The Uses of Enchantment

by Bruno Bettelheim

  The father, as in so many stories of the animal-groom cycle, is the person who brings his daughter and her future husband together in “The Frog King.” It is only because of his insistence that the happy union comes about. Parental guidance which leads to superego formation—one must keep one’s promises, ill-advised as these may have been—develops a responsible conscience. Such a conscience is necessary for a happy personal and sexual union, which without a mature conscience would be lacking in seriousness and permanence.

  But what about the frog? It, too, has to mature before union with the princess can become possible. What happens to it shows that a loving, dependent relationship to a mother figure is the precondition for becoming human. Like every child, the frog desires an entirely symbiotic existence. What child has not wished to sit on Mother’s lap, eat from her dish, drink from her glass, and has not climbed into Mother’s bed, trying to sleep there with her? But after a time the child has to be denied the symbiosis with Mother, since it would prevent him from ever becoming an individual. Much as the child wants to remain in bed with Mother, she has to “throw” him out of it—a painful experience but inescapable if he is to gain independence. Only when forced by his parent to stop living in symbiosis does the child begin to be himself, as the frog, “thrown” out of the bed, becomes freed of bondage to an immature existence.

  The child knows that, like the frog, he had to and still has to move from a lower to a higher state of being. This process is perfectly normal, since the child’s life situation begins in a lower state, which is why there is no need to explain the hero’s lowly animal form at the beginning of the animal-groom stories. The child knows his own situation is not due to some evil deed or a nefarious power; it is the natural order of the world. The frog emerges out of life in the water, as the child does at birth. Historically, fairy tales anticipate by centuries our knowledge of embryology, which tells how the human fetus undergoes various stages of development before birth, as the frog undergoes a metamorphosis in its development.

  But why, of all animals, is the frog (or the toad, as in “The Three Feathers”) a symbol for sexual relations? For example, a frog presaged the conception of Sleeping Beauty. Compared to lions or other ferocious beasts, the frog (or the toad) does not arouse fear; it is an animal which is not at all threatening. If it is experienced in a negative way, the feeling is one of disgust, as in “The Frog King.” It is difficult to imagine a better way to convey to the child that he need not be afraid of the (to him) repugnant aspects of sex than the way it is done in this story. The story of the frog—how it behaves, what occurs to the princess in relation to it, and what finally happens to both frog and girl-confirms the appropriateness of disgust when one is not ready for sex, and prepares for its desirability when the time is ripe.

  While according to psychoanalysis our sexual drives influence our actions and behavior from the beginning of life, there is a world of difference between the way these drives manifest themselves in the child and in the adult. By using the frog as a symbol for sex, an animal that exists in one form when young—as a tadpole—and in an entirely different form when mature, the story speaks to the unconscious of the child and helps him accept the form of sexuality which is correct for his age, while also making him receptive to the idea that as he grows up, his sexuality too must, in his own best interest, undergo a metamorphosis.

  There are also other, more direct associations between sex and the frog which remain unconscious. Preconsciously the child connects the tacky, clammy sensations which frogs (or toads) evoke in him with similar feelings he attaches to the sex organs. The frog’s ability to blow itself out when excited arouses, again unconsciously, associations to the penis’ erectability.* Repulsive as the frog may be, as vividly described in “The Frog King,” the story assures us that even an animal so clammily disgusting turns into something very beautiful, provided it all happens in the right way at the right time.

  Children have a natural affinity to animals and often feel closer to them than to adults, wishing to share what seems like an animal’s easy life of instinctual freedom and enjoyment. But with this affinity also comes the child’s anxiety that he might not be quite as human as he ought to be. These fairy tales counteract this fear, by making the animal existence a chrysalis from which a most attractive person emerges.

