Lara 1

Nieves Lara

Roxanna Dewey

ENG 101

11 December 2022

“The Nightmare Before Christmas”

The nightmare before Christmas is 1993 clay animated film. It was produced by Tim

Burton. The movie is about a pumpkin king that rules Halloween town and wants to change it up

a bit and try to be Santa. There are a lot of characters that play an important part in the movie and

the movie is also a musical. Jack Skellington, the pumpkin king wants to rule Christmas, but will

he succeed on taking the role of Santa?

It was filmed in 1993 and it is still popular today because of the art style and how

different it is from any other animated movie. The main character is Jack Skellington, he is bored

doing the same thing every year and wants to try something new, so he decided to put on

Christmas. But the way he planned it was wrong, although he sent out a trio of trick o’treaters to

kidnap Santa Claus. Jack goes into some type of portal and falls into the winter season and does

not understand the holiday of Christmas and that’s when the musical “What’s this?” comes up

implying his confusion about that he does not know what Christmas is like and seeing kids being

joyful. Towards the end of the movie, he then realizes he is not good at taking over Christmas

and lets Santa put on Christmas.

There were a couple of figurative language in the movie, and it is mostly in the musicals.

The song “What’s this” has figurative languages, one of them is Ploce and it is when there is a

word/phrase that is being repeated. In the Oogie Boogie song it also has figurative language such

as Hyperbole, by calling Santa Claus “Ancient” which he is really not that old and saying he will
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be “drowning” in his own tears, which is not possible to happen, and there's also rhymes in the

song which is an Alliteration. The song ``Kidnap the Sandy Claws”, also has figurative language

such as Alliteration for rhymes and Onomatopoeia because the trick o’ treaters use phrases as

“whee” and “La-la-la”. Most of the musical has alliteration and ploce. Most of the musical has

alliteration and ploce.

Jack Skellington did not want to be the pumpkin king anymore and wanted to try

something different. He then goes on a mission to take over Christmas town and tries to be

Santa. He then realizes he cannot be Santa and it does not suit him. The main purpose of the

movie is that it is okay to be the Pumpkin king and that it is okay to not be different. Jack

Skellington tried to rule Christmas town but did not manage to succeed to be Santa.
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Work Cited

Danny Elfman, Paul Reubens & Catherine O'Hara – Kidnap the Sandy Claws Lyrics | Genius

Lyrics

Danny Elfman – What's This? Lyrics | Genius Lyrics

Ken Page, Ed Ivory, Oogie Boogie & Chorus - Nightmare Before Christmas – Oogie Boogie's

Song Lyrics | Genius Lyrics