Anti-Cathartic Magical Realism: A Comparative Study of Trauma in Luvina and Pan’s Labyrinth

Abstract

This study aims to seek the relationship between trauma and catharsis through magical realism in Juan Rulfo’s Luvina and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. It uses a comparative close-reading approach, to analyzes, how both works depict historical and political trauma without narrative closure. In Luvina, the barren and spectral landscape reflects post-revolutionary disillusionment in rural Mexico. Here, the spectral voices and suspended time reinforce a condition of ongoing desolation rather than healing. Similarly in Pan’s Labyrinth, trauma appears through the porous boundary between the fantasy and historical reality, by intertwining the fairytale imagery with the violence of Francoist Spain. The magical realism here, does not offer redemption, rather it coexists with brutality, by underscoring the limits of catharsis. The study argues that both the texts employ an anticathartic narrative mode, that sustains trauma, encourages ethical witnessing, and supports multidirectional memory rather than offering false closure