MAS230

Essay 2:
Question 2: Psychoanalysis of Rapunzel

A psychoanalysis of Rapunzel uncovers a great amount of latent-content and subconscious

sexual desire within the traditional narrative which manifests itself symbolically. The title

character Rapunzel becomes a re-occurring symbol for unfulfilled sexual desire. Rapunzel is

consistently captured and re-captured throughout the narrative as each supportive character

attempts to expel their latent sexual drives by yielding their control over her. This control

slowly becomes unveiled as a fixation as a result of the characters’ internal conflict between

their unsatisfied id and overruling super ego. Thus, the conformity of the ego amongst the

characters of the narrative to socially acceptable displacements of unconscious desires is not

only a fulfilment of social convention but also a result of the manifest content from the

writer’s strictly structured narrative conventions.

As early as the precursor to Rapunzel’s conception, the latent drives to fulfil sexual desire

become embedded into her character. The man and woman ‘long for a child in vain,’denoting

their unsatisfied latent desires (Freud, 1986:88). These desires are not satisfied until the

woman’s husband descends into the garden bed of beautiful flowers where he finds a

rampion, from which Rapunzel later receives her name. The garden bed (and consequently

Rapunzel) becomes objects of displaced sexual desires for the man and woman who cannot

fulfil each other’s sexual desires. As a result, the woman resorts to displacing her desire by

‘greedily’ consuming the rampion of the enchantress’s in excess in order to gratify her

unconscious sexual drive through which her husband cannot. Consequently, this defence

mechanism works to resolve the conflict between the id and the ego resulting in the

regression of the wife to the oral stage where her desires can be easily pacified through the

oral fixation of consuming the rampion. (Blocker, 2000:189)

Mario Brce
MAS230

As a result, the wall to the enchantress’s garden becomes a symbolic manifestation of the

anxiety the couple suffer when they are not able to fulfil each other’s sexual desires. The

“high” wall is gazed over by the wife in envy for the neighbouring garden. At the same time

the husband must struggle to overcome the wall in order to reach the rampions. Thus, the wall

symbolises the couple’s mutual unconscious conflict with the id and super ego to fulfil their

sexual desires while they seem to have no garden. The wife’s claim that she ‘shall die’ if she

does not have some of the rampion from the neighbouring garden works as an additional

condensation of the latent lack of sexual drive between the couple.

Similarly, the husband who is unable to tame his sexual desires with his wife invades the

garden of the enchantress which acts as a symbolic space for the enchantress’s sexuality.

However, his invasion of the enchantress’s is symbolic of his latent sexual desire and works

as the sublimation of underlying sexual relations between the husband and enchantress. Here

he attempts to fulfil the desires he cannot fulfil with his wife. Considering this, many aspects

of Rapunzel’s conception become entirely condensed, nevertheless Rapunzel becomes the

product of the husband’s reinvigorated libido through the desires he successfully satisfies

with the enchantress. Thus, the enchantress’s claim to the child becomes not only a claim for

the child but the sexual reinvigoration and fulfilment she has served to both the husband and

wife. Through this process Rapunzel is born and becomes a sustained symbol for unfulfilled

sexual desire through the rest of the narrative.

Consequently, as Rapunzel grows up she assumes a symbolic role as the object of sexual

desire. The enchantress’s placement of her in an isolated tower acts as a phallic symbol object

representing the repressed sexual aversions the enchantress develops in response to the

previous invasions of the husband. Notably, she does not do this while Rapunzel is younger

but rather at the age of twelve closer to puberty. In an effort to repress her experience with

the father and satisfy her own sexual drives, the enchantress mounts Rapunzel’s hair and

Mario Brce
MAS230

climbs the tower after crying, “let down your hair to me”. In doing show, Rapunzel and her

hair becomes a displaced alternate object for the father’s sexuality synonymous with the

phallic symbolism of the tower through which the enchantress can repress her previous

encounters and satisfy her unconscious latent desires whenever she wishes (Freud, 1986:101).

Thus, Rapunzel’s long braids become a symbolic substitute for her sexuality which develops

beyond her own sexual maturation. Rapunzel herself cannot pass through the normal stages

of infantile sexuality as she has become entirely removed from her parents. Ergo, the

transition through the phallic and oedipal stages become entirely stagnated (Freud, 1987:44).

Instead, the narrative substitutes her underlying underdeveloped sexuality with her long

braids which act as a symbol for her latent sexuality. It is not until the prince is introduced

that her drives and desires mature to that of a woman.

