The Princess and the Pea
"The Princess and the Pea"
(Danish: "Prinsessen
paa Ærten"; literal translation: "The
Princess on the Pea") is a literary fairy tale by Hans
Christian Anderson about a young woman whose royal
identity is established by a test of her sensitivity. The tale was first published
with three others by Andersen in an inexpensive booklet on 8 May 1835 in
Copenhagen by C. A. Reitzel.
(ref 62)
There are several versions of the
oral tradition of this story, one of which dates to the 11th Century
in India when a Prince undergoes the test on a straw mattress.
There is dispute as to whether there
was an oral tradition of folk tales (63) but Jungian analysts believe that they
contain deep truths about the psyche.
“Fairy
tales are the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious
processes... They represent the archetypes in their simplest, barest, and most
concise form ... [and] afford us the best clues to the understanding of the
processes going on in the collective psyche.” — Marie-Louise von Franz
(63)
As an explanation of what
Carl Jung term, the Self means:
Self. The archetype of wholeness and the regulating centre of
the psyche; a transpersonal power
that transcends the ego. (63a)
To
consider the story of the Princess and the Pea in this regard is to look at the
relationships between the characters. The Prince wants to unite with a bedraggled
girl who might be his equal. The girl represents his shadow side that he has
the desire to unify and psychologically become whole with his
consciousness. The parent, mother in
this case devises a test. The Prince as
yet has not separated from the mother.
In Freudian terms, he is still inveigled in the Oedipus situation. The
girl passes the test (which is improbable in reality.) Is she proving nobility? This is largely
discounted. Or is she the shadow side of the prince that will bring him to wholeness
and that he subconsciously wants to acknowledge.
The
test allows them to marry and unite. The marriage does not represent a romantic
notion but a psychological message of a spiritual nature. The Animus and the
Anima unite. The prince is the animus and the girl the anima, the two major
archetypes in Jungian theory.
In this image the top represents the journey of the anima and the animus. The bottom right is the test of the bed mattresses and the pea and the left image represents the marriage and spiritual union of the couple. I have used Asian imagery to show that the earliest reference to this story was in India. In India the bridegroom journeys to the wedding on a white horse. There are references to India in the bedstead and the anklet on the girl’s foot as she lies awake. The three are united in a stained-glass window to show a spiritual unification. I have used acrylic and collage.
