psychological criticsm of Rapunzel story

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Sigmund Freud is the author of the structural model of personality. In this theory, Freud explains that each person’s personality is formed of three parts: the Ego, the Superego and the Id. Psychoanalysis is the process of using what we know about these three parts of someone’s personality to analyze the ways that person’s behavior.

Literary critics sometimes analyze the actions of literary characters using the three personality structures that Freud identified. As critics explore the ego, superego, and id of characters in a work, they focus on the ways that these parts of the characters’ personalities influence the work as a whole. This process is called psychoanalytic criticism.The id is sometimes represented by a devil sitting on someone’s shoulder. As this devil sits there, he tells the ego to base behavior on how the action will influence the self, specifically how it will bring the self pleasure,superego is the part of the personality that represents the conscience, the moral part of us. The superego develops due to the moral and ethical restraints placed on us by our caregivers,and ego is the part of the personality that maintains a balance between our impulses (our id) and our conscience (our superego). The ego is based on the reality principle. The ego understands that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes being impulsive or selfish can hurt us in the end.in literary criticsm also has feminism criticsm.Feminist literary critics try to explain how power imbalances due to gender in a given culture are reflected in or challenged by literary text (Guerin 196).this study is  to describe characters of actor or artist in this fairytale,and to explain how feminime gender in this fairytale who written by Grimm Brothers.this fairytale tells about a woman who has a long hair,and she keeps by enchanter in a tower that have not window,door,and stairs since 18^th years.so that,we will analyzed the characterization of artist in this fairytale.

Brothers Grimm biography

The Brothers Grimm were born in Hanau, Germany. Jacob was born on the 4th of January 1785 and Wilhelm - on the 24th of February 1786. From early youth, until their death, the brothers were very close friends, always complementing each other.

Their father, Philipp Wilhelm Grimm (1752 - 1796), was a lawyer. After his passing, the Brothers Grimm were able to finish their education only thanks to the generosity of their aunt. The Brothers Grimm showed their brilliant abilities while they were still young. After a graduation at the Kassel School, the Grimms continued their education at Marburg University, with the firm intention to become lawyers, following the example of their father. They listened to lectures at the Law School, studied legal science, but their natural inclinations led them in a completely different direction - the study of German and foreign literature. In 1803 the famous romantic Ludwig Tieck issued his "Minnelieder aus der schwabischen Vorzeit". In the preface he strongly urged to study the native cultural heritage. Under his influence, soon after graduating, Brothers Grimm decided to inspect the manuscripts with ancient German literature and continued their research in this area until the end of their life.

In 1805 Jacob Grimm went to Paris to do scientific work. The Brothers, accustomed to always live and work together found their parting difficult and decided never to be separated again.

Between 1805 - 1809 Jakob Grimm was a librarian to Jerome Bonaparte in Vilhelmsheg. After the war with France, Jakob Grimm received a task from the Elector of Kassel - to go to Paris and return to Kassel Library manuscripts which were stolen from the French.

In 1815, together with a representative of Kassel, Jacob Grimm was sent to the Congress of Vienna. He looked down upon a prosperous political career - all business matters were an obstacle to his scientific pursuits. Jacob left the service in 1816, refusing a proposed professorship in Bonn, along with a high salary, and became librarian in Kassel, where his brother worked since 1814. The Grimm Brothers kept their humble position, devoting themselves to their research. In 1825 Wilhelm Grimm married, but the brothers still continued to live and work together.

In 1829 there was an opening for the director's position at the Library of Kaseel. The position should have been awarded by Jacob Grimm, but another person, one without any merit, was preferred. Brothers Grimm felt so outraged by this injustice that left. Of course, they did not stay without a job - their scientific works were already too well-known. In 1830 Jacob Grimm was invited to Göttingen, became a professor of German literature and a senior librarian in the Göttingen University. Wilhelm received a junior librarians position in 1831 and was awarded the title of supernumerary, and later in 1835 - a full-time professor. There the brothers worked with a group of progressive scholars, especially Germany's science luminaries. But their stay in Göttingen was short.

The new King of Hanover, who came to the throne in 1837, decided to remove the constitution granted to Hanover by his predecessor with a single scratch. Of course, discontent swept through the country, but only seven scholars had enough courage to openly protest. The Brothers Grimm were among these seven brave men. King Ernst August immediately responded to this protest with the dismissal of the seven professors and drove away those who were not born in Hanover. Within three days the Brothers Grimm had to leave town and temporarily settled in Kassel.

Public opinion in Germany supported the famous scientists: a petition in favor if the Grimms was opened and the two most famous publishers in Germany, Reymer and Girtsel, offered to publish a German dictionary compiled on a broad scientific basis. Brothers Grimm accepted this suggestion without hesitation and after quite a long preparation they started to work. But they did not have to stay in Kassel for long - their friends helped them. Their new patron was Crown Prince Frederick Wilhelm of Prussia. When in 1840 he came to the throne, the Brothers Grimm were called in Berlin immediately. They were elected to the Berlin Academy of Sciences, and as academics have been granted the right to read lectures at Berlin University. Soon after Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm began to read lectures at the university and lived in Berlin until their death. Wilhelm died on the 16th of December 1859 and Jacob followed him on on the 20th of September 1863.