As a result, the king’s son (or prince), arrives at the tower seeking to satisfy his own desires

in a similar way to the enchantress. When he witnesses the enchantress climbing the braids of

the hair he pursues to satisfy his sexual desire for Rapunzel by climbing her braids in the

same way. However, due to Rapunzel’s stagnated sexual development she is afraid of him at

first and remains unmoved as her sexual desires have not yet matured and lie underdeveloped

within the earlier stages of sexuality (Idema, 1990:28). Instead she instructs the prince to

bring her silk every time he visits through which she constructs a ladder of silk and liberates

herself from the tower. In doing so her ego substitutes her foregone sexuality for the mutual

object of desire she develops synonymously with the prince manifested as the silk ladder.

Accordingly, when the enchantress returns to the tower and discovers the prince has been

visiting Rapunzel she destroys Rapunzel’s symbolic sexuality by cutting off her hair. The

prince’s mounting of Rapunzel’s hair mimics the previously repressed sexual invasion of the

enchantress by the husband and consequently spurs the enchantress’s ego back into conflict.

Mario Brce
MAS230

As the enchantress utilises Rapunzel’s hair and the tower as a phallic substitute, she responds

to this threat through a ritual of castration which manifests itself as the cutting of Rapunzel’s

braids and the banishment of Rapunzel to the desert. In doing so, the enchantress disarms the

threat of her unconscious conflict with the id but in doing so also eliminates the ability to

satisfy any latent desire for herself or in the scope of the rest of the narrative. As a result, the

author immediately eliminates her from the story after her character becomes defunct and

unable to play off the central object of desire (Rapunzel).

However Rapunzel’s exile in grievance allows her to mature through the phallic and oedipal

stages as she comes to terms with her lack of phallus. With the symbols of the phallus

previously manifested in the tower and her hair finally removed, Rapunzel’s sexual

stagnation concludes. Instead, she is finally given the opportunity to mature through the later

stages of sexuality during her isolation where she secures her love for the prince. Only after

this latent process of grievance is does the narrative allow Rapunzel to suddenly become a

mother.

Simultaneously, the blinding of the prince prevents him from seeing anyone else as an object

of sexual desire, marking his journey through the forest as a regression into the oral stage.

During his journey through the forests, his loss is remedied by being comforted through an

oral fixation on berries in the forest. Consequently, his desire for Rapunzel is sublimated into

the primordial desire for food and allows his fixation for Rapunzel to survive through the

years in the forest and desert. This process is not reversed in the narrative until they are

reunited.

Inversely, when the prince finally reaches Rapunzel she takes begins to mother him in the

final passages. The prince having ‘fell on his neck and wept’ lets her tend to him and ‘wet his

eyes with her tears’. With this his vision is suddenly restored re-awakening the latent id from

Mario Brce
MAS230

the oral stage and again allowing him to see her as an object of sexual desire. In totality, the

final passage is required not only to satisfy the ending of the narrative but to fulfil the

prince’s oedipal complex which finally secures his love for Rapunzel. This allows them to

live ‘joyfully’ and ‘contented’ with the fairytale ending being completed after having the

characters satisfy all latent desires found within the text.

In conclusion, the latent content found in the story of Rapunzel revolves around the central

notion of Rapunzel being utilised as the object of unfulfilled sexual desires. This process

starts as early as the prologue to Rapunzel’s birth as her very conception becomes a product

of unfulfilled sexual desire. Amongst the characters’ unconscious drives, Rapunzel is then

transformed into a symbolic object of sexual desire which each character fights to posses.

These struggles to hold control over Rapunzel are the product of the internal conflict of the

characters in addition to becoming the unconscious psychological manifestations in the

narrative as a whole.

Mario Brce
MAS230

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blocker, D.H., 2000. The evolution of counselling psychology. New York: Springer

Publishing Company.

Freud, S., 1957. A Preface. In Benjamin, N., ed. Freud and the 20th century. Cleveland: The

World Publishing Company.

Freud, S., 1986. The Essentials of Psychoanalysis. Freud, A. ed. London: Pelican.

Idema, H., 1990. Freud, Religion and the Roaring Twenties. Maryland (US): Rowman &

Littlefield Publishers.

Grimm, Bros., 1884. Grimm's Household Tales. Translated from German by Margaret Hunt.

London: G. Bell.

Mario Brce