For the possibility of a development toward individuation to exist, a firm basis is needed—“basic trust,” which we can gain only from the relationship between the infant and the good parents. But for the process of individuation to become possible and necessary—and unless it becomes unavoidable we do not engage in it, for it is much too painful—the good parents have to appear for a period as bad, persecuting ones who send the child out to wander for years in his personal desert, demanding seemingly “without respite” and without consideration for the child’s comfort. But if the child responds to these hardships by developing his self in an independent way, then as if by miracle the good parents reappear. This is similar to the parent who does not make any sense to his adolescent child until after the adolescent has achieved maturity.
“Cinderella” sets forth the steps in personality development required to reach self-fulfillment, and presents them in fairy-tale fashion so that every person can understand what is required of him to become a full human being. This is hardly surprising, since the fairy tale, as I have tried to show throughout this book, represents extremely well the workings of our psyche: what our psychological problems are, and how these can best be mastered. Erikson, in his model of the human life-cycle, suggests that the ideal human being develops through what he calls “phase-specific psychosocial crises” if he achieves the ideal goals of each phase in succession. These crises in their sequence are: First, basic trust—represented by Cinderella’s experience with the original good mother, and what this firmly implanted in her personality. Second, autonomy—as Cinderella accepts her unique role and makes the best of it. Third, initiative—Cinderella develops this as she plants the twig and makes it grow with the expression of her personal feelings, tears and prayers. Fourth, industry—represented by Cinderella’s hard labors, such as sorting out the lentils. Fifth, identity—Cinderella escapes from the ball, hides in the dovecote and tree, and insists that the prince see and accept her in her negative identity as “Cinderella” before she assumes her positive identity as his bride, because any true identity has its negative as well as its positive aspects. According to Erikson’s scheme, having ideally solved these psychosocial crises by having achieved the personality attributes just enumerated, one becomes ready for true intimacy with the other.103
The difference between what happens to the stepsisters, who remain tied to their “good parents” without inner development, and the hardships and significant developments Cinderella has to undergo when her original good parents are replaced by step-parents, permits every child and parent to understand that, in the child’s best interests, for a time he needs to see even the best of parents as rejecting and demanding “step”-parents. If “Cinderella” makes an impression on parents, it can help them accept that as an inescapable step in their child’s development toward true maturity, they must seem for a time to have turned into bad parents. The story also tells that when the child has attained his true identity, the good parents will be resuscitated in his mind, prove much more powerful, and replace permanently the image of the bad parents.
Thus, “Cinderella” offers parents much-needed comfort, for it can teach them why and for what good purposes they are seen temporarily in a bad light by their child. The child learns from “Cinderella” that to gain his kingdom he must be ready to undergo a “Cinderella” existence for a time, not just in regard to the hardships this entails, but also in regard to the difficult tasks he must master on his own initiative. Depending on the child’s stage of psychological development, this kingdom which Cinderella achieves will be one either of unlimited gratification or of individuality and unique personal achievement.
Unconsciously, children and adults also respond to the other assurances “Cinderella” offers: that despite the seemingly devastating oedipal conflicts which caused Cinderella’s dejected state, the disappointment in the parent of the other sex and the good mother turned stepmother, Cinderella will have a good life, even a better one than her parents. Further, the story tells that even castration anxiety is only a figment of the child’s anxious imagination: in a good marriage everyone will find the sexual fulfillment even of what seemed impossible dreams: he will gain a golden vagina, she a temporary penis.
“Cinderella” guides the child from his greatest disappointments—oedipal disillusionment, castration anxiety, low opinion of himself because of the imagined low opinion of others—toward developing his autonomy, becoming industrious, and gaining a positive identity of his own. Cinderella, at the story’s end, is indeed ready for a happy marriage. But does she love the prince? Nowhere does the story say so. It takes Cinderella up to the moment of engagement as the prince hands her the golden slipper, which might as well be the golden wedding ring (as indeed it is a ring in some “Cinderella” stories).104 But what else must Cinderella learn? What other experiences are needed to show the child what it means to be truly in love? The answer to this question is provided in the last cycle of stories we shall consider in this book, that of the animal groom.
*Artistically made slippers of precious material were reported in Egypt from the third century on. The Roman emperor Diocletian in a decree of A.D. 301 set maximum prices for different kinds of footwear, including slippers made of fine Babylonian leather, dyed purple or scarlet, and gilded slippers for women.75
*In one story of the “Brother and Sister” type, “La Mala Matrè,” the children kill an evil mother on the advice of a female teacher and, as in Basile’s story, ask their father to marry the teacher.81 This tale, like Basile’s, is of South Italian origin, so it seems likely that one served as a model for the other.
*It is unfortunate that “Cinderella” became known by this name in English, an all-too-facile and incorrect translation of the French “Cendrillon,” which, like the German name of the heroine, stresses her living among ashes. “Ashes” and not “cinders” is the correct translation of the French cendre, which is derived from the Latin term for ashes, cinerem. The Oxford English Dictionary makes a special point of noting that “cinders” is not connected etymologically with the French word “cendres.” This is important in regard to the connotations that attach themselves to the name of “Cinderella,” since ashes are the very clean powdery substance which is the residue of complete combustion; cinders, to the contrary, are the quite dirty remnants of an incomplete combustion.
