I recently rewatched Pinocchio, Walt Disney's second feature-length film. One of the film's antagonists, Monstro the whale, got the wheels in my head turning about his role in the story.
Monstro does not really have a character per se. He has no dialogue and is only in the film for the final fifteen minutes or so. We as the viewers do not see the precipitating events that make Monstro an antagonist; there is no point in the story when we decide that we do not like Monstro and we want our hero to defeat him. Instead, upon Monstro's introduction, we already assume his sinister nature. For these reasons, Monstro's function in the story is not so much as a literal being but as a symbol for something.
This assertion is amplified by the fact that although he is described a whale, he seems too extraordinary in size, speed, strength, and emotion to be a literal whale. However, whether Monstro is a literal whale doesn't really matter and misses the point in understanding what Monstro represents within the context of the story.
Monstro represents Geppetto's deep-seated fear of losing someone that you love.
Geppetto was swallowed up by Monstro during his pursuit of Pinocchio after he did not return from his first day of school. Geppetto's fear of losing Pinocchio overwhelmed him until he ended up in a totally helpless place--inside Monstro's belly. His fear disabled him from carrying out his mission of finding Pinocchio. He became mired and trapped within his fear.
In order to become a real boy, two criteria that Pinocchio must meet are that he must be brave and unselfish. He meets both of these criteria during his confrontation with Monstro, whether Monstro is perceived as a literal whale or as a symbol.
The escape from Monstro the literal whale provides an obvious opportunity for Pinocchio to display his bravery and unselfishness. He displays bravery by initiating Geppetto's and his daring escape from Monstro in spite of the whale's extraordinary size and temperamental nature, and by urging Geppetto to keep paddling their raft even though Geppetto protests, "We'll never make it!" as the whale inhales before he sneezes. Pinocchio displays unselfishness after Monstro smashes their raft and Pinocchio pulls Geppetto to shore, against Geppetto's urging to, "Swim for shore; save yourself."
However, assuming Monstro as a symbol, the viewer observes Pinocchio's bravery and unselfishness even before he and Geppetto plot their escape from Monstro's belly. The mere act of seeking out Geppetto where he is--immobilized in the bowels of his deepest fear--is certainly an act of unselfishness. It is also an act of bravery; helping pull someone out of their despair is a daunting and sometimes terrifying task. Yet as soon as Pinocchio learns of Geppetto's state, he immediately marches off to save him, with Jiminy Cricket once again lagging behind and sowing doubt about Pinocchio's decision.
In the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, upon which the film is based, the equivalent creature is known as The Terrible Dogfish (Il Terribile Pescecane). This character is not named Monstro and is not a whale in the novel. Disney thus made a conscious decision to assign this character in the novel as a whale in the film adaptation. Why should a whale be chosen? Perhaps this is a deliberate allusion to the Biblical story of Jonah, where God sends a great fish (which over the centuries has come to be translated and entered into the cultural lexicon as a whale) to swallow Jonah. In the Biblical story, the whale's purpose is to punish Jonah for his disobedience and to teach him a lesson. If the creative license taken for the film adaptation to have Geppetto swallowed by a whale is indeed an allusion, might it be possible that Geppetto encountered Monstro to learn a lesson?
Perhaps the lesson that Geppetto needed to learn was that sometimes, you as a parent will fuck up when raising your kid. Sometimes, in an abstract sense, you will "lose" your kid. You cannot control your kid's destiny, as much as you may want to or may try to. Instead, what matters the most is that your parental love is constant and unconditional.
This lesson is exemplified soon after Pinocchio comes aboard Geppetto's ship inside Monstro's belly. Geppetto wraps the cold and wet Pinocchio in a blanket, removes Pinocchio's hat, and discovers Pinocchio's donkey ears and tail. At first, Geppetto is shocked and horrified, pleading for Pinocchio to tell him, "what happened?" Pinocchio hesitates and stutters as he thinks about how to respond to his father. Quickly realizing the shame that Pinocchio feels around the subject, Geppetto brushes past the topic, declaring that all that matters is that he and Pinocchio are together. Geppetto has learned the lesson that his love for Pinocchio is most important thing in their relationship.
Only after Geppetto has learned this lesson is he able to fully engage with Pinocchio and participate in the escape plan that Pinocchio devises. His love for Pinocchio has begun the process of pulling himself out of the pits of his deepest fears.
Similarly, in the story of Jonah, he is released from the whale after he learns his lesson and repents to God.
However, the parallelism between the Monstro sub-plot and the Jonah story is certainly not perfect. For instance, the way in which escape is achieved in each story differs significantly. In Pinocchio, Pinocchio comes to save Geppetto, and working together, they escape Monstro from their own efforts. Jonah's escape from the whale comes about from an act of mercy by an external agent, God. Jonah is fairly helpless in his situation.
The Monstro sub-plot of Pinocchio is thus also a story of courage, determination, and decisiveness. As the viewers, we celebrate with the characters as we watch them achieve the goal they set for themselves, overcoming their abysmal situation. By contrast, the whale sub-plot within Jonah's story is a story about God's mercy. Jonah is in fact not the protagonist in this part of his story--God is. Jonah's escape from the whale is not an achievement attributable to Jonah; Jonah goes forth from the whale with an obligation.
This is why the Pinocchio whale sub-plot is a much more compelling story than the Jonah whale story.
