Pan's Labyrinth Gender Quotes

How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Pan's Labyrinth.

Quote #1

VIDAL: My son, how is he?

FERREIRO: For the moment, there's no reason to be alarmed.

VIDAL: Very good.

FERREIRO: Captain, your wife should not have traveled at such a late stage of pregnancy.

VIDAL: Is that your opinion?

FERREIRO: My professional opinion, yes. VIDAL: A son should be born where his father is. That is all.

FERREIRO: One more thing, Captain. What makes you so sure the baby is a male?

VIDAL: Ha, don't f*** with me.

Vidal cares a lot about his own legacy and the legacy of his father. He doesn't just want a son—he needs a son to carry on his name. There is no other option for his child but to be male. Luckily baby Vidal gets it right, but in the end it turns out to not matter so much for his father.

Quote #2

CARMEN: Ofelia, your father is giving a dinner party tonight. Look what I've made you. [She shows Ofelia a beautiful green silk dress.] Do you like it? What I wouldn't have given to have a dress as fine as this when I was little. And look at these shoes. Do you like them?

OFELIA: Yes, they are very pretty.

Come on Ofelia: you could try to feign delight a little better than that. She's a girl so she's supposed to be happy about having a new dress. Carmen also wants her to look pretty for Vidal—pretty much all Vidal expects out of women is that they be decorative.

Quote #3

Ofelia removes her dress and enters into the old, decrepit fig tree, crawling through its muddy roots.

The fig tree (which has an opening at its base and curves in two directions at it's top) mirrors the horns of the Faun and serves as a fallopian image. Ofelia's journey into it symbolizes her journey back into the womb of her mother, into the fantasy world and away from the scary land of adulthood.