Introduction
The Grimm Brothers’ “Rapunzel” discusses a husband and wife who long for a child and wait unsuccessfully for so long. The man loves his wife so much that when she feels she’d die for not being able to reach the rampion planted in the neighborhood, he is ready to fetch it for her by climbing through the tall wall surrounding the field rather than seeing his wife die.
The owner, the enchantress, demands that she will take a child from them for exchange with rampion. The child (Rapunzel) is taken and hidden far away. A son of a king finds her, falls in love with her, and finally marries her. The story is rich with incidences of love and hatred, peace and conflict, feelings of hope and despair, as well as incidences where the people show determination and experience feelings of worth and well-being. It can therefore benefit in the interpretation of psychological eros versus Thanatos and oedipal conflict as shall be seen in this paper.
Thanatos and Eros in the Story “Rapunzel”
At the beginning of the story “Rapunzel”, we see a situation where a man loves his wife and both are hopeful that God would grant them a child, even after waiting for a long time. Such feelings of hope and desire are connected with the eros instinct. Nevertheless, almost immediately, we see the woman falling into a state of despair and hopelessness for lack of rampion. This indicates that the life of the two is a mixture of both the feelings of eros and Thanatos at the same time.
Thanatos is regarded as the “stimulus” of removing “disruptive stimuli” in organisms by having them turn into an “inorganic” status or death. In other words, the death of meaning or personal significance may occur as a result of Thanatos, as far as psychology is concerned. Thanatos is the term applied to a situation of figurative death. At the beginning of the story, we see some despair in the woman after discovering she may not have to taste rampion in the neighborhood field, because it was difficult to reach them out. In fact, she feels that she might die for lack of tasting the rampion, and she expresses this to her husband.
Love makes the husband and wife at the beginning of this story lose their daughter after the man is moved by the love to ambitiously climb the wall into stealing the rampion for her wife she loved. The man considers that, instead of watching his wife die for lack of eating the rampion, he would rather take a journey to fetch it. The man is attaching his wife with a sense of worth and deserves to live rather than die. Some attachment with the “angelic” and “animalistic” as well as the “body” and the “soul” is seen in the story. The woman desires rampion so much to fulfill her bodily want for it.
The contrast of thanatos is Eros, which refers to “love”. It represents the availability of hope, meaning, worth and glory. For instance, the story indicates the passion and ambition of both the man and woman who are married together, hoping that they will have a child. Both eros and Thanatos are involved in the post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories. They have more to do about the day-to-day feelings in our lives.
The man at the beginning of the story attaches some worth to the woman and is forced to fulfill her needs since that is “angelic” Psychology has it that eros, is attached with the identity to one’s soul, mind and imagination, unlike thanatos where individuals have a feeling inclined or which makes them identify with their body.
At the beginning of the story, the man does not see the limitation to fulfilling his wife’s need for rampion and climbs the tall wall. On the contrary, the couple giving birth to Rapunzel may have seen a limitation to finding out where their daughter is. The wife, in the feeling of Thanatos, sees death as an option to failing to eat rampion.
Individuals with the feeling of experiencing worthy and meaningful lives are likely to feel special and unique. This is the case with the feeling inside the enchantress, who owns a beautiful flower garden. She feels that since someone has accessed her garden illegally, she is worth taking his own child in exchange for a punishment. She regards it worth having someone’s child because of the good “status” of the field and probably attaches it with some sense of honor and power.
The enchantress confesses that Rapunzel is beautiful and has long magnificent hair, which probably sparks the enchantress to hide her in the tower. She hides her from all humanity. She appears to do this because she attaches beauty with specialty and considers Rapunzel as ‘standing out’ among humanity. In addition, the enchantress feels threatened and sees a limitation for a solution to keeping off Rapunzel away from people. She hides him away into a tower and further away from the king’s son into the desert. She is, in other words, so insecure about the worth and status of the Rapunzel.
In life, one wants to be recognized and noticed when you have performed better or when you estimate that you will. This is compared to the worthless feeling about your name being mentioned sometimes. In addition, such is connected to good feelings such as when people do well in school or at workplace.
When people lose sense of specialty and meaning, they are likely to perform poorly at work and class. Eros feelings are connected or associated with feelings of energy and ambition, while apathy and ambivalence are associated with Thanatos feelings. Extra-motivation to work or perform comes from the feeling of self-worth and meaning of the job you are taking, and this is connected to the eros feelings. This kind of “love” is the spark to ambition to do things.
