A Psychoanalytic Interpretation of RapunzelThe familiar story of Rapunzel, told by brothers Jacob Ludwig Carl and Wilhelm Carl Grimm, takes on new meaning with a psychoanalytic interpretation. It's a complex story about desire, success and loss. The trio of husband, wife, and witch function as the ego, id, and superego, respectively, to govern behavior regarding a beautiful object of desire, particularly when a prince discovers that object. The story begins in a rural house where a man and a woman live. without children, near a walled garden tended by a scary witch. The first line of the story tells us that they long for a child. It is clear that in this house there is an almost tangible feeling of desire to have offspring. The Freudian concept of the libido or vital force explains this desire as a product of the unconscious id (Guérin 129). To further show the predominance of the id in this house, which in itself is a symbol of the human spirit, the woman covets a vegetable, the rapunzel, which she sees in the neighboring garden from her small window overlooking the outside. "I'll die if I can't eat some of this rapunzel." (Grimm 514) The woman comes to represent this selfish element of the spirit, and this is her primary function in the story. When she speaks, both times, she only asks for something she wants. She doesn't have a name, because she doesn't function as a character in her own right. Her husband must assume the role of mediator to balance her selfish desires against the laws and morals that condemn theft. This role represents the ego, which regulates the selfish id and the strict moral superego to make a decision (Guérin 130). He decides that his wife's urgent need for Rapunzel trumps morale... middle of paper ... from the ground. These roots may very well be radishes, or rapunzels, which are his wife's namesake. Ultimately, the witch's social control balances the prince's desire for a wife. Man and woman, ego and id, living in a small house, the mind, negotiate with the witch, the superego, which is outside the house and represents the laws and rules. They produce a child who becomes a commodity, and the rest of the story is about the struggle between the superego and the id to settle ownership of that prize. Works Cited Grimm, Jacob Ludwig Carl and Wilhelm Carl. “Rapunzel.” Stories. Ed. Eric S. Rabkin. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers, 1995. 514-517. Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle Labor, Lee Morgan, Jeanne C. Reesman, and John R. Willingham. A handbook of critical approaches to literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. 125-156.