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Setting

A setting is the historical time and the location the narrative happens in. Setting helps to tell the narrative as the setting give the audience an idea of what the context of the narrative is and this goes on to explain the culture of the certain area and some of the type of things that the audience might see in the setting. The setting also gives the director of the narrative the ability to change the setting slightly and give it a completely different mood to the audience watching.

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Setting - Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a Japanese made animation movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki and created by Studio Ghibli. The movie takes the perspective of Chihiro, a young girl who gets transported to a strange new world with her parents but after her parents get turned into pigs, Chihiro has to work at a bathhouse for spirits while she tries to find a way to free her parents.

An example of setting in Spirited Away that helps progress the narrative is the tunnel entrance into the Spiritual World. This setting helps develops the narrative as it helps the audience meet the main protagonist, Chihiro/Sen. We see what her personality is at the start of the movie as a very childish and cowardly person. But something that this setting does is that it gives the narrative an original conflict as it transports Chihiro and her family into a completely different world.

The second example of Spirited Away is the Bathhouse that is owned by Yubaba. It is the central setting of the movie as Yubaba, the main villain of the narrative owns and runs a bathhouse, where spirits come and pay to have baths and clean. In this setting, the bathhouse helps continue the narrative because Chihiro comes to get a job at the bathhouse to keep her safe in the world and therefore creating the narrative of Chihiro trying to survive under the tyranny of Yubaba. 

This setting is both familiar and strange to Chihiro because in the culture of Japan, bathhouses are a very common thing and so the interior design is very familiar to her. But the outside is very different as the way the building is structured and designs are very odd, with rooms jutting out the side which creates and uneven and foreign look for Chihiro.

My final example of setting in Spirited away is the train station or the train itself. This setting is important to the narrative because throughout the movie the train has always been seen as the goal that Chihiro is trying to reach or the solution to her problems. Lin said multiple times during the movie that her dream one day was to escape the bathhouse and get a ride on the train. But when Chihiro finally gets to the train station, we see what the setting looks like. We see a bare platform with very little detail. This is because this setting was used only to transport Chihiro to the next setting.

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Character Development

Character development is when a character goes through a change from the beginning to the end of the movie so that they become a better or worse person from when they started. Character development helps progress the narrative because it adds a subplot for the main character because usually, the character has some flaw that they will try and work through for the duration of the movie. This allows the filmmakers the ability to change the personality of the character and add more plot to the narrative and help the audience get interested in the main character.

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Character Development - Chihiro

Stage One:

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In the first part of the movie, we see Chihiro as a very childish person. At the very start, the movie opens ups with Chihiro complaining to her parents about them moving away. Already this tells the audience that Chihiro is a very selfish person. This might be because she has been portrayed as an only child. And children that grow up without siblings tend to be a lot more selfish as their parents tend to focus their attention on the one child instead of several. 

And we also see that at the start of the movie, Chihiro is quite a cowardly and scared person, and this shouldn’t be surprising considering she is a 10-year-old girl. We see an example of this when her parents want to explore the tunnel to the Spiritual world. We see the coward side of her and she screams, complains and does as much as she can to avoid going into the tunnel. But her parents disregard her, telling her to wait by the car as they continue to explore the cave. And again we see Chihiro’s cowardly side as she gets scared by a statue at the entrance of the tunnel and the fact that she was alone and that forces her to run after her parents. I feel like the director did this because of the character of Chihiro to most children her age. There are lots of cases in movies and other types of media where children are completely selfless and honourable, but in reality, children are selfish and greedy people who tend to only care about themselves. But as this movie is a children’s movie so I think the director’s choice was a very good one as I feel like children will relate to Chihiro’s personality more than other child personalities.

Stage Two:

During the movie, we see a change in Chihiro’s personality. Once her parents have been captured, in order to survive she was forced to do explore the strange world and have to accomplish things without the help of anyone else. And at the start, she did get some help from people. Haku, Kamaji and Lin helped her, in the beginning, to get into the bathhouse but as the movie progressed Chihiro started to take control over her own life instead of letting other people do it for her. But at this point, she is still a very scared girl, but she forces herself to be brave, an example is when she met the boiler man, Kamaji, a person who has 6 long arms. And even though we physically see how scared Chihiro is, she takes a deep breath and asks for a job and continues in her adventure. The director did this because taking deep breaths is a very common way of dealing with nervousness and so when the audience see this, it emphasises how scared Chihiro must feel on the inside but tries not to show it to the strange creature.