*The purity of the priestess responsible for the sacred fire, and fire itself, which purifies, evoke appropriate connotations also to ashes. In many societies ashes were used for ablutions, as a means of cleansing oneself. This was one of the connotations of ashes, although today it is no longer widespread.
The other connotation of ashes is to mourning. Sprinkling ashes over the head, as on Ash Wednesday, is still a sign of bereavement as it was in ancient times. Sitting among the ashes as a reaction to, and a sign of, mourning is mentioned in the Odyssey, and was practiced among many peoples.88 By making Cinderella sit among cinders, and basing her name on it, these connotations to purity and to deep mourning which are connected with her original name in the Italian story (which by far antedates Perrault’s tale), as much as with her French and German names, have become changed in English to the exact opposite connotations, referring to blackness and dirtiness.
*As for the lizards, Soriano reminds us of the French expression “lazy as a lizard,” which explains why Perrault may have chosen these animals to be transformed into footmen, whose laziness was a matter for jokes.94
*A wide variety of folklore data supports the notion that the slipper can serve as a symbol for the vagina. Rooth, quoting Jameson, reports that among the Manchu a bride is expected to present gifts of slippers to her husband’s brothers, who, since group marriage is practiced, become her sexual partners through her marriage. These slippers are ornamented with “lien hua,” which is a vulgar term for the female genitals.99
Jameson cites several instances of the slipper used as a sexual symbol in China, and Aigremont supplies examples of this from Eu
rope and the East.100
THE ANIMAL-GROOM CYCLE
OF FAIRY TALES
THE STRUGGLE FOR MATURITY
Snow White is carried off by the prince, inert in her coffin; it is by chance that she coughs up the poisonous piece of apple stuck in her throat and thus comes back to life. Sleeping Beauty awakens only because her lover kisses her. Cinderella’s time of degradation ends when the slipper fits her. In each of these stories—as in so many others—the rescuer demonstrates his love for his future bride in some form. We are left in the dark about the feelings of the heroines, however. The way the Brothers Grimm tell these stories, we hear nothing about Cinderella being in love, although we may draw some conclusions from the fact that she goes to the ball three times to meet her prince. About Sleeping Beauty’s feelings we learn only that she looks “in a friendly fashion” at the man who frees her from her enchantment. Similarly, all we are told is that Snow White “felt friendly” toward the man who brought her back to life. It seems as if these stories deliberately avoid stating that the heroines are in love; one gets the impression that even fairy tales put little stock in love at first sight. Instead, they suggest that much more is involved in loving than being awakened or chosen by some prince.
The rescuers fall in love with these heroines because of their beauty, which symbolizes their perfection. Being in love, the rescuers have to become active and prove that they are worthy of the woman they love—something quite different from the heroine’s passive acceptance of being loved. In “Snow White” the prince declares he cannot live without Snow White, he offers the dwarfs whatever they want for her, and is finally permitted to carry her off. In penetrating the wall of thorns to reach Sleeping Beauty, her suitor risks his life. The prince in “Cinderella” devises an ingenious scheme to trap her, and when he catches not her but only her slipper, he searches for her far and wide. The stories seem to imply that falling in love is something that happens; being in love demands much more. But since the male rescuers in these stories have only supporting roles, nothing more specific can be learned from their behavior about what developments are involved in loving somebody, what the nature of the commitment “being in love” entails.
All the stories considered so far convey that if one wishes to gain selfhood, achieve integrity, and secure one’s identity, difficult developments must be undergone: hardships suffered, dangers met, victories won. Only in this way can one become master of one’s fate and win one’s kingdom. What happens to the heroes and heroines in fairy tales can be likened—and has been compared—to initiation rites which the novice enters naïve and unformed, and which dismiss him at their end on a higher level of existence undreamed of at the start of this sacred voyage through which he gains his reward or salvation. Having truly become himself, the hero or heroine has become worthy of being loved.
But meritorious as such self-development is, and while it may save our soul, it is still not enough for happiness. For this, one must go beyond one’s isolation and form a bond with the other. On however high a plane his life may proceed, the I without the Thou lives a lonely existence. The happy endings to fairy tales, in which the hero is united with his life’s partner, tell this much. But they do not teach what the individual must do to transcend his isolation after he has won his selfhood. Neither in “Snow White” nor in “Cinderella” (the Brothers Grimm’s versions) are we told anything about their life after they are married; nothing is said about their living happily with their partner. These stories, while they take the heroine up to the threshold of true love, do not tell what personal growth is required for union with the beloved other.
Laying the groundwork for achieving full consciousness and relatedness would not be complete if fairy tales did not prepare the child’s mind for the transformation demanded by, and brought about by, being in love. There are many fairy stories which start where those like “Cinderella” or “Snow White” end, and they communicate that, charming as it is to be loved, not even being loved by a prince guarantees happiness. To find fulfillment through and in love requires one more transition. Merely being oneself is not enough, even when it is selfhood won through struggles as difficult as those of Snow White or Cinderella.
