discussed in detail. So we has wanted to understand the specificities of affiliation with the Marvelous and with the Uncanny. Then it has been necessary to check the works of You, Sijin the comic book writer, for we ought to know how the affiliations with fantasy could influence each works' styles, and themes. You, Sijin started her works with sensibility of uncanny, but she tried to develop the theme "uptight" and devoted to establish "the Secondary World" stably. However, at Shin Meoung Ki(神明記) fantasy world overwhelmed the theme. After that, in The Closer and On, she crashed down the uptight feeing and made new self-consciousness by mixed fantasy style. The Closer and On has been the turning point of writer You, Sijin. Since than her works has showed a propensity for the Uncanny.

• Journal of Popular Narrative
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.135-158
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• 2019

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the characteristics that make Guillermo del Toro's film Pan's Labyrinth (2006) a fantasy film, and the meaning and function of the labyrinth motifs closely related to it. Tzvetan Todorov defined the 'fantastic' as the hesitation between natural and supernatural interpretations in the face of supernatural events that invade reality. In Pan's Labyrinth, the fantastic continues to be seen, because the film does not allow the hesitation to disappear; thus, the fantastic does not enter the 'uncanny' genre or 'marvelous' genre, and because it keeps its fantastic state. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes art as a passage into the fantastic world and a space that represents it. Rosemary Jackson saw the fantasy as a "literature of desire to compensate for a lack resulting from cultural constraints" and thus repeatedly dealing with unconscious materials. Del Toro's film shows the character of the fantastic as an expression of desire by allowing 'family romance' to take place in the fantastic world. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the mind as a place of desire. Kathryn Hume defined fantasy as a reaction to reality, like mimesis, and 'departure from consensus reality.' The film, operating in a 'vision' genre, satisfies its definition by allowing the fantastic world to illuminate the reality world through 'contrastive' technique, and brings out the fantastic it has. In this case, the labyrinth symbolizes the world as a mirror of the world of reality. Thus, Pan's Labyrinth is representative of fantastic film in that the fantastic functions very effectively, and the labyrinth appearing in this film can be evaluated as a motif that is full of meaning by symbolizing all three elements of art, world and mind. The significance of this paper is to shed light on how a motif works in a particular genre through the above considerations.