Analysis of the Fairytale Clever Else
Based on methodology used in this essay by Jungian Analyst John Betts and by extension Marie-Louise von Franz.
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm Volume I. Page 140
Note: I am trying this for fun.
It's the first time I've tried analyzing a fairy tell. I picked this fairly tale somewhat randomly. I don't claim this analysis is any good, but I hope you enjoy it.
Title: Clever Else
The title seems to indicate that the young girl Else is quite clever or smart in fact her suitor demands that she must be smart. We don’t see that she actually is in the tale so perhaps it is intended ironically. Clever means intelligent or smart. Definitions of Else include:
In a different manner or place
Or at a different time
If not: OTHERWISE
Being different in identity being in addition
The title almost seems to mean being the opposite of clever.
The word clever implies witty, smart or even a trickster. Else implies opposite.
First Paragraph
“There once was a man with a daughter called Clever Else. When she had grown up her father said, “It’s time for her to get married.”
What is missing from the beginning of the tale? A suitor for the daughter apparently. He shows up just a few lines later but demands she be smart. She is grown up. Perhaps her lack of smarts is deterring suitors. Hopefully she would be balanced by having a husband (embracing her inner masculine). She marries but he then spurs her for her lack of wits and laziness.
Dramatis Personae in order of appearance:
The Father
The Mother
Else
The suitor or groom
The maid
The servant
The father: He plays a minor role.
He states she is grown up and should marry. Then he send her to the cellar to fetch some beer. When she does not return, he sends the maid, the servant his wife all after her. When his wife does not return he goes and checks on them himself. It does seem that perhaps he is wealthy enough to have others do his bidding for him.
The mother
The mother plays an even smaller role, she goes after Else, the maid and the servant when they do not return from the cellar.
The servant and the maid
They also go into the cellar to see what is the delay.
The suitor
The suitor or groom courts Else but declares he will only marry her if she is smart. He is then convinced she is smart after she breaks down crying when she see an axe above the beer keg that she worries might fall on her future son. He then declares she is smart and will marry her. Later in the story he sends her to harvest wheat while he is out working only to return to find her asleep in the field. He places bells around her while she still sleeps so that when she wakes she is confused over her identity. When she knocks on the door at home he tells her Clever Else is already at home and she runs off in confusion never to be seen again..
Else
Else is the young woman who has come of age. When her father sends her to fetch beer from the cellar. She breaks down in tears when she sees an axe above the beer barrel which she worries will fall on her future son. This immobilizes her (and the five people who descend after her). Later in the story her husband sends her to harvest wheat while he is out working only to return to find her asleep in the field. He places bells around her while she still sleeps so that when she wakes she is confused over her identity. When she knocks on the door at home he tells her Clever Else is already at home and she runs off in confusion never to be seen again.
Numbering Patterns
We start the tale with an unmarried woman who then marries (1 + 1 = 2) but then runs off in confusion over her own identity. Ideally the end result would be 3 (wife, husband and child) but she ends up alone. So the unbalance is unchanged at the end of the story.
Key Sentences
“Clever Else had to prove she was very smart.” This sets the parameters for success in the tale. Initially all thought her to be smart due to her worry over the axe above the beer barrel. She only worries though she doesn’t act and move the axe (neither do the other characters). This is strange as reading the tale the reader thinks “just move the damn axe.” She and the others seem to be deer in headlights kind of paralysis (medusa or inability to look into the reflective mirror , or inward, and thus be turned to stone?). In another variation of the tale it’s said she needs to be careful not smart.
“Shall I cut the wheat or sleep?”
Cutting the wheat is a form of harvesting food. In a sense its transformation of plant in to food for the body. Failing to harvest is opportunity lost - failure to transform or ascend from the unconscious. Sleeping is returning to unconsciousness a symbolic return to the round or uroboros or a form of death.
“Is it me or isn’t it me. “
Here ego has stopped providing stability of identity. Her ego has stopped functioning and she is stuck in the unconscious.
Structures of the Psyche
Else is the ego. She is called to act by descending into the cellar and retrieve some beer for the meal.
The suitor/groom, Hans is the animus.
The father is the father or authority figure complex. He insists Else marry.
