Critical Application of Psychoanalytical Theory on the Children Literature ‘Rapunzel’

Abstract

The study has discussed the key ideas of Freud’s theory of dream work and psychoanalysis on the fairy tale Rapunzel written by Grimm brothers. The character of husband, wife and witch shows the Freud’s theory of id, ego and super-ego. Rapunzel reflects the psychosexual development theory of Freud, as Rapunzel is a girl who spend her life in a tower, which has no door, and windows in it. She does not touch ground or green grass in her lifetime. She lacks relationships all her life. When she met a prince, she was terrified at first because she never met any human in her life except her mother, but she drawn towards him because of her basic needs. The careful examination of the linguistic and visual text of the data indicates that Rapunzel is perfect example of the Freud’s psychosexual development in all his theoretical concepts. The investigative framework adopted for this study was case based exploratory research in which data was collected analysed and interpreted qualitatively. The sampling strategy drawn for this study was typical and critical case sampling technique.