CHAPTER 2

DISCUSSION

RAPUNZEL

There once lived a man and a woman who always wished for a child, but could not have one.  These people had a little window at the back of their house from which a splendid garden could be seen.  The garden was full of the most beautiful flowers and herbs.  It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no one dared to go into it because it belonged to an witch, who had great power and was feared by all the world.

One day the woman was standing by the window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a bed which was planted with the most tasty rapunzel.  It looked so fresh and green that she longed for it and had the greatest desire to eat some.  This desire increased every day.  The woman knew that she could not get any of it and grew more pale and miserable each day.

Her husband was worried about her and asked “What is wrong my dear?”

“Ah,” she replied, “if I can’t eat some of the rapunzel from the garden behind our house I think I shall die.”

The man, who loved her, thought, “Sooner than let my lovely wife die, I will bring her some of the rapunzel myself, no matter what the cost.”

In the twilight of the evening, he climbed over the wall into the garden of the witch, hastily grabbed a handful of rapunzel and took it to his wife.  She at once made herself a salad and ate it happily.  She, however, liked it so much — so very much, that the next day she longed for it three times as much as before.  If he was to have any rest, her husband must once more descend into the garden.  In the gloom of evening, therefore, he set out again; but when he had climbed over the wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the witch standing before him.

“How dare you,” she said with angry look, “sneak into my garden and steal my rapunzel like a thief?  You shall suffer for this!”

“Ah,” the frightened husband answered, “please have mercy, I had to have the rapunzel.  My wife saw it from the window and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she had not got some to eat.”

Then the witch allowed her anger to be softened, and said to him, “If this is true, I will allow you to take as much as you like, only I make one condition.  You must give me the baby daughter your wife will bring into the world; she shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a mother.”  The man in his fear consented and when the baby was born the witch appeared at once, gave the child the name of Rapunzel and took the baby away with her.

Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child beneath the sun.  When she was twelve years old, the witch shut her into a tower, which lay in a forest.  The tower had no stairs or doors, but only a little window at the very top. When the witch wanted to go in, she stood beneath the window and cried,

“Rapunzel,Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”

Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she heard the voice of the witch she wound her braids round one of the hooks of the window, and then the hair fell down the side of the tower and the witch climbed up by it.

After a year or two, it came to pass that the Prince rode through the forest and went by the tower.  He heard a song which was so lovely that he stood still and listened.  This was Rapunzel who in her loneliness passed her time singing.  The Prince wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, but none was to be found.  He rode home, but the singing had so deeply touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and listened to it.

Once when he was standing behind a tree listening to Rapunzel’s song, he saw the witch come and heard how she cried,

“Rapunzel,Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”

Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the witch climbed up to her.

“If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I will for once try my fortune,” thought the Prince and the next day when it began to grow dark, he went to the tower and cried,

“Rapunzel,Rapunzel,
Let down your hair.”

Immediately the hair fell down and the Prince climbed up.

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man such as her eyes had never seen, came to her; but the Prince began to talk to her quite like a friend and told her that his heart had been so stirred by her singing that it had let him have no rest.  Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take him for her husband — and she saw that he was kind and handsome, she said yes, and laid her hand in his.

She said, “I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get down.  Bring a bit of silk with you every time you come and I will weave a ladder with it.  When that is ready I will climb down and we shall escape together.”  They agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came by day.

The witch knew nothing of this, until once Rapunzel said in her distraction, “Oh my, you are so much heavier when you climb than the young Prince.”

“Ah! you wicked child,” cried the witch “What do I hear thee say! I thought I had separated you from all the world but you have deceived me.”

In her anger she clutched Rapunzel’s beautiful hair, seized a pair of scissors — and snip, snap — cut it all off.  Rapunzel’s lovely braids lay on the ground but the witch was not through.  She was so angry that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great grief and misery.

The witch rushed back to the tower and fastened the braids of hair which she had cut off, to the hook of the window, and when the Prince came and cried,

“Rapunzel,Rapunzel,
Let down your hair,”

she let the hair down. The Prince climbed to the window, but he did not find his dearest Rapunzel above, but the witch, who gazed at him with a wicked and venomous look.

“Aha!” she cried mockingly, “You’ve come for Rapunzel but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; the cat has got it and will scratch out your eyes as well.  Rapunzel is banished and you will never see her again!”

  The Prince was beside himself and in his despair he fell down from the tower.  He escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his eyes.  Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but roots and berries and did nothing but weep over the loss of his dearest Rapunzel.

   In this way, the Prince roamed in misery for some months and at length came to the desert where the witch had banished Rapunzel.  He heard a voice singing and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it.  When he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell into his arms and wept.

  Two of her tears fell on his eyes and the Prince could see again.  He led her to his kingdom where he was joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and contented.

A.    ANALYZE

Grimm brothers describes psychological of the woman or man in this story by means of their attitude,feeling,situation,place,and so on.we are try to classyfy the characteristic of theme.

Ø  The words of “grew more pale and miserable each day”the writers represent it is a greaest desire from the woman.

Ø  “great power and feared” the writer represents it as someone who has grandeur overbearingly the world.

Ø  stood beneath the window and cried,the writer represents it as the women who live in loneliness,and sadness in  a tower.

Ø  “clutched Rapunzel’s beautiful hair” the writer represents it as expression anger   of witch to rapunzel.