Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literarydevices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.
Greed
Both humans and spirits are greedy in SpiritedAway, and their greed is always destructive. At the beginningof the film, Chihiro is greedy for her parents’ attention. She whinesand complains, and covets the familiarity of her own town and home.Chihiro’s parents’ greed leads them to eat the food that turns theminto pigs. The bathhouse workers’ greed blinds them not only tothe goodness in their midst, in the form of Chihiro, but also topresent dangers, such as No-Face. Even Haku is greedy for powerto match Yubaba’s. Human greed is the reason that Haku can’t gohome—humans filled in his river to build apartments. Yubaba is thegreediest of all. Her greed leads her to serve those who ultimatelycause destruction, such as when No-Face rampages throught he bathhouse.She’s so preoccupied with gold she initially overlooks the kidnappingof baby Boh, ostensibly her most precious possession. In every case,greed makes characters oblivious to what is truly important, preventingthem from reaching their full potential as people and spirits.
Food
Food has enormous power in Spirited Away,and it can be a force of either good or evil. At the beginning ofthe movie, food sets Chihiro’s entire adventure in motion. WhenChihiro’s mother and father gorge themselves on the food they findin the abandoned amusem*nt park, they turn into pigs, and Chihiromust save them. In the spirit world, gluttonous No-Face can’t fillhimself up no matter how much he eats. Food and greed are alwaysa bad combination, but food is also a source of comfort and community.For example, Haku urges Chihiro to eat food from the spirit worldso she doesn’t disappear, and he gives her food he’s put a spellon to restore her strength. Later, as Sen, Chihiro feeds both Hakuand No-Face a magic cake to cure them of illnesses brought on bywhat they have consumed. No-Face knows well the comfort food canoffer, and he uses it as a substitute for companionship.
Environmentalism
Spirited Away examines the consequencesof actions that alter the natural world in destructive ways. Hakuand the ancient river spirit represent these consequences most dramatically.Haku lost his home because his river was paved over to build anapartment complex, and the ancient river spirit at first seems tobe a stink spirit because it’s so polluted. The abandoned amusem*ntpark at the beginning of the movie is linked to the issue of landmanagement. Chihiro’s father notes that many theme parks were builtin Japan during the boom times, and they were abandoned when theeconomy tanked. As a result, unsightly, false landscapes dot thecountryside. Self-pollution, a more personal aspect of environmentalism, occursthrough No-Face’s and Chihiro’s parents’ over-consumption of food.Haku, too, is polluted by Yubaba’s slug. Environmentalism is a familiarmotif in Miyazaki’s films, and critiquing the consequences of developmentand pollution through animated characters sheds new and unusuallight on these issues.
Rules
Rules give structure to the spirit world, and all wholive there are bound to them. Chihiro knows that rules permeatethe spirit world from the very beginning of her residence there.When Haku leads Chihiro across the bridge to the bathhouse, he warnsher not to breathe or she’ll be spotted. As Sen, Chihiro has tocarefully watch what she says and what she eats. If she doesn’t,she risks putting herself or others in danger. Even the most powerfulspirits, Yubaba and Zeniba, must follow rules. Despite her fondnessfor Sen, Zeniba can’t help her in the end because doing so wouldbe against the rules. Even though Haku has returned Boh to Yubaba,Yubaba can’t allow Sen to go without one final test because Hakuhas agreed to that condition. A sense of helplessness almost alwaysaccompanies the characters’ inability to bend the rules, but noone attempts to cast them aside. The final rule Chihiro must followagain comes from Haku: He tells Chihiro not to look back. She knowsby now that she must adhere to the rule, and she does as he saysdespite.
