Rapunzel: A Story of Addiction, Dysfunction, and Agency

Rapunzel, Retold by Barbara Rogasky,
Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” It’s such a familiar sentence, but how does Rapunzel get up in that tower, letting people climb up to her using her hair as a ladder but never able to come down herself?

The story begins with a poor yet loving couple who have no children. Finally, after years of waiting and hoping, the wife conceives. But all is not well. The wife looks out her window everyday into the garden of Mother Gothel, a witch. She sees rampion growing there and has such an enormous desire for the herb that she stops eating and grows weak and sick. Her husband, desperate to save the health of his wife and unborn child, sneaks into the witch’s garden at night and steals an armload of rampion. His wife makes a gigantic salad with it and eats it hungrily.

Almost as soon as the last bite of salad is gone, she longs for more rampion. She keeps staring into the garden and stops eating again. So the husband sneaks back into the witch’s garden to steal some more. This time, the witch catches him. She allows him to take the herb, but demands his child in return, if it is a girl. He agrees.

The wife gives birth to their baby, who is a girl. Mother Gothel comes to claim the child that very day.

Mother Gothel names the child Rapunzel, which is another name for rampion. She treats the child with great care and love. But Rapunzel cannot go out into the world or leave her.

In just the first few pages of the story, we have the two extremes of dysfunctional parenting. The first is the neglectful extreme. The parents are completely wrapped up in themselves. Their desires (or addictions) come first. Whereas it is the norm for a pregnant woman to take extra care of herself, for the sake of the baby, Rapunzel’s mother becomes obsessed with an herb she cannot have. Rapunzel’s father, rather than protecting his unborn child and trying to talk sense into his wife, acquiesces to her unreasonable desire for one particular thing to eat. In the process of acquiring the desired food, he actually agrees to give his child away.

The pattern of Rapunzel’s parents is a classic example of the way that an addict and their enabling partner interact. For an addict, their substance or behavior of choice is the most important thing in their life. This can be drugs, alcohol, work, or gambling, among other things. The addict lives for their addiction. Their partner spends all their energy either helping the addict get their fix or covering up for them when their addiction causes them to act out. The enabling partner refuses to see the reality that the addict is an addict and that the addiction is destroying both the addict and their partner and other close relationships.

This pattern may not be as obvious as a drug or alcohol addiction. Workaholism is another way that parents neglect their kids. Sometimes one partner will be consumed by “helping” other people and neglect their own family.

On the other end of the spectrum is Mother Gothel. In contrast to Rapunzel’s parents, Mother Gothel takes exquisite care of the child. She has good food to eat, pretty clothes to wear, and is treated well--perhaps she is the center of Mother Gothel’s world. However, Rapunzel is never allowed to leave the garden. She cannot play with other children, make friends, or meet other adults. When Rapunzel is 12, Mother Gothel takes her to a tower and locks her in, removing the stairs. From then on, the only way in or out of the tower is via Rapunzel’s own luxuriously long and thick hair.

Mother Gothel is the devouring mother--the mother who consumes her child in the quest to keep her “safe” from the world. She gives Rapunzel everything she could need or want--except her freedom, which is the most important thing to have in order to develop into an adult. It is no accident that Rapunzel is locked in the tower at 12, which is a typical age for puberty to begin. Puberty begins the transformation from a child to an adult, toward differentiating oneself from parents and caregivers. A fully fledged adult, with her own identity is something the devouring mother cannot deal with. She would rather stunt her child’s growth, prevent her from reaching her full potential, than allow the child to move away and discover the world on her own terms.

Sometimes devouring mothers can be hard to spot. WIth a very small child, it’s right to hold and care for them, to keep them as safe as possible. Meeting a child’s basic needs for food, shelter, warmth, clothing, and love is always the correct thing to do. However, discernment is necessary when it comes to freedom.

The United States has changed a lot in regard to acceptable levels of freedom to give kids over the last 40 years. It used to be totally common and normal for kids as young as five or six to walk to school unaccompanied. Kids went together to play at the park, no parents in sight. Kids rode their bikes around the neighborhood and came home for supper. It’s becoming less and less common to see kids on bikes, at least where I live in a fairly quiet Los Angeles suburb. My kids’ elementary school will not allow kids to “self-release” until fourth grade.

