Maybe if more of our adolescents had been brought up on fairy tales, they would (unconsciously) remain aware of the fact that their conflict is not with the adult world, or society, but really only with their parents. Further, threatening as the parent may seem at some time, it is always the child who wins out in the long run, and it is the parent who is defeated, as the ending of all these tales makes amply clear. The child not only survives the parents but surpasses them. This conviction, when built into the unconscious, permits the adolescent to feel secure despite all the developmental difficulties from which he suffers, because he feels confident about his future victory.
Of course, if more adults had been exposed to the messages of fairy tales as children and profited from them, they might as adults have retained some dim recognition of how foolish any parent is who believes he knows what his child ought to be interested in studying, and who feels threatened if the adolescent goes against his will in this respect. A particularly ironic twist of “The Three Languages” is that it is the father himself who sends his son away to study and selects the masters, only to be outraged by what they teach his son. This shows that the modern parent who sends his child to college and then is furious about what he learns there, or about how it changes his child, is by no means a new arrival on the scene of history.
The child both wishes and fears that his parents will be unwilling to accept his striving for independence and will take revenge. He wishes this because it would demonstrate that the parent cannot let go, which proves the child’s importance. To become a man or a woman really means to stop being a child, an idea which does not occur to the prepubertal child, but which the adolescent realizes. If a child wishes to see his parent stop having parental power over him, in his unconscious the child also feels he has destroyed the parent (since the child wants to remove parental powers) or is about to do so. How natural for him to think that the parent wishes to seek retaliation.
In “The Three Languages” a son repeatedly goes against his father’s will, and asserts himself in doing so; and at the same time he defeats his father’s paternal powers through his actions. For this, he fears his father will have him destroyed.
So the hero of “The Three Languages” goes off into the world. On his wanderings he comes first to a land in deep trouble because the furious bark of wild dogs permits nobody to rest; and, worse, at certain hours a man must be handed over to the dogs to be devoured. Since the hero can understand the dogs’ language, the dogs talk to him, tell him why they are so ferocious, and what must be done to pacify them. When this is done, they leave the country in peace, and the hero stays there awhile.
After some years the hero, who has grown older, decides to travel to Rome. On his way, croaking frogs reveal his future to him, and this gives him much to think about. Arriving in Rome, he finds that the Pope has just died and the cardinals cannot make up their minds whom to elect as the new Pope. Just as the cardinals decide that some miraculous token should designate the future Pope, two snow-white doves settle on the hero’s shoulders. Asked whether he would be Pope, the hero does not know if he is worthy; but the doves counsel him to accept. Thus, he is consecrated, as the frogs had prophesied. When the hero has to sing Mass and does not know the words, the doves, which continually sit upon his shoulders, tell him all the words in his ears.
This is the story of an adolescent whose needs are not understood by his father, who thinks his son is stupid. The son will not develop himself as the father thinks he should, but stubbornly insists on learning instead what he thinks is of real value. To achieve his complete self-realization, the young man first has to become acquainted with his inner being, a process no father can prescribe even if he realizes the value of it, as the youth’s father does not.
The son of this story is youth in search of itself. The three different masters in faraway places to whom the son goes to learn about the world and himself are the up-to-now-unknown aspects of the world and himself which he needs to explore, something he could not do as long as he was tied too closely to his home.
Why did the hero first learn to understand the language of dogs, then that of birds, and finally of frogs? Here we encounter another aspect of the importance of the number three. Water, earth, and air are the three elements in which our life unfolds. Man is a land animal, and so are dogs. Dogs are the animals living in closest proximity to man. They are the animals which to the child seem most like man, but they also represent instinctual freedom—freedom to bite, to excrete in an uncontrolled way, and to indulge sexual needs without restraint—and at the same time they stand for higher values such as loyalty and friendship. Dogs can be tamed to control their aggressive biting and trained to control their excretions. So it seems natural that learning dog language comes first and easiest. It would seem that dogs represent the ego of man—that aspect of his personality closest to the surface of the mind, since it has as its function the regulation of man’s relation to others and to the world around him. Dogs have since prehistory served somewhat this function, aiding man in fending off enemies as well as showing him new ways of relating to savage and other beasts.
Birds which can fly high into the sky symbolize a very different freedom—that of the soul to soar, to rise seemingly free from what binds us to our earthly existence, so appropriately represented by the dogs and frogs. Birds stand in this story for the superego, with its investment in high goals and ideals, its soaring flights of fancy and imagined perfections.
If birds stand for the superego, and dogs for the ego, so frogs symbolize the most ancient part of man’s self, the id. It might seem a remote connection to think that the frogs stand for the evolutionary process in which land animals, including man, in ancient times moved from the watery element onto dry land. But even today we all begin our life surrounded by a watery element, which we leave only as we are born. Frogs live first in water in tadpole form, which they shed and change as they move to living in both elements. Frogs are a form of life developed earlier in the evolution of animal life than either dogs or birds, while the id is that part of the personality which exists before ego and superego.