  Viewing sexual aspects of ourselves as animal-like has extremely pernicious consequences, so much so that some people can never free their own—or others’—sexual experiences of this connotation. Therefore it must be conveyed to children that sex may seem disgustingly animal-like at first, but that once the right way is found to approach it, beauty will emerge from behind this repulsive appearance. Here the fairy tale, without ever mentioning or alluding to sexual experiences as such, is psychologically sounder than much of our conscious sex education. Modern sex education tries to teach that sex is normal, enjoyable, even beautiful, and certainly necessary for the survival of man. But since it does not start from an understanding that the child may find sex disgusting, and that this viewpoint has an important protective function for the child, modern sex education fails to carry conviction for him. The fairy tale, by agreeing with the child that the frog (or whatever other animal it may be) is disgusting, gains the child’s confidence and thus can create in him the firm belief that, as the fairy tale tells, in due time this disgusting frog will reveal itself as life’s most charming companion. And this message is delivered without ever directly mentioning anything sexual.

  “CUPID AND PSYCHE”

  In the best-known version of “The Frog King,” the transformation brought about by love happens in an instant of violent self-assertion, due to a revulsion which arouses the deepest feelings. Once extremely stirred up, these feelings suddenly turn in the opposite direction. Other renderings of the story tell that it takes three nights or three weeks for love to work its wonder. In many stories of the animal-groom type, the achievement of true love requires years of endless travail. Contrary to the instantaneous effects achieved in “The Frog King,” these stories warn that trying to rush things in sex and love—trying to find out in a hurry and on the sly what a person and love are all about—can have disastrous consequences.

  The Western tradition of the animal-groom stories begins with Apuleius’ story of Cupid and Psyche of the second century A.D., and he draws on even older sources.115 This story is part of a larger work, Metamorphoses, which, as its title suggests, is concerned with initiations that cause such transformations. Although in “Cupid and Psyche” Cupid is a god, the story has important features in common with the tales of the animal groom. Cupid remains invisible to Psyche. Led astray by her two evil older sisters, Psyche believes her lover—and with it sex—to be disgusting, “a huge serpent with a thousand coils.” Cupid is a deity, and Psyche becomes one; a goddess, Aphrodite, out of her jealousy of Psyche, causes all the events. Today “Cupid and Psyche” is not known as a fairy tale, only as a myth. But since it influenced many Western tales of the animal-groom cycle, it needs to be considered here.

  In this story a king has three daughters. Psyche, the youngest, is of such extraordinary beauty that she arouses Aphrodite’s jealousy, so Aphrodite orders her son Eros to punish Psyche by making her fall in love with the most abominable of men. Psyche’s parents, worried because she has not yet found a husband, consult the oracle of Apollo. The oracle says that Psyche must be set out on a high cliff to become the prey of a snakelike monster. Since this is tantamount to death, she is led to the assigned place in a funeral procession, ready to die. But a soft wind carries Psyche gently down the cliff and deposits her in an empty palace where all her wishes are fulfilled. There Eros, going against his mother’s orders, keeps Psyche hidden away as his beloved. In the darkness of the night, in the disguise of a mysterious being, Eros joins Psyche in bed as her husband.

  Despite all the comfort Psyche enjoys, she feels lonely during the day; moved by her entreaties, Eros arranges for her jealous sisters to visit Psyche.
Out of their vile envy, the sisters persuade her that what she cohabits with and is pregnant by is “a huge serpent with a thousand coils,” which, after all, is what the oracle seemed to predict. The sisters talk Psyche into cutting off the monster’s head with a knife. Persuaded by them, against his orders never to try to see him, while Eros is asleep Psyche takes an oil lamp and a knife, planning to kill the beast. As light falls on Eros, Psyche discovers that he is a most beautiful youth. In her turmoil, Psyche’s hand shakes, and a drop of hot oil scalds Eros; he awakes and departs. Heartbroken, Psyche tries to commit suicide, but is saved. Pursued by Aphrodite’s anger and jealousy, Psyche has to suffer a series of terrible ordeals, including a descent into the underworld. (The evil sisters try to replace Psyche in the love of Eros and, hoping also to be wafted down by gentle winds, jump off the cliff and fall to their death.) Finally Eros, his wound healed, touched by Psyche’s repentance, persuades Zeus to confer immortality on her. They get married on Olympus, and the child born to them is Pleasure.