The world can feel very dangerous, especially for unprotected children. However, we have to ask ourselves what is gained and what is lost when kids lose freedoms and whether the advantages outweigh the negatives. Eventually, kids will be adults. They will be expected to be able to navigate the world and cope with upsets and setbacks. When our reflex is to protect our kids or forbid them from doing something, we should ask ourselves what we are afraid of happening.

Wait, isn’t the Rapunzel story for children? Why am I going on and on about parents? In my view, fairy tales have more than one function. At a surface level, they are entertaining. We root for Rapunzel through all her difficulties and hope that Mother Gothel will get her comeuppance. At a deeper level, they are the stories that have been passed down from one generation to the next to teach people how to exist in the world. I think they contain warnings for adults, particularly parents, about what not to do. Most parents in fairy tales are pretty useless. Don’t be a useless parent!

For children, the fairy tales contain reassurance that, even if their parents are useless, they can overcome that and go on and make a successful life for themselves. That is why so many fairy tales end with the young man and young woman getting married. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rapunzel is in the tower. The only way in or out is by climbing her hair. She has no company, except for Mother Gothel, who only comes every few days to bring her supplies. What does she do to pass the time? She sings. To me, singing is highly significant. Rapunzel is using her voice and communicating with the outside world, even if she doesn’t understand anything that is going on in it. Singing is also highly creative. Despite having her freedom curtailed so dramatically, Rapunzel is still reaching out and creating beauty. We see the resilience of a child, despite her dysfunctional upbringing. We see her reaching out to the arts and creativity as a way to alleviate her loneliness and try, even unconsciously, to connect to the world around her.

After several years, a prince comes riding through the forest and hears Rapunzel singing. He is overcome with the beauty of the voice and searches for the singer. After a while, he comes to the tower and hears the voice more clearly. But how to get up? Eventually, he sees Mother Gothel arrive, and call out, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” From the window at the top of the high tower comes a thick and luxurious braid, which the witch proceeds to climb up. Now the prince knows how it’s done.

When Mother Gothel goes away again, the prince comes out of the woods where he has been hiding, and calls up, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!” Out flies the braid again. I’ve often wondered whether Rapunzel didn’t think this was odd. Surely the prince wouldn’t sound like the witch. How often did Mother Gothel forget something and have to climb up the tower again? We aren’t told. I wonder if this speaks to Rapunzel’s isolation. She’s never seen anyone other than Mother Gothel. No matter how weird the request might be to her, she has no expectation at all that another person will come or even exists. There’s an irony here, that Mother Gothel’s isolation of Rapunzel is part of what leads her to allow the prince up to her.

The prince climbs up the braid, and Rapunzel is quite startled and frightened to see someone who is not Mother Gothel. The prince speaks kindly and quickly convinces Rapunzel that he means her no harm and is a friend. When the prince has to leave, he promises to return again, and Rapunzel warns him not to come in the evening, when the witch is accustomed to come.

The daily visits become a habit, and soon the prince and Rapunzel fall in love. How to escape the tower? They can’t think of a way, until Rapunzel tells the prince to bring her a skein of silk every time he comes to visit so that she can weave a ladder that they can both climb down. The prince agrees, and Rapunzel begins to weave the ladder.

Why does Rapunzel have to weave a ladder? Why doesn’t the prince bring strong rope so they can both climb down? Or a long ladder? He’s the prince! Surely he could round up a few servants and have them bring supplies.

People who grow up in a dysfunctional family often have a hard time claiming their agency and stepping out of the dysfunctional system. Mother Gothel took the stairs of the tower away, and she gets up and down by climbing Rapunzel’s hair. Therefore, Rapunzel may reason, she needs something as near to her hair as possible to make a way down. Silk fits the bill.

It’s also interesting that neither the prince nor Rapunzel think of cutting her hair off and using that as a ladder. Here again, I see that Rapunzel has over-identified herself with the dysfunctional system. The prince doesn’t question it, either. This is not uncommon for the partners of people with dysfunctional families. They don’t understand the reasons for all the weird behaviors of their partner’s family. They may or may not question the strange goings-on, but they will usually accept their partner’s explanations or go along to get along, at least in the beginning.

