which she lives. She knows that if she stays there her life will replicate her mother’s life. Mia
does not look at her mother as a role model; she looks at her with disgust. This disgust
stems from her behavior, or lack thereof, of a proper maternal figure, but also as a woman
who has succumbed to patriarchal order and looks to that structure for identity and security.
Mia certainly demonstrates traces of conforming to patriarchal order in the film. Her
expectations of what Connor should be to her are only met with disappointment when he
has sex with her, then leaves as if she is an object to be thrown away. But she exhibits
boldness when she reaches out to him for answers. She cannot understand why their
feelings for each other are wrong, despite their age difference and the fact that he has a
family. She displays characteristics that she has been conditioned to believe that the
patriarchal archetype of a man should lead to love and security when a sexual connection
takes place. This causes Mia to feel rejected, but “it is precisely the repetition of the ‘once
upon a times’ that has helped create women who cannot value themselves” (Wanning
Harries 100).
Ironically, the fairy tale ideas have also been set in the mind of Connor’s own
daughter, Keira. She wears a pink princess dress over her clothes when Mia kidnaps her.
The dress symbolizes how girls from various socioeconomic backgrounds are brought up
with the same social conditioning of the fairy-tale motif. Mia sets out to destroy Connor’s
family, just as Connor has destroyed Mia’s by taking from her an idea of what a man should
represent. Looking deeper into the kidnapping of Keira, it can be argued Mia is also setting
out to destroy the fairy tale ideals that her culture has conditioned her to believe. This idea is
embodied by the forceful way in which she lures Keira from her home and takes her to a
pastoral setting because one must move out of the social constructs of society in order to
take upon ideas that may not be accepted by society. It is dark, cold, and has a body of
water in which waves are crashing violently. Keira’s princess dress is ripped on the fence,
signifying a tear in the delicately woven social construct of societal conditioning from fairy-
tales. Jung explains, “‘child motif represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the
collective conscious’” (qtd in Hancock 14). Mia’s unconscious motive is not to destroy the