  Eros’ arrows arouse uncontrollable sexual desires. Apuleius’ tale uses his Latin name, Cupid, but in regard to sexual desires they stand for the same thing. Psyche is the Greek term for soul. In “Cupid and Psyche” the neo-Platonist Apuleius turned what was probably an ancient Greek tale of a beautiful girl who was married to a snakelike monster into an allegory which, according to Robert Graves, symbolizes the progress of the rational soul toward intellectual love.116 This is true, but this interpretation fails to do full justice to the richness of the story.

  To begin with, the prediction that Psyche will be carried off by a horrible snake gives visual expression to the inexperienced girl’s formless sexual anxieties. The funeral procession which leads Psyche to her destiny suggests the death of maidenhood, a loss not easily accepted. The readiness with which Psyche permits herself to be persuaded to kill Eros, with whom she cohabits, indicates the strong negative feelings which a young girl may harbor against him who has robbed her of her virginity. The being who has killed the innocent maiden in her deserves to some measure to be deprived of his virility—as she was of her virginity—and this is symbolized by Psyche’s plan to cut off Eros’ head.

  Psyche’s pleasant although boring life in the palace where she was deposited by the wind and where all her wishes are fulfilled suggests an essentially narcissistic life, and that, despite her name, consciousness has not yet entered her existence. Naïve sexual enjoyment is very different from mature love based on knowledge, experience, even suffering. Wisdom, the story tells, is not won by a life of easy pleasure. Psyche tries to reach for knowledge when—contrary to the warning she was given—she lets light fall on Eros. But the story warns that trying to reach for consciousness before one is mature enough for it or through short-cuts has far-reaching consequences; consciousness cannot be gained in one fell swoop. In desiring mature consciousness, one puts one’s life on the line, as Psyche does when she tries to kill herself in desperation. The incredible hardships Psyche has to endure suggest the difficulties man encounters when the highest psychic qualities (Psyche) are to be wedded to sexuality (Eros). Not physical man, but spiritual man must be reborn to become ready for the marriage of sexuality with wisdom. This is represented by Psyche having to enter the underworld and return from it; wedding of the two aspects of man requires a rebirth.

  One of the many meaningful details of this story might be mentioned here. Aphrodite does not just order her son to do her dirty work for her, she seduces him sexually to do so. And her jealousy reaches the highest pitch when she learns that Eros has not only gone against her wishes but—worse—has fallen in love with Psyche. The gods, the story tells, are not free of oedipal problems either; here is the oedipal love and possessive jealousy of a mother for her son. But Eros too has to grow if he is to become wedded to Psyche. Before he meets her, he is the most irrepressible and irresponsible of little gods. He strives for his independence when he goes against Aphrodite’s orders. He reaches a higher state of consciousness only after he has been wounded by Psyche, and is moved by her ordeals.

  “Cupid and Psyche” is a myth, not a fairy tale, although it contains some fairy-tale-like features. Of the two main figures, one is a god to begin with and the other becomes immortal, as no fairy-tale figure ever does. All through the story, gods take a hand in events, whether Psyche’s suicide is prevented, ordeals are imposed on her, or she is given help in surviving them successfully. Unlike his counterparts in other animal-groom or animal-bride stories, Cupid is never anything but himself. Only Psyche, misguided by the oracle and her evil sisters—or her sexual anxiety—imagines him to be a beast.

  However, this myth has influenced all later stories of the animal-groom type in the Western world. We encounter here for the first time the motif of two older sisters who are evil due to their jealousy of their youngest sister, who is more beautiful and virtuous than they. The sisters try to destroy Psyche, who nevertheless is victorious in the end, but only after she has undergone great hardships. Further, the tragic developments are the consequence of a bride who, ignoring her husband’s warning not to try to gain knowledge of him (not to look at him, not to permit light to fall on him), acts contrary to his orders and then must wander all over the world to regain him.

