“The Goose Girl” by the Grimm Brothers is a fairy tale about a princess who is sent out on a journey by her mother. The princess is to meet her betrothed who lives far away at another kingdom. She was sent on the journey so she can marry the prince. Before the princess goes on her journey the old queen gifts her with many silver and gold items to show that her daughter is of royalty, and a white horse, Falada who could speak.
The queen also assigAns a chambermaid to accompany the princess on her journey. The last gift the princess receives from her mother, is a white cloth with three blood drops of the ld queen. The queen tells the princess to take good care of it, because it will protect her. Then the princess along with the chambermaid head off on the journey to meet the princesses’ prince. While on their journey the chambermaid forces the princess to trade places with her, thus replacing herself as a fake princess, so she can marry the prince.
However the chamber maiden is found out that she is not the real princess by the king, and is punished accordingly as she mentioned for someone who deceives their master to be punished as. This fairy tale starts off with the mother sending off her aughter to a journey, instead of the usual fairytale where the princess goes off on a journey by herself. The queen signifies a good mother in this fairy tale because she is sending off her daughter to grow up and become a women. She is also a good mother because she sends the princess with lots of gifts, protection as a sign that she cares for her daughter. Thus signifying the three blood drops on a white cloth, the queen gives her daughter to keep safe.
The blood signifies menstruation and during menstruation there are three phases a girl goes through (WebMD). The white cloth with the three drops f blood also signifies the purity of the princess, because the princess is oblivious to the outside world away from her kingdom. Also because she has never journeyed outside, until she was old enough to get married. All the items that were given to the princess signify her royalty and because her mother gives her protection, this means that the princess is of royalty and only know of that, so she lacks knowledge of the outside. Even though the queen gives her protection the she also gives her a piece of reality, a bully, a witch, who is the chambermaid. The chambermaid is the witch of the story.
She signifies reality of the world and the Id of the princess. According to Freud’s Id, Ego and Superego theory, the chamber maiden is the Id. “The id operates on the pleasure principle (Freud, 1920) which is the idea that every wishful impulse should be satisfied immediately, regardless of the consequences” (Id Ego Superego). This signifies the chamber maiden because when the princess asks the maid to fetch her some water during their journey, she refuses to do it. Telling the princess to go get it herself. The chambermaid is the Id of the princess because when they are on their journey he can not seem to control the maid.
Whereas the princess is the Ego because according to Freud’s theory, the ego works to compromise and satisfy the Id’s demands (Id Ego Superego). That is what the princess does during her journey with the chambermaid, she gives in easily to the chambermaidd’s demands which the chambermaid took advantage of and switched places with the princess. During their journey when the princess asks the maiden to fetch her for some water and the maiden refuses, the princess had to go and fetch her own water and was not allowed to drink from the golden cup her mother had sent.
The princess had to kneel down and drink directly from the water brook. This part of the story shows that the princess is becoming knowing of the outside world because she loses part of her royalness there. She loses part of her royalness because people who come from royalty are not supposed to bend or kneel down for anything.
Thus showing how a servant does that frequently to serve their master, and little by little how the princess is switching places with the maid. There is also a saying that The second time the princess asks the maid to fetch her some water and the maid refuses again, o the princess has to do the same thing the first time. Except that this time the princess losses the white cloth with the three drops of blood her mother had given her as protection this indicates that now the princess has to really fend for herself, there is no protection from a parent anymore.
Also during the times the princess had to bend down and fetch the water herself there was this saying, “If your mother knew this, her heart would break in two. ” This saying is repeated throughout the story a couple times, it shows that the princess is loved by her mother but her mother can not do anything for her, so the rincess has to help herself and fend for herself. Then eventually the maid takes complete control of the princess and switches roles with her. When they arrive at the prince’s kingdom, the girls had switched roles already and the prince is fooled by the chamber maiden. However as for the king who sees out the window he sees someone fine, delicate and beautiful.
This is where where doubt is put into his mind. During this part of the story we can see that the king is more experienced and wiser than the prince because the prince was fooled immediately as for the king felt something off. Then the ing asks the fake princess who the girl outside the castle was. This is when the fake princess tells the king that the the real princess is someone she just picked up and tells the king to give her work to do. The king pairs up the real princess with a boy named Conrad who tend to geese. Thus the title of the story” The Goose Girl”, because the princess was put to tend to geese with the boy.
The chambermaid afraid that the horse Falada would speak and tell the prince and king of what happened during the journey she orders them to kill horse. However we can sort of see how the real princess steps up a little bit because he pleads with the knacker to just have the head nailed underneath the gate she passes with the geese every morning. This here shows that having the head underneath the gate was the only item and closest thing the princess had to her mother and to show she was of royalty. Then every morning when she would pass under the gate together with Conrad she will talk to the head and the head with answer back. She will also let down her hair to brush it and Conrad would see her beautiful golden hair and try to touch it but the princess would not let him.
Conrad tried about twice but got annoyed so he went to tell the ing that, he was not able to work together with the princess because she was weird and he told the king everything that has happened when he was with the real princess. Conrad in this story signifies the connection, link that the princess had to the king on finding out the truth. The king hearing this he observed the princess and saw her beautiful golden hair and how she talked to the wind and the head of the horse that was nailed under the gate. The king questioned the princess but because of fear she was not able to say anything to him. The king in this story is the superego.
The Superego is to control the Id and ersuade the ego to become stronger (Id Ego Superego). The king eventually was able to persuade the princess into speaking up by telling her to talk out her trouble to the iron out loud. He heard of the real truth and then went out and asked the fake princess on how should one punish someone who has deceived its master and the fake princess answered by saying death. Therefore the maid was punished by death. The real princess was able to marry her prince thanks to the king. The moral of the story was that one should not stay quiet about what has happened to them. Also that lying and deceiving will lead to severe consequences.