Stage Three:

In the third and final stage of Chihiro’s character development is when she learns to fend for herself. She starts to think for herself and to start to take other people’s feelings into account. I think the director did this to show some contrast to her former self at the beginning of the movie, where she only cared for herself and what matters to her. We see these personality traits develop in Yubaba’s bathhouse, as Chihiro was treated very poorly so she had to adapt to the conditions to survive. And when she meets No Face, she starts to show her ability to perceive other people’s feeling and the director starts to show her charitable personality as she tries to help everyone she can, giving some spiritual medicine to No Face to help him instead of saving her parents. Another example of this is when Haku gets sick and doesn’t seem to be getting better. Chihiro decides that she will journey away from the Bath House and into unknown territory to try to ask Zeniba to stop the spell that is plaguing Haku. I think the director added this to the movie because it contrasts Chihiro at the start of the movie, who would never have done something like this for someone else when she could run away and escape the bathhouse.

I can relate the development of Chihiro to the movie How To Train Your Dragon and more specifically Hiccup’s character development. Like Chihiro, for a good part of the movie his father left him to go chase after the dragons, and during this time, Hiccup was forced to mature in order to keep the village going. This is a lot like Chihiro, who after her family were captured, she was also forced to mature so that she could find a way to free them. And another reason why these two texts connect is that way that both Chihiro and Hiccup began to develop an understanding of what their respective narratives called a monster. In Hiccup's case, he learnt that Toothless, the most powerful dragon in the world way really very friendly and by getting a friendship with Toothless, he starts to create an alliance between the humans and the so-called ‘monsters’. For Chihiro, it was her connection to No Face. Because No Face was considered a monster as he had eaten some of the members of the Bathhouse and he didn’t know what Chihiro didn’t accept the gold he was giving her and reacted badly. He started to destroy the bath house and it was only then that Chihiro discovered why No Face was acting this way and tried to find a way to help him.

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Setting

A setting is the historical time and the location the narrative happens in. Setting helps to tell the narrative as the setting give the audience an idea of what the context of the narrative is and this goes on to explain the culture of the certain area and some of the type of things that the audience might see in the setting. The setting also gives the director of the narrative the ability to change the setting slightly and give it a completely different mood to the audience watching.

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Setting - Aladdin

In Aladdin, a movie created by Disney, the story involves a street rat by the name of Aladdin and his kleptomaniac money called Abu. In the movie, Aladdin meets a woman on the street and instantly falls in love with her, only to find that she is the daughter of the Sultan. But with the help of a magic carpet and a genie, he will fight to gain her affection.

My first example of how the setting changes the narrative in Aladdin is the Cave of Wonder. This setting helps progress the narrative because this is the setting that starts the entirety of the plot. Without the Cave, then Jafar would never have created his scheme of getting the Genie’s lamp and from the plot to become the Sultan. This also progresses the plot for Aladdin, because without this setting then Aladdin would have never found the Genie or the Carpet and the entire adventure of becoming a Prince and capturing Jasmine’s heart would never have happened and Aladdin would have stayed as the same street rat he was, to begin with.

My second example of settings is the Oasis that the Genie takes Aladdin too. The Oasis is used in the movie to move the narrative along is that it gave the group an isolated area where they weren’t going to be seen by anything else. This would have been vital for Aladdin as, during this scene, the Genie was starting to create his disguise as a prince. Had they decided to do this type of thing in a more populated area, then there would have been a bigger chance of their discovery. It also would have ruined the large parade that Aladdin and the Genie had created to sway the Sultan’s favour and allowed him entrance into the palace.

My third example and probably the most important setting in the plot of the movie is the Palace and the City of Agrabah. This is because most of the character development and plot progression take place here. An example of this is how the director portrays the palace. In the movie, the palace is always made to look very grand and a place of luxury. This helps create the narrative of Aladdin, who is a poor street rat, living in the city of Agrabah, having the steal, just the survive. And without this type of upbringing, he would never have had the desire to want to become a prince and to be enticed by Jafar proposition.