Thus, while on the deepest level frogs may symbolize our earliest existence, on a more accessible level they represent our ability to move from a lower to a higher stage of living. If we want to be fanciful, we could say that learning the language of the dogs and the birds is the precondition for gaining the most important ability: to develop oneself from a lower into a higher state of existence. The frogs may symbolize both the lowest, most primitive, and earliest state of our being, and the development away from it. This can be seen as similar to the development from archaic drives seeking the most elemental satisfactions, to a mature ego able to use the vast resources of our planet for its satisfactions.
This story also implies that simply learning to understand all aspects of the world and our existence in it (earth, air, water) and of our inner life (id, ego, superego) does little for us. We profit from such understanding in meaningful ways only as we apply it to our dealings with the world. To know the language of dogs is not enough; we must also be able to deal with that which the dogs represent. The ferocious dogs, whose language the hero has to learn before any higher humanity becomes possible, symbolize the violent, aggressive, and destructive drives in man. If we remain alienated from these drives, then they can destroy us as the dogs devour some men.
The dogs are closely linked to anal possessiveness because they watch over a great treasure, which explains their ferociousness. Once these violent pressures are understood, once one has become conversant with them (as symbolized by having learned the language of the dogs), the hero can tame them, which brings immediate benefit: the treasure the dogs so savagely protected becomes available. If the unconscious is befriended and given its due—the hero brings food to the dogs—then that which was so fiercely kept hidden, the repressed, becomes accessible and, from being detrimental, turns beneficial.
Learning the language of the birds follows na
turally from having learned that of the dogs. The birds symbolize the higher aspirations of the superego and ego ideal. Then after the fierceness of the id and the possessiveness of anality have been overcome, and his superego has been established (learning the language of the birds), the hero is ready to cope with the ancient and primitive amphibian. This also suggests the hero’s mastering sex, which in fairy-tale language is suggested by his mastering the language of frogs. (Why frogs, toads, etc., represent sex in fairy tales is discussed later in considering “The Frog King.”) It also makes sense that the frogs, which in their own life cycle move from a lower to a higher form, tell the hero of his impending transformation to a higher existence, his becoming Pope.
White doves—which in religious symbolism stand for the Holy Ghost—inspire and enable the hero to achieve the most exalted position on earth; he gains it because he has learned to listen to the doves and do as they bid him. The hero has successfully gained personality integration, having learned to understand and master his id (the ferocious dogs), listen to his superego (the birds) without being completely in its power, and also pay attention to what valuable information the frogs (sex) have to give him.
I know of no other fairy tale in which the process of an adolescent reaching his fullest self-actualization within himself and also in the world is described so concisely. Having achieved this integration, the hero is the right person for the highest office on earth.
“THE THREE FEATHERS”
THE YOUNGEST CHILD AS SIMPLETON
The number three in fairy tales often seems to refer to what in psychoanalysis is viewed as the three aspects of the mind: id, ego, and superego. This may in part be corroborated by another of the Brothers Grimm’s stories, “The Three Feathers.”
In this fairy tale it is not so much the tripartite division of the human mind which is symbolized, as the necessity of familiarizing ourselves with the unconscious, learning to appreciate its powers and use its resources. The hero of “The Three Feathers,” though considered stupid, is victorious because he does this, while his competitors who rely on “cleverness” and remain fixated to the surface of things turn out to have been the stupid ones. Their derision of the “simple” brother, the one who remains close to his natural basis, followed by his victory over them, suggests that a consciousness which has separated itself from its unconscious sources leads us astray.
The fairy-tale motif of the child abused and rejected by older siblings is well known all through history, especially in the form of “Cinderella.” But the stories centering on a stupid child, of which “The Three Languages” and “The Three Feathers” are examples, tell a different tale. The unhappiness of the “dumb” child whom the rest of the family holds in low esteem is not mentioned. His being considered stupid is stated as a fact of life which does not seem to concern him much. Sometimes one gets the feeling that the “simpleton” does not mind this condition, since others thus expect nothing of him. Such stories begin to unfold when the simpleton’s uneventful life is interrupted by some demand—such as the count sending his son out to become educated. The innumerable fairy tales in which the hero is at first depicted as a simpleton require some explanation of our tendency to identify with him long before he turns out to be superior to those who think little of him.
A small child, bright though he may be, feels himself stupid and inadequate when confronted with the complexity of the world which surrounds him. Everybody else seems to know so much more than he, and to be so much more capable. This is why many fairy tales begin with the hero being depreciated and considered stupid. These are the child’s feelings about himself, which are projected not so much onto the world at large as onto his parents and older siblings.
