What’s as Intriguing as What’s out of Reach?
Sondheim and Jung on Narcissism
“The Witch in Into the Woods presents us with a tragic case study of narcissistic overprinting and its long-term psychological impact on a child. … It can be said that, in a sense, Cinderella and Rapunzel have both married their mothers—that is, they have both been raised in narcissistic family systems, and then gone on to marry into other narcissistic family systems.”
— Samantha Echo
The Jungian foundations of the musical Into the Woods are well known; according to the lyricist-composer Stephen Sondheim, the woods are “[t]he all-purpose symbol of the unconscious, the womb, the past, the dark place where we face our trials and emerge wiser or destroyed.” This essay is a commentary on Into the Woods as it relates to fairy tales and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. This essay will examine narcissism in the intersecting storylines of Rapunzel and Cinderella: if we look closely at their home lives and their subsequent marriages to the philandering princes, what emerges is the story of two young women from narcissistic family systems who end up in unhappy marriages to narcissistic men.
Let us first look at Rapunzel’s adoptive mother, the Witch. The Witch loves to point out out the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the “good” people around her— “you’re not good you’re not bad, you’re just nice,” she says; “I’m not good I’m not nice I’m just right/ I’m the witch; you’re the world”—the Witch can be charming and funny and offers a new perspective to the audience, but in the role of Rapunzel’s stepmother she meets many of the diagnostic criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
Even before her nuanced musical incarnation, the Witch of the Rapunzel story always was an essential figure in fairy tales and in our collective unconscious. Maria Tatar states, in The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, that “female villains—whether wearing the hat of cook, stepmother, witch, or mother-in-law—have repeatedly been labeled folkloristic projections of the ‘bad mother,’” (144) In The Annotated Brothers Grimm, Tatar calls the Witch “the consummate overprotective parent, isolating Rapunzel from human contact and keeping her prisoner in a tower that lacks both stairs and an exit.” (55) In this case “overprotective” is a euphemism for narcissistic and abusive. Julie L. Hall states, in her 2019 book The Narcissist in Your Life, that “[i]n the narcissistic home, parents may infantilize their engulfed children, treating them as if they are much younger than their age. Parents infantilize their kids as a means of control, as a way to feel needed or superior, because they do not recognize or respect their boundaries.” (174)
The Witch in Into the Woods presents us with a tragic case study of narcissistic overprinting and its long-term psychological impact on a child. When the Witch first learns of Rapunzel’s involvement with the Prince, she sings, “stay a child while you can be a child.” The Witch is demanding something impossible, because Rapunzel is already a teenager: she gets pregnant with twins not very long after this song. By calling her “a child,” the Witch is blatantly denying a fact, which further emphasizes her disordered thinking and compulsive infantilization of Rapunzel. The Witch reacts with extreme envy and rage when she finds out that Rapunzel has been seeing the Prince, launching into a self-pitying tirade in which she says “what would you have me be? Handsome like a prince? But I am old, I am ugly, I embarrass you. You are ashamed of me! You are ashamed!” (Dramatic self-victimization is common in narcissists.)
Now let us look at Cinderella: she is forced into servitude at the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters, who bully and neglect her. Sondheim’s Cinderella is significantly more well-adjusted and resourceful than Rapunzel because she has at least known a stable mother figure, in her early life, whereas the psychological abuse and isolation of the Witch’s household is all Rapunzel has ever known, since the Witch adopted her when she was only a baby. However, Cinderella experiences profound struggles with decision-making, commitment, and imposter syndrome—all of which are common long-term reactions to narcissistic abuse.
During her soliloquy “On the Steps of the Palace,” Cinderella wonders if she is worthy of the Prince and all the attention she is receiving at the ball, asking herself, “what if he knew who you were when you know that you’re not what he thinks that he wants?” She then states her ambivalence about whether she would rather stay in the harsh circumstances of her home “while you’re safe out of sight and yourself but where everything’s wrong” or go live in the Prince’s palace “where everything’s right and you know that you’ll never belong…” Cinderella has an impressive degree of self-awareness, which prevents her from completely losing control of her own faculties the way Rapunzel does, but she is made unhappy by her own insecurities and indecisiveness.
As von Franz puts it in her description of the Grimms’ Cinderella, “the heroine is…paralyzed and depressed by the power of the evil stepmother, a condition that even in popular language is called ‘being a Cinderella.’” (273) The indecisiveness of Sondheim’s Cinderella on the steps of the palace can be described as a kind of depression and paralysis; additionally, the Prince has spread pitch on the stairs, in order to prevent Cinderella from running away. This causes her to be, in a sense, physically and psychologically paralyzed. In a sense, the Prince has imprisoned her, and by marrying him she is running from one prison to another.