I think that the setting of the Oasis in Aladdin connects to the jungle setting in the movie The Lion King. This scene’s full purpose to the movie was that it was meant to be an isolated place for Simba to grow up and mature to be the appropriate age for the final conflict with Scar and to take up the kingdom. It also allows the audience to get introduced to Timone and Pumba. In the case of the Oasis setting in Aladdin, this setting helps the audience see the characters of the Genie and the Carpet, it also allows the Genie to have a quiet and isolated place to talk to Aladdin and to help his change Aladdin into a prince, which helps progress the plot.

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Character Development

Character development is when a character goes through a change from the beginning to the end of the movie so that they become a better or worse person from when they started. Character development helps progress the narrative because it adds a subplot for the main character because usually, the character has some flaw that they will try and work through for the duration of the movie. This allows the filmmakers the ability to change the personality of the character and add more plot to the narrative and help the audience get interested in the main character.

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Character Development - Aladdin

Stage One:

In the first part of the movie, we see Aladdin as a street rat. The filmmakers show us how proficient he and his pet monkey, Abu are at stealing from the market places and this tells us that he has had to do this for a long time, presumably his whole life. The director shows this because it gets the viewers to assume that Aladdin has been a street rat for the entirety of his life and not have to blatantly say it to the audience. This also gives Aladdin his motivation for the majority of the movie. A very poor person who wants to rise in the world and be a part of the higher class. But we also see that Aladdin is a very clever and brave person, not someone who would cower in a frightening situation. This will help throughout the narrative as Aladdin faces many conflicts that he’s able to overcome with his cunning and bravery. I think the director decided to make Aladdin’s backstory like this because it contradicts Jasmine’s in many ways as Jasmine is the daughter of Sultan so her entire life has been in luxury instead of Aladdin’s poverty yet they both feel trapped by the situations they have grown up with. This mentality is what would eventually bring them together.

Stage Two:

In the later part of the movie, after Aladdin met the Genie, we see a change in Aladdin’s character as he is given the chance to become one of the higher class, something he has wanted to do since the beginning of the movie. But as this happens we finally see some cowardice from the main character as he starts to get worried that his facade would get found out but the Sultan and Jasmine and that he would get rejected by them. I think the director did this because this is a major plot point in the movie as by keeping the Genie and not setting him free, it allows Jafar to steal the lamp and progress the movie. I also think the director did this because the way Aladdin reacts is basic human nature. When people get power they don’t want to let it go, they start to get paranoid about how they could lose the power and it starts to make them make bad choices in order to keep it.

Stage Three:

The final stage of Aladdin’s character development is at the end of the movie, when Aladdin, with the help of his friends defeat Jafar. At this point, his secret has been revealed to Jasmine and the Sultan and Aladdin is forced to accept the social status he has been born with but he has accepted it, he is proud of who he is and he discovers that for Jasmine to love him, he doesn’t have to pretend to be a rich prince and he can be the street rat that he is. I think the director did this because this gives the movie a good moral lesson to the audience watching it. It tells them the people don’t need to pretend to be someone else that they are not to find love and that being you is the best way to approach it.

I think that the way Aladdin’s character develops in stage two is a lot like Macbeth in the Shakespeare play. In this Macbeth learns of his future as the King of Scotland and throughout the story, we see his descent into madness and paranoia. After Macbeth murders the King and assumes the throne he starts to see the ghosts of the people he has killed on his way to the throne and as he gets haunted by these apparitions he starts to get worried that someone is going to find out about his assassination. Because of this, he starts to become suspicious of everyone close to him and it got to the point where he even murdered his best friend, Banquo, purely because he had been there when Macbeth has been told his future and Macbeth was paranoid that Banquo would connect the dots and figure out Macbeth’s secret. I believe these two pieces of media and very alike because in both cases, the main character manage to get a hold of a large amount of power, but when they achieve this, they start to get scared that people will find out the secret of how they got the power and therefore take it away from them. This paranoia eventually leads to the main character making terrible mistakes.