Even when in some fairy stories, like “Cinderella,” we are told that the child had lived in bliss before misfortune befell her, this is never described as a time when the child was competent. The child was happy because nothing had been expected of her; everything was provided for her. A young child’s inadequacy, which makes him fear that he is stupid, is not his fault—and so the fairy tale which never explains why the child is considered stupid is psychologically correct.
As far as a child’s consciousness is concerned, nothing happened during his first years, because in the normal course of events the child remembers no inner conflicts before parents begin making specific demands which run counter to the child’s desires. It is in part because of these demands that the child experiences conflicts with the world, and internalization of these demands contributes to the establishment of the superego, and awareness of inner conflicts. Hence these first few years are remembered as conflict-free and blissful, but empty. This is represented in the fairy tale by nothing having happened in the child’s life until he awakens to the conflicts between him and his parents, and also to those within himself. Being “dumb” suggests an undifferentiated stage of existence which precedes the struggles between id, ego, and superego of the complex personality.
On the simplest and most direct level, fairy tales in which the hero is the youngest and most inept offer the child the consolation and hope for the future he needs most. Though the child thinks little of himself—a view he projects onto others’ views of him—and fears he will never amount to anything, the story shows that he is already started on the process of realizing his potentials. As the son learns the language of dogs and later of birds and frogs in “The Three Languages,” the father sees in this only a clear indication of his son’s stupidity, but actually the son has made very important steps toward selfhood. The outcome of these stories tells the child that he who has been considered by himself or by others as least able will nonetheless surpass all.
Such a message can best carry conviction through repeated telling of the story. When first told a story with a “dumb” hero, a child may not be able to afford to identify with him, much as he feels himself to be stupid. That would be too threatening, too contrary to his self-love. Only when the child feels completely assured of the hero’s proven superiority through repeated hearings can he afford to identify with the hero from the beginning. And only on the basis of such identification can the story provide encouragement to the child that his depreciated view of himself is erroneous. Before such identification occurs, the story means little to the child as a person. But as the child comes to identify with the stupid or degraded hero of the fairy tale, who he knows will eventually show his superiority, the child himself is also started on the process of realizing his potential.
Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Ugly Duckling” is the story of a bird which is thought little of as a fledgling but which in the end proves its superiority to all those which had scoffed and mocked it. The story even contains the element of the hero being the youngest and the last-born, since all the other ducklings pecked their way out of their eggs and into the world sooner. As is true of most Andersen stories, charming as it is, this is much more a story for adults. Children enjoy it too, of course, but this story is not helpful to the child; even though he enjoys it, it misdirects his fantasy. The child who feels misunderstood and not appreciated may wish to be of a different breed, but he knows he is not. His chance for success in life is not to grow into a being of a different nature as the duckling grows into a swan, but to acquire better qualities and to do better than others expect, being of the same nature as his parents and siblings. In true fairy tales we find that, however many transformations the hero undergoes, including being turned into an animal or even a stone, in the end he is always a human being, as he started out.
To encourage a child to believe he is of a different breed, much as he may like the thought, can lead him in the opposite direction from what fairy tales suggest: that he must do something to achieve his superiority. No need to accomplish anything is expressed in “The Ugly Duckling.” Things are simply fated and unfold accordingly, whether or not the hero takes some action, while in the fairy story it is the hero’s doing which changes his life.
That one’s fate is i
nexorable—a depressive world-view—is as clear in “The Ugly Duckling” with its favorable outcome as in the sad ending of Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl,” a deeply moving story, but hardly one suitable for identification. The child in his misery may indeed identify with this heroine, but if so, this leads only to utter pessimism and defeatism. “The Little Match Girl” is a moralistic tale about the cruelty of the world; it arouses compassion for the downtrodden. But what the child who feels downtrodden needs is not compassion for others who are in the same predicament, but rather the conviction that he can escape this fate.
When the hero of a fairy tale is not an only child but one of several, and when he is the least adequate or most abused to begin with (though in the end he far surpasses those who initially were superior to him), he is nearly always the third child. This does not necessarily represent the sibling rivalry of the youngest child; then any number would do—jealousy is as acute in an older child. But since every child at times views himself as being low man in the family, in the fairy tale this is suggested by his being either the youngest or the least thought of, or both. But why is he so often the third?
To understand the reason, we have to consider still one more meaning of the number three in fairy tales. Cinderella is abused by her two stepsisters, who make her assume not just the lowest position, but the third in rank; the same is true for the hero of “The Three Feathers,” and of innumerable other fairy stories in which the hero starts out as the low man on the totem pole. Another characteristic of these stories is that the other two siblings are hardly differentiated from each other; they act and look the same.
The Uses of Enchantment Page 14