Posted by SHIRLEE on 1/18/2000, 1:41 am
Okay folks, how would you like to analyse Within You? I’m not sure of the best way to getting round a song analysis, but why don’t we try doing a few lines each so everyone can have a go? I’ll start by looking at the first 2 lines and whoever wants to go next can go ahead and be our lovely guest:)
How you’ve turned my world
you precious thing
Sarah has disrupted the quiet and stability of Jareth’s world, his Labyrinth, by attempting to challenge it and thus upsetting it’s delicate eco-system. By the end in the confrontation, the whole thing has fallen apart and fragmented. I think ‘precious’ hints at some more of Jareth’s inner feelings, he has in the past compared her eyes to ‘pale jewels’ in As the World Falls Down. Jareth has a weakness for shinny, glittery things (crystal balls, pendents and even - tights:) and this I think is very complimentary and well as being chastising, as precious is also something you would use for a child, I think Sarah fascinates and frustrates him in that sense.
Posted by CYBIL on 1/18/2000, 12:42 pm
Oooooh! This sounds like a fascinating way to analyse. I'm not sure how well everything will mesh, though, given different underlying suppositions of the movie as a whole, but . .
You starve and near exhaust me.
Everything I've done, I've done for you
Jareth has done everything for Sarah, and he's (quite literally) sick and tired of it all. As he says in the final confrontation scene, "Everything that you've asked I have done. You asked that the child be taken; I took him. You cowered before me; I was frightening. I have re-ordered time, turned the world up-side-down, and I have done it all for you. I am exhausted form living up to your expectations of me. Isn't that generous?"
Posted by SALANA on 1/18/2000, 4:23 pm
Woohoo! I got to analyse my favourite line. :)
I move the stars for no one
"I *could* move the stars, but I won't, even for you."
Posted by LADY STARDUST on 1/18/2000, 9:30 pm
First I have a comment about that line, everything I've done
I've done for you: I can't stand the way Sarah treats Jareth
when he has turned the world upside down just for her!! God I would
be more than HAPPY to stay with a guy that loyal and sweet! It is so
cruel! I hate it! ok I’m through having a tantrum now! ;) On to my line.
You've run so long you've run so far..
Ok. For this line, I think Jareth is implying two meanings. One is the obvious, that she has come a long way through the Labyrinth and has put a lot of effort into retrieving her brother before her time ran out. But the other, I think, is yet another reference to Sarah as a girl who is not like everyone else getting a chance to live in her dream world. Sarah, being the imaginative girl that she is,
separates herself from her reality, basically running from all that doesn't quite fit into her scheme of things. Jareth is using this line to remind her of how much she is longing for her fantasy to be true, which we know is so because of the beginning of the movie. He is trying to persuade her to turn over to him, for this is her last chance to stay with him forever. Therefore, this line seems to be not only a statement of Sarah’s efforts up to this point, but also a plea for her to rethink her future, and a last attempt to get her to say she will remain with him.
If it is Ok, I would like to also do the next line, it is my favourite! Thanks.
"you're eyes can be so cruel, just as I can be so cruel"
I'm sorry, this line gives me chills. It kind of works with what I said earlier, about how awful it was for Sarah to treat Jareth so badly after he had promised her so much. This line is about power. It is showing how Sarah has power, for with one glance, or one word she could complete Jareth or destroy him. it also shows how highly he regards her, for he mentions her first. But, Jareth is not one to be beaten or made to look weak. he quickly jumps in to remind her that he, too, has power and can be just as cruel as her if he wanted to be. After all, he has demonstrated this power to some degree throughout the movie. This line is a beautiful line. It is showing Jareth’s love for her, and how she can and does affect him greatly, but also shows that the mighty Jareth is not one who will simply forget that his love has broken his heart.
Posted by SALANA on 1/18/2000, 12:16 pm
"You've run so long/You've run so far"
I always thought it could also refer to Sarah not wanting to admit to herself her feelings for Jareth and his for her. (Yeah yeah even though she knew he was supposed to love her) She's run away from his love in the ballroom scene and she's about to run away from it again with the "you have no power over me"...
