Brewster #1

Logan Brewster
HNRS 298
Dr. Howarth
Gothic Film Essay
Madness in “The Orphanage”
Film director Guillermo Del Toro’s “The Orphanage” masterfully utilizes Gothic

elements to illustrate how bereavement drives the main character to madness. The plot revolves

around the loss of a child, Simón, and the ramifications of said loss as they cultivate throughout

the film. The slow chipping at the main character, Laura, and her sanity, is accentuated by

numerous Gothic elements like oppression, isolation, history, and others.

The film uses oppressive forces to begin developing Laura’s insanity. One such scene

exemplifies not only female oppression but the repression of emotions as well. The scene in

which Laura feels someone/something slide into bed presents both Laura and the audience with a

false sense of hope and the illusion of safety. However, immediately after Laura’s husband,

Carlos, enters the room, there is a new overwhelming sense of dread because he is not who/what

is in bed with Laura, and thus the nightmare space comes to be. Carlos has no reason to believe

there was another in bed with Laura, so we finally see the verbalization of his distrust in her

claims. This repressed feeling of skepticism paves the way for further authoritative and

misogynistic persecution of Laura. In addition, it is worth noting that Carlos emerged from the

darkness of the other room, seamlessly employing such a simple Gothic element as darkness to

foreshadow his developing antagonism. Not to mention, this scene directly follows the one in

which the police show disbelief in Laura’s claims over Simón’s vanishing. These occurrences

accumulate to push Laura to the brink of psychosis without even considering the accelerated

supernatural events. Another Gothic theme that cuts at Laura’s sanity is that of isolation.
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A driving force of Laura’s madness is how isolated she feels from reality. A couple of

scenes showcase Laura’s isolation, both physically and metaphorically. Such an instance takes

place just after the visit to the hospital when Laura has a dream that she is underwater swimming

through the lightless depths. Through elements of overwhelming darkness and restriction, both

familiar to a Gothic setting, this scene perfectly portrays how depressed and isolated from reality

Laura is. Another scene that demonstrates Laura’s isolation is when the police inform her that no

one else saw the strange boy at the earlier party. Likewise, this scene metaphorically places

Laura in the space of confinement because she is alone in her supernatural experiences. Notably,

all of these supernatural events pertain to elements of Laura’s past.

The overarching theme of dredging up the past is all-encompassing in the film. Some

would say that “what is done is done” and “you should leave the past in the past,” but the plot

challenges this idea. The movie is rich with instances of Laura’s history coming back to haunt

her, be it the minutest detail from the past, like the older woman’s locket, or the most

uncomplicated fact that Laura is returning to her childhood orphanage. In particular, the scene in

which the medium enters and conducts a sort of séance to illuminate past events is a beautiful

example laden with Gothic elements. The film adeptly utilizes a pitch-black setting, creaky

floors and doors, screaming children, and an array of other elements to realize Laura’s ultimate

nightmare space. Although not shown, this event had a profound effect on Laura’s psyche, and it

is a wonder that she did not have a complete mental breakdown. The intense psychological stress

one would feel at hearing the cries of childhood friends is immeasurable and is a testament to

Laura’s immense mental strength and how that strength is rapidly deteriorating. After Carlos

leaves, the scene that begins to truly show this psychological weakening is when Laura goes into

a frenzy to put the old décors back to how they were before she left the orphanage. This section
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of the film uses the sublimity of a dark and stormy night to illustrate Laura’s roiling psychosis

and how bringing up her past has been the cause of such mental stress. Uncovering the truth left

Laura with naught but an inkling of power over her situation.

From the outset, Simón’s disappearance and subsequent death established a sense of

powerlessness in Laura. Following the tragedy, two scenes subject Laura to an ever-growing

feeling of helplessness, aligning with the Gothic trope of female ineffectuality. The first event

that shows Laura’s lack of power is when she is sprinting along the coast to follow an apparition

of Simón, only to snap her leg and lose sight of her son. This scene also gives the audience a

taste of the mad ravings that are to come from the distraught mother. Not only does this picture

hint at Laura’s mental illness, but the lengths she will go to for her love of Simón as well. The

second scene that illustrates the powerlessness Laura experiences is at the film’s climax when

she learns of Simón’s death. This conclusive incident solidifies Laura’s helplessness and pushes

her destructive love past the point of no return. At this moment, Laura has reached her limit and

is ready to cease the madness that has gradually overtaken her.

The film continually develops Laura’s neurosis through subtle and harmonious Gothic

elements. As such, in the scene where Laura is in the shed searching for answers, a brilliantly

haunting camera angle from inside the retort symbolizes her slow crawl towards the mad truth.

This scene also distinctly displays the severity of Laura’s psychological trauma through both the

macabre exhibition of the cremated orphans and her reasonable reaction to such horror.

Following this scene and the eventual climax of Laura’s psychotic hallucinations in the

basement, the room gets noticeably and intentionally darker as Laura is brought back to reality.

Although Laura’s delusions may have settled, the plot reaches its climax as flashbacks to earlier

events bring Laura to the conclusion that she inadvertently killed Simón. In a display unlike the
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rest of the film, Laura suffers punishment from her past actions rather than those of other

characters. Unearthing the truth required Laura to tap into her corroding psyche and heed the

final spoken lines of the medium, “…seeing is not believing, it is the other way around” (The

Orphanage 1:05:20-1:05:30). Therefore, every event in the film deliberately applied Gothic

elements to push Laura to madness, thus propelling and resolving the plot.

Works Cited

 Del Toro, Guillermo. “The Orphanage (2007) sa prevodom.” YouTube, uploaded by

Mita54, 23 Sept. 2021, www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBT1A3Kcvvw&feature=youtu.be.