One becomes a complete human being who has achieved all his potentialities only if, in addition to being oneself, one is at the same time able and happy to be oneself with another. To achieve this state involves the deepest layers of our personality. Like any transmutation which touches our innermost being, it has dangers which must be met with courage and presents problems which must be mastered. The message of these fairy stories is that we must give up childish attitudes and achieve mature ones if we wish to establish that intimate bond with the other which promises permanent happiness for both.
Fairy tales prepare for doing that in ways which permit the child to gain a preconscious comprehension of matters which would greatly perturb him if they were forced into his conscious attention. But these ideas, imbedded in his preconscious or unconscious mind, become available when the time is ripe for the child to build his understanding on them. Since all is expressed in symbolic language in fairy tales, the child can disregard what he is not ready for by responding only to what he has been told on the surface. But he is also enabled to peel off, layer by layer, some of the meaning hidden behind the symbol as he becomes gradually ready and able to master and profit from it.
In such manner, fairy tales are an ideal way for the child to learn about sex in a fashion appropriate to his age and developmental understanding. Any sex education which is more or less direct, even when put in the language of the child and in terms he can comprehend, leaves the child no alternative but to accept it although he is not ready for it and then be greatly perturbed or confused by it. Or else the child can protect himself against being overwhelmed by information he is not yet ready to master by distorting or repressing what he is told—with most pernicious consequences at the moment and in the future.
Fairy tales suggest that eventually there comes a time when we must learn what we have not known before—or, to put it psychoanalytically, to undo the repression of sex. What we had experienced as dangerous, loathsome, something to be shunned, must change its appearance so that it is experienced as truly beautiful. It is love which permits this to happen. While the undoing of repressions and the change in the experience of sex are parallel processes in reality, fairy tales deal with them separately. Only rarely does this happen suddenly; more often it is a long process of evolution which leads to the recognition that sex can seem very different from the way we have viewed it before. So there are some fairy tales which familiarize us with the sudden shock of happy recognition, while others convey that a long struggle is necessary to reach the point where this unexpected revelation can take place.
In many fairy tales the intrepid hero slays dragons, battles giants and monsters, witches and sorcerers. Eventually the intelligent child begins to wonder what these heroes are out to prove. If they have no feelings for their own security, how can they offer it to the maiden they rescue? What have they done with their natural feelings of anxiety and why? Knowing his own fear and trembling, but also how often he tries to deny them, the child concludes that for some reason these heroes need to convince everybody—including themselves—that they are free of anxiety.
Oedipal fantasies of glory are given body in tales where the heroes slay dragons and rescue maidens. But these stories are simultaneously denials of oedipal anxieties, very much including sexual ones. By repressing all feelings of anxiety so that they appear absolutely fearless, these heroes protect themselves from discovering exactly what they are anxious about. Sometimes sexual anxieties surface behind fantasies of outlandish courage: after the dauntless hero has won the princess, he avoids her, as if his courage would enable him to do battle, but not to love. In one such story, the Brothers Grimm’s “The Raven,” the hero falls asleep on three consecutive days at the time his princess has promised to visit him. In other tales (the Brothers Grimm�
��s “The Two King’s Children,” “The Drummer”) the hero lies fast asleep all night while his beloved calls for him at the threshold of his bedroom, awakening only at the third try. In “Jack and His Bargains” one interpretation of Jack’s lying stock still in bed beside his bride was offered; and on another level Jack’s not moving toward the princess symbolizes his sexual anxiety. What looks like an absence of feelings is actually the void left by their repression, and this repression must be undone before marital bliss, requiring sexual happiness, becomes possible.
“THE FAIRY TALE OF ONE
WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN FEAR”
There are fairy tales which tell about the need to be able to feel fear. A hero may survive hair-raising adventures without any anxiety, but he can find satisfaction in life only after the ability to feel fear is restored to him. In a few fairy stories the hero recognizes this lack of fear as a deficiency in the beginning. This is the case with the Brothers Grimm’s story “The Fairy Tale of One Who Went Forth to Learn Fear.” When challenged by his father to make something of himself, the hero replies, “I’d like to learn shuddering; that is something I don’t comprehend at all.” In order to do this, the hero exposes himself to terrifying adventures, but he fails to feel anything. With superhuman strength and with what would be superhuman courage if he felt fear, the hero then disenchants a king’s castle. The king tells him that as reward he will get to marry the king’s daughter. “ ‘That’s all very fine,’ the hero replied, ‘but I still do not know what it means to shudder.’ ” This answer implies a recognition that as long as he is unable to feel fear, the hero is not ready to marry. This is further emphasized by the story’s telling that, fond though the hero was of his wife, he continued to say, “If I only could shudder.” He finally learns how to shudder in his marital bed. His wife teaches him one night when she pulls off his covers and pours a pail of cold water full of gudgeons (little fish like minnows) over him. As the little fish wriggle all over him, he cries, “Oh, how I shudder, dear wife. Yes, now I know what it is to shudder!”
The Uses of Enchantment Page 38