Eros is connected with the ability to be “lost” in mind and imagination or thinking, while Thanatos is connected with the “feeling in the body” such as hunger, thirst, as well as being in pain. These feelings make someone concentrate either on fulfilling the needs of the body more than fulfilling the needs of the mind, soul and imagination. For example, you feel better and prefer eating as compared to eros feelings where a person concentrates on fulfilling duties, thinking about things and attaches little value to their bodily needs. It can be seen in the story by the meditations by the son of the king who wants to reach out for love.
We see this love sparking the king’s son to find out the doorway into the tower harboring Rapunzel. He has the determination to see her. He confesses to Rapunzel that his heart was moved by the love for her voice. Rapunzel does see that love and friendship when the son of the king speaks to her. Rapunzel is moved by the love to waive away the fear and sees the man as handsome and young.
The psychological aspect related to name is specialty feel. People feel special when they are mentioned and named when they are experiencing eros, as compared to Thanato’s feeling. It can be seen that Rapunzel is moved by the words of the son’s king to accept his love. The sweet voice from Rapunzel’s singing is considered special by the king’s son and sparks the desire to see her.
She thinks that this man will love her than enchantress and she gives in. This love sparks the ambition to sell to the young man the idea of how they would descend from the tower. They also come into an agreement that the man would be visiting her every evening because of this love feeling. Love is also seen in the man at the beginning of the story. She considered that she would not see her wife die because of lack of rampion and would rather steel rampion from the neighborhood to keep his wife.
However, it appears that there is good side to Thanatos’s feeling. In addition, eros can have its side effects (bad in this context) where, for instance, over-ambition to the extent of ruining things. For instance, the king’s son may be considered as over-ambitious as a result of ‘love’ to the Rapunzel, even to an extent of getting into trouble with the enchantress. She is trapped by the enchantress who lay waiting in the tower after hiding Rapunzel.
Fear is signified in the story by the fear of the king’s son for his life to lack meaning when he, instead of meeting Rapunzel in the tower, meets the enchantress, who threatens to scratch his eyes off. Individuals may fear that their lives have no meaning or hope or worth anymore. Thus, the King’s son fears that his life would have little meaning if he had his eyes scrapped off.
Love may spark hatred where for instance, it causes Rapunzel to fall out with her caretaker, the enchantress. The enchantress behaves animalistic by treating Rapunzel so badly (separating her from humans and letting her into the desert to suffer) because she does not attach worth to the Rapunzel. This is after she considers that Rapunzel has betrayed her by falling in love with the king’s son. Such desire for ‘separation’ of Rapunzel from the rest of the world by the enchantress is a result of the Thanatos instinct as compared to the desire in the king’s son and Rapunzel to form a “union”. The latter is sparked by the eros instinct of love.
Symbolic things include titles and stature. The son of a king probably has the passion to try and find Rapunzel because he regards him as of high stature and from a wealthy family (royalty). The feelings appear because of abstract things (things that are apprehended in her mind).
When one apprehends that they are variable and special, they do things to appear less “animalistic”, such as controlling emotions while talking, talking quietly and having good manners. This is referred to as being “angelic” as opposed to “animalistic” where individuals don’t care about manners, nakedness, don’t care about calmness and composure.
We also tend to treat others as animals and criticize them because of lack of care and respect. The animalistic character appears when the enchantress is punishing Rapunzel and also in Rapunzel by betraying the caretaker. The angelic behavior is also seen in the son of a king when he is approaching Rapunzel for the first time. He appears friendly.
Eros is associated with the desire for order and structure or organization, as opposed to the preference of disorder in the Thanatos. While the enchantress behavior displays disorder, the king’s son and Rapunzel appear to be orderly and structured in the way they are willing to work out their love. It is agreed that the king’s son should appear every evening and that the Rapunzel would construct a ladder with which she would exit, using silk brought by the son of a king. Nevertheless, both may produce positive and negative results at the same or different times as seen in the story.
Thanatos feeling is also associated with feelings of limitation rather than freedom and liberty as far as eros is concerned. Eros-minded will see options and possibilities because they regard the situation as lesser limited, as compared to Thanatos-minded who see lesser options. People are likely to give excuses and have things not done if they are seeing limitations rather than the freedom to do those things.
