Rapunzel Interpretation

It is helpful in all fairy tales to look at the way the story is structured. Who are the characters at the beginning and who is there at the end. The story opens with a man and a woman who have no child. The story ends with Rapunzel and the Prince and a boy and a girl. The opening suggests a sterility; the ending suggests a balance. Most tales can be considered in terms of four elements at the beginning and the ending. Missing parts may suggest a lack.

The middle of this story is made up of a series of pairs of relationships: the enchantress and Rapunzel is first; Rapunzel and the prince is second and the prince and the enchantress is third. This middle section is completed with Rapunzel being far away and the blind prince seeking her on his own.

Another key to interpretation is the various pictures the story conveys. The man and woman can see the rampion plants but the man has to climb into the walled garden to obtain (steal) them. Rapunzel, who grew into the most beautiful child beneath the sun, is kept in a tower from the age of 12. Rapunzel has hair of spun gold twenty ells long when unbraided. Dame Gothel can climb this hair to reach Rapunzel’s window. The King’s son also climbs the hair. He visits in the evening. The enchantress visits by day. When Rapunzel tells the enchantress discovers his visits, she cuts off her hair, places her in a desert and causes the prince to be blinded. Rapunzel gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The tears of Rapunzel restore the prince’s vision.

Each of these pictures can be pondered. Each can be considered to mark a stage in consciousness.

Rampion produces green leaves and pretty blue flowers. Its root is edible raw and cooked. In folklore it is said to lead to quarrels amongst children who eat it and is associated with funerals. One Italian tale has it that a girl pulling up a Rampion found a staircase to the underworld.

Rapunzel’s mother desires rampion so much she requires that her husband steal it. His entry to the walled garden to gain a root vegetable suggests the involvement of the soul or consciousness in a body and manifestation. The divine gift (the baby) falls prey therefore to the enchantress who rules the garden.

The great educationalist Piaget, suggested that children do not have the capacity to reason effectively until the age of 11 or 12. This also is a time when puberty can start. The child’s consciousness becomes bound more with material realm and natural faith in things spiritual may fade. But Rapunzel still has hair of spun gold. Essentially she has not lost touch with her spiritual nature. In day time (ordinary consciousness) this is under the control of the enchantress, or the forces of nature and material existence. It is in the evening that the king’s son is able to visit. We may assume he spends the night.

The soul does not entirely lose touch with its source but tends to be enchanted by the natural world during the day, seeing the things of nature as real but heavy. The evening visits of the prince are light but do not yet deliver the ladder by which the entrapped soul may escape the tower. The soul is in touch with its primal inner wisdom but cannot use it effectively

Eventually nature and materiality blind the prince and confine the soul to a desert existence. The prince has to proceed as though blind and wanders for years. Contact with the soul has been lost. The self is as though blind. It gets by on roots and berries.

Eventually, through rediscovering the soul spiritual vision is restored. The journey has to be undertaken in faith but is rewarded with the creativity and fecundity implied by the twin children.