For a period of time, this strange status quo is maintained. Rapunzel lets down her hair so Mother Gothel can bring her supplies or her prince can visit. But one day, Rapunzel forgets herself and asks her foster mother why she is so slow to climb up to her when the prince is so fast.

The truth cannot be suppressed forever. Mother Gothel is still trying to have absolute control over Rapunzel, but Rapunzel is busy making a life for herself. Eventually, the two collide.

Mother Gothel is completely enraged. She chops off Rapunzel’s braid, attaches it to the window shutters, and forces Rapunzel to climb down, while she climbs after. Then she takes Rapunzel out to the wilderness and leaves her there.

Having disposed of Rapunzel, Mother Gothel returns to the tower, climbs up, and reels the braid back in. The prince arrives, calls out to his lady love, and sees the braid descend. Once he’s climbed up, he’s in for a nasty shock. There is the witch, seething with rage, and screaming at him. She is so angry that she pushes him out of the window. (Some versions have him fall out.) He lands on the thorn bushes below the tower, and his eyes are blinded. He wanders, blind and grieving, searching for Rapunzel.

What Rapunzel and the prince couldn’t do for themselves, the witch does for them. She cuts Rapunzel’s braid and takes her out of the tower once and for all. Rapunzel is finally free, but what a costly freedom.

The trek through the wilderness or the underworld is often necessary for the young person to come to clarity about their identity and values. That journey is what makes adolescence so hard--the young person can only journey from childhood to adulthood by themselves. In a healthy family system, parents and other loved ones may be able to help along the way by encouraging the young person, by listening, or offering help on the journey. No help is forthcoming in a dysfunctional system.

The wilderness journey is what Mother Gothel has been preventing Rapunzel from taking through the whole story. Lots of well-meaning parents try to keep their children from going to the wilderness. It’s not hard to understand why. The wilderness is full of dangers. It’s blazing hot or freezing cold. There are frightening wild animals. There’s not much to eat or drink. So much can go wrong. But it is precisely those dangers that the young person has to face and overcome in order to step into their adult agency. Not only does a child have to have courage to journey through the wilderness; parents have to have courage and faith in their child to make it through.

After a year or so, the prince, who has never stopped searching for Rapunzel, stumbles upon her bit of the wilderness. She is singing, which she does to keep herself company and also to comfort her twin babies. The prince would know that voice anywhere. He and Rapunzel rush into each other’s arms. Despite his ragged appearance, Rapunzel immediately recognizes him, too. She weeps because of his ruined eyes, and her tears fall into his eyes and heal them. Reunited and healed, the two lovers take their children and return to the prince’s kingdom.

Despite all the suffering Rapunzel has gone through, including, apparently, giving birth to twins all by herself, she continues to sing. She continues to reach out to the world in her own voice and to comfort herself with the creative expression of song. The prince first fell in love with Rapunzel’s voice, and that love opened up the world to her. Having suffered and journeyed, Rapunzel’s voice brings them together again. She does not abandon herself--this is the meaning of singing in the wilderness, and the prince knows and loves Rapunzel because of the way that she reaches out to the world.

The twin babies are a fascinating detail. Twins are a symbol of abundant fertility. Sleeping Beauty also has twins. Perhaps because of the way both heroines were kept from normal development, when they finally do grow up into maturity, their bodies overflow with the desire to be creative and generative.

The prince and Rapunzel’s return to his kingdom isn’t just walking off into the sunset to live happily ever after. Because of their suffering and wandering in the wilderness, they have wisdom and maturity that would have been impossible otherwise. Their suffering will make them more just and compassionate rulers than they would have been without it. They suffered because of the actions of others but also because of their own inaction. However, in order to survive the wilderness, they have each had to figure out how to take care of themselves (and Rapunzel had to learn to care for the twins, too). People who remain in inaction will die in the wilderness. Only people who can claim and grow into their agency make it through the wilderness. Having done so, the prince and Rapunzel are truly ready and worthy of being sovereigns.