The Maiden in the Tower: A Jungian Analysis of Tangled
- Dara
- May 7, 2023
- 10 min read
Updated: Sep 24
"The spirituality of the woman must be distilled from concrete experience; it cannot be obtained directly.” – Ester Harding.
Carl Jung once said that through fairy tales and myths we can best study the comparative anatomy of the psyche. Common themes and patterns pervade through oral literary tradition. Since these themes appear so often (even across the cultures of widely separated people, bearing a striking similarity even down to the minute details) and since they repetitively resonate with the collective, it means that they play significant roles in the collective psyche and unconscious.
In this 3 part series of articles, we will explore the symbolic, psychological process of female individuation through the lenses of the archetypes illustrated throughout Disney’s adaptation of Rapunzel. ‘Tangled’ more or less mirrors the original fairy-tale by Brothers Grimm, but in need to flesh out the story for a 90-minute movie, Disney made some excellent adaptations, which will be unearthed below.
"Fairy tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes. Therefore their value for the scientific
investigation of the unconscious exceeds that of all other material. They represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest, and most concise form"
- Marie Louise von Franz, The Interpretation of Fairy Tales
The Maiden in the Tower: Backstory
There exists a beautiful baby princess. Her hair is enchanted; infused with an essence of magical sunlight droplets that contain healing powers. Wanton of the healing powers held within the princess’s locks, a witch named Mother Gothel steals her from her parents, the King and Queen, and imprisons her in a tower, supposedly providing the princess with ‘all she could possibly need'. Yet, she drains the young beauty of her own youth, ability to interact with the surrounding world, and vitality in order to supplant her powers. The princess is raised to believe that the witch is her real mother. Rapunzel frequently fantasises about leaving the tower and embracing vulnerability. But each time, the witch mother skilfully manipulates her into a stance of fear. The song "Mother Knows Best" serves to demonstrate how the witch keeps Rapunzel dependant on her by making her frightened of the outside world. When Rapunzel asks the witch if she can go outside, the witch mother tells her of lions, tigers, bears and danger, attempting to sever a deep crevice between the girl’s inner world and the material outer world. She even attempts to create an internal sever between mind and matter, warning Rapunzel she is ‘getting chubby’, disconnecting her further from her body. Ultimately, the girl who was bubbling with curiosity returns to a placid state of stagnancy, once again agreeing in submission to never, ever leave the tower.
Symbolisms:
* Note - to understand the teachings of this series, it must be understood that in Jungian Psychology, archetypes are symbolic. Jungian psychology is an astral art, and use of the imagination is a requisite: without it, we cannot connect with the subconscious. Hence, when we speak of the mother or father archetype, it does not refer to the literal parents; rather, we refer to the mother and father complexes we hold within ourselves. Likewise, if we speak of the feminine and masculine energy, it does not mean biological woman vs man - energy is subtle whereas biological sex is gross and binary - hence simplification here is innapropriate: men and women contain a blend of these energies within themselves. Hence, the salvation promised by acceptance of the psychological 'Other' - a process which we will explore later - is not reserved only to those of heterosexual orientation. *
Separation from the Parents – the destruction of the healthy anima and animus.
Throughout history, the archetypal Mother and Father have symbolised the polarity of body and spirit, moon and sun. Carl Jung expanded this symbolic landscape with two new dimensions. He described the Animus, the inner masculine principle, embodying intellect, reason, civilisation, and objectivity; and the Anima, the inner feminine principle, embodying emotion, eros, love, and subjectivity. When they are in harmony, the anima and animus act synergetically within us: the animus (inner father) helps us navigate situations that require objective rational approaches, whilst the anima (inner mother) helps us in chaotic emotional situations that call on of us to make use of intuition. In this balance, both archetypes guide and protect us. But if for any reason the mother and father within become unhealthy or distant, they may give rise to shadow forms: the nurturing Mother may become the devouring or witch-like Mother, while the guiding Father may harden into the tyrannical Father, or the 'Ghost' animus (Mary Esther Harding). In Tangled, this usurpation is symbolised when Rapunzel is kidnapped from her mother and father by a Witch named Gothel, who renames herself 'Mother Gothel'.
This process symbolises a psychological one many of us undergo, often catalysed by trauma. At first, the young girl is connected to the healthy mother and father within, and so to her own value system. But one day, through a painful experience, a severing occurs. She loses touch with these guiding archetypes, and in their place arises an intrusive voice: the witch mother. This voice whispers one motto over and over again: that the outer world is dangerous, predatory, and wicked. Through fear, the witch convinces the girl to worship risk-aversion as her god, and never to “blaspheme” it by stepping into the unknown.
In Rapunzel’s case, the witch severs her from both inner pillars. Separation from the archetypal Mother cuts her off from the divine feminine principle of Eros. Where divine emotion is substantial, bearing richness and wisdom, demonic emotion, being reactive and hollow, is substanceless. It can not exist; it only fears and reacts. Conditioned by the witch, Rapunzel learns to meet uncertainty not with curiosity but with defensive retreat. Locked away in the tower, the greatest symbol of uncertainty to her becomes Men. And so, in her psyche, the masculine principle of the animus no longer appears as a guide but as a threatening tyrant.
The Witch Archetype
Mother Gothel represents the witch archetype. The witch is one of the various ‘archetypal faces’ of the feminine. The witch represents that which is completely and totally yin, all-consuming and dark. The yin principle is receptive – it takes. But holistically, the female path also requires yangness/ giving. To understand this, consider the fact that the moon simultaneously receives light from the sun and magnetises it onto the earth. This can also be grasped via contemplation of the two primary female sexual organs – the vagina is receptive and hollow, but the breasts and clitoris are yang and active, the latter even resembling a mini penis. Archetypal ‘witches’ don’t have yang function; they are purely yin and devouring. Their breasts lack yangness and milk, so they eat babies rather than nurture them (Lilith). They are the epitome of chaos, destruction, and darkness - taking nutrients, minerals, and vitality into their soil, but never producing any fruits. Mother Gothel desperately needs Rapunzel’s purity and vitality to survive, and hence she parasitically takes this from Rapunzel, all whilst keeping Rapunzel in a state of fruitlessness, locked in the tower, cut off from life.