Thanatos is associated with depression, violence (is animate-like), and other disorders. We see that the king’s son is not limited in the options to finding out the entry to the tower and finally getting away with Rapunzel as a wife, because he is inspired by the love for Rapunzel. He finally gets a solution. Still, both of them do not see a limitation to escaping from the tower and getting together as man and wife.
Oedipal Conflict and the story “Rapunzel”
Oedipal conflict occurs in a child figure who lacks the mother figure and the father figure. It is recognized that the mother plays a vital role in having the child feel loved while the father plays the role of discipline. This is seen in this story by Rapunzel lacking a father figure and an oppressive mother figure. Rapunzel is taken away from her real parents by the enchantress. However, the enchantress acts as a mother figure.
While the children may be disciplined and orderly when they have a father figure, they may feel so whipped, become less secure, less playful and sheepish because they lack the mother figure. On the contrary, lack of a father figure may cause the child to be spoiled, lack personal accountability and independence. However, although nothing is mentioned about the enchantress’s background, one may posit that she has also suffered the same problem and has only “diverted” the “destructive” energy from herself (as a result of conflicts with her own mother and father figure) to the Rapunzel.
Most likely, she is showing this form of aggression as a manifestation of her own “striving” with the need to destroy someone (Rapunzel’s) else’s life so as to achieve some “peace”. She sees also the son of a king as an enemy. This is the case with Rapunzel. Although she is loving, it is less likely that she will be responsible for her own home as a mother.
In the story we see some Oedipal Conflict. Normally, the father figure is associated with order. With both parents, a balance must be reached between showing love and discipline to the child. This lacks in the case of Rapunzel. Thus, the child figure may also exist in Rapunzel’s life at an old age.
Conflict occurs when such a balance is not struck well. While the child acts eros by desiring to be free and act independently, it cannot be granted what it wants at young age because it could as well hurt itself. The enchantress regards it unfair and unworthy for Rapunzel to interact with other people as well as have a lover, even though she has the feeling. She is already past 20 years when she is meeting the son of a king but the enchantress cannot let her. This may be the reason why she finally gives in to living with the king’s son. In fact, she thinks that the young man will love her more than “Dame Gothel”.
The goal for her Oedipal Conflict is love and independence at the same time. The conflict between the two is seen when Rapunzel posits to the mother that she has a lover. The mother confesses that she was withdrawing Rapunzel from the “world” to avoid such issues (a reaction considered unfair) and retorts. She does not approve of the idea that Rapunzel has been loved and calls her wicked. She also feels threatened and betrayed by Rapunzel finding a lover.
Since the age with which the child must be granted the freedom and total independence is unclear, parents may continue to see the person as a “child” or rather too young to manage the freedom and handle their choices, to the point of refusing to grant the freedom as is seen with Rapunzel’s conflict with her caretaker. The person feels they are old enough to handle it but the parents think it is not time yet. The two therefore conflict with each other and clash.
Such clash is characteristic of the desire to be independent if the goal in the oedipal conflict is independence and they rebel. The child may disobey and give explanations to the father or may create space in case of a conflict with the mother figure. For instance, Rapunzel asks her mother why she is heavy when Rapunzel has a lover.
Parents who do not want to grant the freedom may bully (emotional, financial and physical) and fight the child and the child may give up but does not grow up. This is seen in the story where, instead of the enchantress granting Rapunzel the freedom to have a lover and get married, she denies her, and goes on to cut off her charming hair.
When such children grow, they cannot perform fully responsibly as parents. They may suffer after loss of parental figures since they were not taught to handle it, and may feel insecure when their child gets love since they expect them to get it instead. In addition, they are likely to suffer “anxiety” and “guilt” if they do not resolve such a conflict. This is expected in Rapunzel even as she moves on to start a family with the son of the king at the end of the story.
Conclusion
“Rapunzel” is a story that depicts feelings of love and hatred at the same time. Other incidences include despair, determination, guilt and anxiety, feelings of worth versus worthlessness, all of which are psychological. This has been used to interpret the feelings of Eros and Thanatos.
It appears that the story has mixed occurrences of Eros and Thanatos, which is normal in life as it is expected that life cannot have only one side. Conflict in the story, especially between Rapunzel (a beautiful lady) and the enchantress (caretaker) indicates oedipal conflict, especially because Rapunzel has been separated from her parents and hidden away from human beings. She finally falls out with her caretaker.