The Prince himself, also displays traits of Narcissism. During “Agony,” the comic duet he sings with his younger brother, he declares, “am I not sensitive, clever, well-mannered, considerate, passionate, charming, as kind as I’m handsome, an heir to a throne…?” He describes none of Cinderella’s personal attributes as he extols his own virtues, other than the fact that she is always running away from him. His brother, Rapunzel’s Prince, sings that his own unattainable love interest causes him “Agony, far more painful than yours.” This always gets a laugh from the audience, but it is worth noting the darker psychological implications: that even though they are in similar situations, both of the Princes are so completely absorbed in their own “unique” “agony” that they fail to display empathy even towards each other. They are incapable of displaying empathy towards their wives, either, after they finally do secure Cinderella’s and Rapunzel’s hands in marriage.
Once they have taken the formerly unattainable women as wives, both princes essentially lose interest. In his book Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism, Kenneth A. Kimmel discusses this phenomenon in terms of various other fictional and real-life examples, stating that the discarding of a love interest after consummation or attainment relates to the narcissist’s need for absolute control. “The narcissist,” Kimmel states, “establishes this control by projecting the idealized self into the other, thereby annexing the individuality of the other so that he may maintain control of his environment.” (113)
Kimmel relates this narcissistic relationship pattern to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, in which the title character becomes infatuated with the beautiful and talented actress Sybil Vane, proposes to her, and then dumps her because she gives a bad performance one night. Kimmel states that Dorian’s cruel and shallow behavior comes from “the terror of the intimate gaze of the Other.” (105) I believe an interpretation similar to Kimmel’s of Dorian can be applied to Cinderella’s and Rapunzel’s princes. Both men project their idealized desires onto these seemingly unattainable women, singing, “what’s as intriguing or half so fatiguing as what’s out of reach.” (Sondheim, 1986) Subsequently, the princes enter short-lived, unhappy marriages with these women: Rapunzel’s Prince is made uncomfortable by Rapunzel’s emotional outbursts, so he neglects her. Cinderella’s Prince gets bored with Cinderella, she cheats on her with the Baker’s Wife, and then promptly leaves the Baker’s Wife.
It can be said that, in a sense, Cinderella and Rapunzel have both married their mothers—that is, they have both been raised in narcissistic family systems, and then gone on to marry into other narcissistic family systems. Julie L. Hall and Bessel van der Kolk have observed that when children from narcissistic families grow up, they “are predisposed to unconsciously seek out and reenact patterns of abuse, with women more often playing the role of victim and men playing the role of aggressor.” (Hall, 135) Cinderella and Rapunzel have both done this, in a sense, although the narcissism of their husbands manifests more in grandiose and neglectful behaviors, in contrast with the controlling and manipulative behaviors of their stepmothers. Hall’s book provides a list of books, films, and TV shows featuring narcissistic characters, including James and the Giant Peach, whose protagonist James is a Cinderella figure step-parented by his neglectful and sadistic aunts, and The Picture of Dorian Gray, which Oscar Wilde explicitly based on the Greek myth of Echo and Narcissus, the myth from which Narcissistic Personality Disorder derives its name. Hall also mentions Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. (Hall, 2020) I would like to see this list expanded to include Into the Woods and other pieces of musical theater, folklore, literature, and popular culture, because I believe there is an untapped well of case studies of narcissistic fictional characters that has the potential to lead us to a better understanding of the disorder and how to recognize it in our own lives.
Works Cited:
Hall, J. L. (2020). The narcissist in your life: Recognizing the patterns and learning to break free. Da Capo Lifelong.
Kimmel, K. A. (2011). Eros and the shattering gaze: Transcending narcissism. Fisher King Press.
Sondheim, S. (2015). Broadway News: Broadway Tickets & Videos: Broadway World. BroadwayWorld. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from https://www.broadwayworld.com/
Sondheim, S. (1986). Song Lyrics & Knowledge. Genius. Retrieved March 14, 2022, from https://genius.com/
Tatar, M. (2019). The hard facts of the grimms' fairy tales. Princeton University Press.
Franz, M.-L. von, Buser, S., Cruz, L., Freeman, R., & Woolfson, T. (2021). The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz (Vol. 3). Chiron Publications.