The witch mother is a reoccurring enemy of the budding heroine of folklore and fairtyales, seen in Cinderella, Snow White, The Little Mermaid and more. From this we can deduce that this is a reoccurring enemy in the collective psyches of women. She isn’t always an actual mother, heck, she isn’t always an actual person. For women who are truly wishing to psychologically mature, it is best to avoid fixating on an external witch mother, instead, we should evaluate the witch mother within.
The witch mother operates through the mediums of fear and illusion. First she plants fear within her victims, then she uses it to entrap them in a simulacrum of delusions. She has no real power over us; she survives by keeping victims enslaved to her (this concept will be explored further in the final part of the Rapunzel Series). She pretends to be selfless, but if the girl attempts to leave, she becomes vicious. She enslaves the girl through a series of "shoulds" and "oughts”, preventing her from exploring a full range of authentic emotions and experiences. When the girl reaches out to interact with life, she can’t help but do so through the conditioning of the Witch mother. She has been tricked into thinking that this keeps her safe from lions and tigers, but in reality, it blocks her from being able to truly experience life, to feel, live and love.
The Tower
In mythology, the tower is typically placed within the middle of deep, dense woodlands, far out from all civilisations. The tower is a stony, cold abode, which journeys far up into the skies. Towers are typically associated with an attempt to escape the mundane and reach the heavens; consider the Tower of Babel in the book of Genesis, where early humans endeavoured to reach and even equal God by building an enormous structure. The tower takes Rapunzel high into the sky, away from grounding, from reality, from earth. She is floating, and disconnected from real life’s practicalities and true essence.
Many girls report feeling ‘cut out from life’ or ‘paralysed’. They do not feel that they are truly living, rather, they are merely observing life in all her glory through a glass window, or watching life happen to others. This is a result of a repressed or downtrodden anima. At this stage, the anima remains the undefiled, pure maiden, the little girl who is utterly dependent on her mother. She is only free to live life through the corrupted lens’ of the witch, an intrusive voice full of “should’s” “ought’s” and “must’s” telling her that people (men especially) are out to destroy her, and that the world is a cruel place. Hence her fear pushes her into shutting herself off from the unknown – that is, anything which resembles the other, the opposite : this could be the macrocosm, the world around her, or the opposite gender. At this point in her life, Rapunzel has never met the ‘other’ – she is surrounded by only one woman. This woman is the witch mother, and Rapunzel’s identity up till now is wholly based upon her. What misses Rapunzel at this point, is a realisation which all girls must make before they truly become ‘mature’ women: the anima (that is, a women’s foundational essence) can only be recognised through mirrors – and the truest mirror of all is the unknown, the macrocosm, the world, the animus – the masculine prinicple. She must forsake the safety of the tower; she must sacrifice the security of remaining in the heavens. She must journey down to the earth in all its danger and interact with life, embracing vulnerability. She must learn to mourn, to suffer, and subsequently, to detach herself from all which compromises her connection to truth and love, offering it to the underworld in sacrifice.
Sometimes, a woman will convince herself that she has all she needs within her own private wonderland of education, entertainment and the likes. She busies herself with hobbies, arts and studies, and closes herself off from all extroversion. These things, hobbies, are non-sentient, and hence can not hurt her - she remains always in control, never needing to be vulnerable.
Yet still, there remains a deep inner void - she knows that she must leave the tower and relinquish its security.
This idea is portrayed through the song 'When will my life begin', which ends with Rapunzel singing, “I’ve got so many things I should be thankful for. Yes I have everything. Except a door. When will my life begin?”
In this song, Rapunzel tells us that she has all the entertainment, education, hobbies, and stimulation, she could possibly desire. She knits , bakes, plays guitar, ballet and chess, paints , and is an avid reader. Her inner world appears incredibly rich - yet, she feels discontent within.
The female path puts great emphasis on the woman's inner journey, and coming to know herself as an incarnation of the great Wisdom. Still, a significant part of the journey includes interaction with the unknown, and learning through the senses. Through the woman's relations, experiences and opinions of the world, a vibrant, vivid picture of her inner constitution is painted, finally allowing her to witness herself in her fullest glory and beauty. If you wish to accurately make honest judgement of yourself, the most lucid mirror you could choose would be your relations, interactions and opinions on all which exists outside of you. Many people are afraid of interaction because it puts one in a vulnerable position and so easily breaks illusions we have of ourselves.
The Maiden
Dwelling in the tower, or in a state of psychological virginity/maidenhood is not intrinsically ‘wrong’. Quite the opposite, for it is necessary to spend some time in this state of separation from the opposite. As Nancy Corbett writes in ‘The Sacred Prostitute’, “In order for a union to take place, two distinct opposites must exist. The masculine and feminine principles must first be differentiated”. However, at some point the maiden must realise that differentiation is an ongoing process – whilst the initiatory steps may occur in the safety of the tower, that which follows must occur in the real world, wrestling with the elements, the heroes, the villains, and all which lies in between.
“Without wrestling with this task of differentiation, we fall into formlessness and a cheap imitation of current persona roles. We miss our chance to become unique persons. Furthermore, we miss the spiritual significance of physical sexuality. If we deny sexual differences, we deny the fact of otherness that is so strikingly conveyed to all of us through sexual experience.
- The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology
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