  More important even than these motifs is one very significant feature of the animal-groom cycle which appears here for the first time: the groom is absent during the day and present only in the darkness of night; he is believed to be animal during the day and to become human only in bed; in short, he keeps his day and night existences separate from each other. From what happens in the story it is not difficult to conclude that he wishes to keep his sex life separated from all else he is doing. The female, despite the ease and pleasure she enjoys, finds her life empty: she is unwilling to accept the separation and isolation of purely sexual aspects of life from the rest of it. She tries to force their unification. Little does she know that this can be achieved only through the hardest, most sustained moral and physical efforts. But once Psyche embarks on trying to wed the aspects of sex, love, and life into a unity, she does not falter, and in the end she wins.

  If this were not a most ancient tale, one could be tempted to think that one of the messages inherent in fairy tales of this cycle is a most timely one: Despite all warnings about the dire consequences if she tries to find out, woman is not satisfied with remaining ignorant about sex and life. Comfortable as an existence in relative naïveté may be, it is an empty life which must not be accepted. Notwithstanding all the hardships woman has to suffer to be reborn to full consciousness and humanity, the stories leave no doubt that this is what she must do. Otherwise there would be no story: no fairy story worth telling, no worthwhile story to her life.

  Once woman has overcome her view of sex as something beastly, she is not satisfied with being kept merely as a sex object or relegated to a life of leisure and relative ignorance. For the happiness of both partners they must have a full life in the world, and with each other as equals. That, these stories convey, is most difficult to achieve for both, but it cannot be avoided if they wish to find happiness in life, and with each other. This is the hidden message of many tales of the animal-groom cycle, and it can be seen more clearly from some other stories than from “Beauty and the Beast.”

  “THE ENCHANTED PIG”

  “The Enchanted Pig” is a presently little-known Romanian fairy tale.117 In it, a king has three daughters. The king must leave for war, so he entreats his daughters to behave well and look after everything in the house, warning them not to enter one back room, else harm will befall them. After his departure, for a while all goes well, but finally the eldest daughter suggests that they enter the forbidden room. The youngest daughter objects, but the second joins the oldest, who unlocks and opens the door. All they find in the room is a large table with an open book on it. First the eldest daughter reads what is written in the book: she will marry a prince from the East. The second turns the page and reads that she will marry
a prince from the West. The youngest does not want to go against her father’s order to find out her fate, but the other two force her; she learns that she will be married to a pig from the North.

  The king returns, and eventually the two older sisters get married as predicted. Then an enormous pig comes from the North and asks to marry the youngest daughter. The king has to give in to the pig’s wishes and advises his daughter to accept what is ordained, which she does. After the wedding, on their way home the pig gets into a bog and covers himself with mud. He then asks his wife to kiss him; obeying her father, the girl does so, after having wiped the pig’s snout with her handkerchief. During their nights together she notices that in bed the pig changes into a man, but in the morning he is again a pig.

  The girl asks a witch who happens to come by how to keep her husband from turning back into a pig. She is told to fasten a thread around her husband’s leg at night; this will prevent him from becoming a pig again. She follows this recommendation, but her husband awakens and tells her that because she has tried to hurry things, he must leave her and that they shall not meet again “until you have worn out three pairs of iron shoes and blunted a steel staff in your search of me.” He disappears, and her endless wanderings in search of him take her to the moon, the sun, and the wind. In each of these places she is given a chicken to eat and warned to save its bones; she is also told where to go from there. Finally, after she has worn out three pairs of iron shoes and even her steel staff has become blunted, she comes to a place high up, where she is told her husband dwells. She is helpless to get up there, until it occurs to her that the chicken bones she has carried faithfully might help. She puts one bone next to another, and they stick together. In this way the girl forms two long poles, and then constructs a ladder, on which she climbs up toward the high place. But she lacks a bone for the last rung, so she takes a knife and chops off her little finger, which, as the last step, permits her to reach her husband. In the meantime the spell of her husband’s existence as a pig has ended. They inherit her father’s kingdom, and “ruled as only kings rule who have suffered many things.”