7th July 2007, 8:37 PM
The story of Pinocchio is actually an allegory for the life cycle of child to adult.
Pinocchio starts out as nothing more than a puppet on strings controlled by the man who created him. While sticking to what's obvious, Geppetto, Pinoccio's father, controls him and seeks to guides his actions as a child. The same goes for every parent, they want to protect their child and not let any harm come to them and so there is often a large amount of control.
However, as Pinocchio "ages" he seeks out more individualism, i.e. he becomes a teenager, and "cuts his strings", with the help of some fairie dust of course. Unfortunately, he has little interest in school and quickly falls in with the wrong crowd, who constantly use peer pressure to get him into trouble.
This trouble, eventually leads him to wandering entertainer who takes advantage of Pinocchio and puts his talents on display. This can be allegory for a lot of different things, though nothing specific comes to mind.
Pinocchio eventually falls in with a group of other rebellious children who take delight in tearing things up and indeed are encouraged to do so. However, there actions turn them into donkeys that are carted off and put into slave labor. The best allegory for this is drug abuse. It's fun at first, but as things progress you become addicted and eventually resort to crime to feed your habit. The children-turned-donkeys work for the rest of their lives to pay for the high they obtained from destruction.
What brings Pinocchio back is word of his Geppetto being swallowed by the whale. In his first act of true individualism, he goes after the whale and is swallowed by it in order to help his father.
In helping his father escape the whale, he is no longer a puppet, whether with strings or without, and has become a true individual capable of making his own decisions without relying on others to tell him what to do. In other words, he has stopped being a child and has become an adult.
Pinocchio starts out as nothing more than a puppet on strings controlled by the man who created him. While sticking to what's obvious, Geppetto, Pinoccio's father, controls him and seeks to guides his actions as a child. The same goes for every parent, they want to protect their child and not let any harm come to them and so there is often a large amount of control.
However, as Pinocchio "ages" he seeks out more individualism, i.e. he becomes a teenager, and "cuts his strings", with the help of some fairie dust of course. Unfortunately, he has little interest in school and quickly falls in with the wrong crowd, who constantly use peer pressure to get him into trouble.
This trouble, eventually leads him to wandering entertainer who takes advantage of Pinocchio and puts his talents on display. This can be allegory for a lot of different things, though nothing specific comes to mind.
Pinocchio eventually falls in with a group of other rebellious children who take delight in tearing things up and indeed are encouraged to do so. However, there actions turn them into donkeys that are carted off and put into slave labor. The best allegory for this is drug abuse. It's fun at first, but as things progress you become addicted and eventually resort to crime to feed your habit. The children-turned-donkeys work for the rest of their lives to pay for the high they obtained from destruction.
What brings Pinocchio back is word of his Geppetto being swallowed by the whale. In his first act of true individualism, he goes after the whale and is swallowed by it in order to help his father.
In helping his father escape the whale, he is no longer a puppet, whether with strings or without, and has become a true individual capable of making his own decisions without relying on others to tell him what to do. In other words, he has stopped being a child and has become an adult.
Sometimes you get the scorpion.