Tasks
The first task is to fetch beer from the cellar, but six people enter the cellar yet no beer.
The second task is to harvest some wheat but it is also left undone.
Beer is made of wheat so perhaps it can be said there are both aspects of the same task.
Successes and Failures
Both fetching the beer and harvesting wheat are not done successfully or even attempted.
Knots and Sudden Changes
The knots in the tale are things that can go two ways. The first knot is the unsuccessful retrieval of the beer from the cellar. The second is Else deciding to sleep instead of cutting the wheat.
The sudden change is Else losing her identity after her husband places a string of bells around her head.
Motifs and Archetypal Situations
Marriage motif; animus archetype; descent motif; fool archetype.
Turning Point in the Story
The turning point is when Else decides to sleep instead of harvesting wheat. This leads to her husband turning her out by placing bells over her head so she is like a fool.
Does the End Resolve the Beginning?
No it does not. Else is unable to ascend from the cellar with the beer (enter the unconscious and find/learn something of value or transform). She is unable to harvest the wheat or be productive (symbolically have children).
Symbols in the Tale
Father, mother, maiden, suitor, axe, cellar, wheat, bells, beer, number 6, descent motif, sleep, and the marriage motif.
Animus or Trickster
The suitor who becomes the groom is the animus figure in the tale but perhaps is also the trickster as he transforms Else into a fool by placing a string of bells around her head causing her to lose her identity and flee never to be seen again. Cellar and the descent motif Descent into the underground is a classic symbolic expression of a descent into the unconscious. Making this descent implies a contact with the contents of the unconscious and, when we interpret these encounters, a change not only in the stance of the ego, but also in the overall psyche. Else and the others are unable to emerge from the cellar with the prize (the beer). This indicates stagnation and a failed hero’s journey.
Marriage Motif
“The reconciliation, interaction and union of the opposites; relationship between the divinity and the world; the hieros gamos, the sacred marriage between god and goddess, priest and priestess, king and queen, representing the mystic union of heaven and earth, sun and moon, the solar bull and the lunar cow, on which the vital forces of the sky and earth and the fertility of the cattle and crops depend. It also symbolizes spiritual union, attaining perfection and completion by the union of the opposites in both life and death, each partner giving up to the other, but with the death forming the new life.” (Cooper, 1993, p. )
The tale involves such a union, a hieros gamos. Symbolically, this union is between the ego and an aspect of the animus (in a female), indicating a progression in the individuation process, but we find the union to be ultimately unsuccessful as Else chooses to sleep or descend back into the unconscious instead of harvesting the wheat or being productive or transcending.
Sleep
Sleep is the return to the unconscious state or even symbolic death. Else chooses sleep over harvesting and thus is dead or unproductive. She in fact loses her identity or herself (Self) in the end of the tale.
Review of Problems in the Tale
Why can’t anyone fetch the beer or move the axe? Once the characters in the tale descend into the cellar neither Else nor any other character fetches the beer or move the axe. The cellar is the unconscious. All the characters represent aspects of a single psyche. The failure to emerge with the beer indicates an inability to ascend with a prize into consciousness. This is failed individuation or a failed hero’s journey. Deciding to sleep instead of harvest seems to indicate a psyche stuck in some aspect of the unconscious perhaps being controlled by the fool archetype (note the bells).
A Psychodynamic Interpretation of the Tale
This tale can be seen as a tale of failure to transform or reach a level of individuation. We have a feminine ego who isn't able to find her hero energy, her masculine energy. This energy is needed to meet difficult challenges or even get out of bed in the morning.
The goal of individuation is to take something from the unconscious and incorporate it into the ego thus reaching a higher level of consciousness. Else is unable to act and is therefore stuck in the unconscious at some level. I recall once seeing an acquaintance getting anxious over a sink filling with water almost to the point of overflow, but failing to act by simply turning the faucet off. This is what Else’s failure to move the axe, harvest the wheat and fetch the beer reminded me of. Being stuck in the round, the uroboros indicates a lack of ability to incorporate symbolic masculine energy and be assertive. I am reminded of a scene in the file “The Matrix” where the real Neo is tethered to a womb-like machine (aka the matrix or the unconscious) and unable to escape despite struggling. Else is stuck there too.