Posted by KRYSTALMOON on 1/18/2000, 2:45 pm
First of all a few thoughts on the previous lines. I agree to the interpretations, but simply can't help adding a few words:)
Everything I've done I've done for you
I move the stars for no one
Later on he said to her, "Sarah, beware. I have been generous up till now, I can be cruel." The main idea is, he's done a great deal for her as it was, but he was not going to do much more - and that's perfectly understandable, with the way she kept ignoring his efforts.
Specifically, this might also mean that he's not going to let her just take Toby (giving her Toby back would've been kind of like moving stars, a goblin king isn't supposed to give back a child that was wished away).
Your eyes can be so cruel
Just as I can be so cruel
This is the same idea Nic and I mentioned in "Underground": that Jareth and Sarah have a lot in common. "Underground" being the first song of the movie and "Within you" - the last one, we can pretty much call this similarity thing a motive that can be traced through the entire movie. (I guess I'm in the mood to think global:)
Though I do believe in you
Yes I do
It's cruel of Sarah to treat him as she does, but he still believes that she will realise that he's done everything for her, everything she wanted. He still believes that in the end she'll make the right decision.
Posted by JEM on 1/19/2000, 1:02 am
love the analysis guys, especially the I move the stars for no-one short, but sweet.
I always figured he was saying I wouldn't move the stars for just anyone a kind of way to show her how special she was to him
live without your sunlight,
love without your heartbeat
I think is showing how Jareth has had to cope in the past with his feelings for Sarah and it looks like he is going to have to carry on. Live without your sunlight he will soon never be able to see Sarah again in the way he has become accustomed to, he can only be part of her life in her head and only if she lets him. Love without your heartbeat, he is no longer a separate entity, he knows that Sarah has the power to and almost certainly will defeat him leaving him back where he started less than 13 hours ago but in that time he has realised his love for her so much more, but he will have to remain loving her from a distance without seeing her without feeling her heartbeat
Posted by SHIRLEE on 1/21/2000, 2:25 am
Woohoo! I get the last line! We've come full circle back to me:) Here's my bit! Anyone who wants to add any additions comments please do so after my post.
I ... can't live within you
If you accept the theory that Jareth came partly from *within* Sarah’s inner self, thus lives 'within' her, then Jareth cannot possibly survive if she rejects him. Without her nurturing and her love, Jareth cannot exist. He is only what she makes him. Without Sarah chained to rehearsing her play about this fictional Goblin King, he loses his power to control what she does and motivate her actions from an *internal* source. Thus he will fade away and no longer be part of her heart, her sunlight (all sources which warm her and give her life and thus to him on the inside), following on from the previous two lines. This line also shows us a Jareth that is perhaps already accepting partial defeat and is pleading to Sarah just in case there is a chance she will spare him his place in her heart.
Posted by CYBIL on 1/23/2000, 4:15 pm
I'm afraid that I'm gonna have to totally disagree with everything you said. Excuse me for being glib, I've been feeling like a mischief-maker for the past few days. NE way, the line, as we all know...
"I can't live _within_ you." (emphasis added to make a point). Jareth isn't saying that he can't live without Sarah. Oh no, quite to the contrary. IMHO (or not so humble, considering) in the proceeding two lines, Jareth is offering Sarah challenges that he knows to be impossible (Live without the sunlight, Love without your heart beat), which go towards explaining (in a round about way) why he can't 'live within' her. It's impossible for him to do so. He's "starve[d] and near exhaust[ed]" because "everything [he's] done, [he's] done for [her]." He can't afford to waste that kind of attention on her anymore. He realises he's lost the game, and he has more important things to attend to (like say . . . his kingdom), and he can't afford to waste his time and energy making Sarah the be all and end all of his universe. Okay, I think I've had my rant.
Posted by SHIRLEE on 1/26/2000, 6:17 am
That's okay Cybil, different opinions are most welcome! I don't claim to have the right answers and see, I'm the romantic like Jem here and what I think is that if Jareth was saying that he didn't want to play the game anymore at that stage, why did he plead with her one last time at the very end in a bid to win her? To get her to 'love him' which if she accepted, would mean he would have to expend more energy on her to return the feeling.
That was a lot of fun, thanks for all the contributions gals, they were incredibly fascinating and diverse.
