Rapunzel and the Ego-Self Axis

In the story of Rapunzel, the concept of establishing the ego-self axis is one aspect of Jungian
psychology that may be highlighted. More accurately, you could say that is trying to establish a
constant connection between the outer mundane world and the inner symbolic world. This is
represented by Rapunzel’s long hair. Her hair is like a rope or lifesaving tube that she throws into the
ocean of the unconscious for her spiritual guide, the animus to climb up to shore. Of course, the
animus himself comes from this unconscious realm, the realm “the enchanted” forest, which is a
place that is nowhere and everywhere. This quality that is nowhere and everywhere is an aspect of
the “Self,” that is both the center and circumference of the psyche. Why is this important? Well,
Rapunzel as a representative of the ego, is certainly in a distinct “somewhere,” in her tower. This is
just like the ego, if firmly knitted together, has a stamp in the mundane world as an established
individual but has no connection the possibilities and energy of the inner world. This ego can get
inflated (shown by being high up in the tower) and lonely/isolated. Therefore, it becomes alienated or
identified with the Self, the reservoir of meaningful energy and source. It longs to know more than its
limited boundaries, and to know an “other.” If Rapunzel ever wants to know this other, it is done by
her giving up a part of herself and her hair is an analogy for the sacrificing of her ego. This gives way
to the intermediary figure of the animus, who introduces to her, a world that is beyond the ego tower.
He establishes a constant connection the greater personality of the Self, where they come together
in union and produces a union of opposites (an aspect of the Self) that comes together in the form of
the archetype divine children. Rapunzel and her lover have twins, one male, one female, which are
really a reflection of themselves, which is to say, that the ego-Self axis is established because the
ego, or the Self rather, can see itself through its own reflection with the children.

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