Authors: Belova Maria, Bisenova Lyayla This is the second article in our planned series of articles on female initiation. In our previous article, we described the process of female initiation that a girl goes through during puberty, when she needs to re-accept her mother and her own femininity. This article is dedicated to the period when a girl becomes a woman, accepting her inner male image (animus) and a man as a life partner. As in the previous article, we looked for a structural description of this initiation in fairy tales. It seemed to us that this process was described very interestingly and most fully in the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and A.S. Pushkin "The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights". Both of these tales undoubtedly contain a lot of the author’s own, but they are folk tales. Judging by the plot, this is the same fairy tale. It tells in detail how a girl, after undergoing initiation, becomes a woman. On the external (social) level, she changes status: she ceases to be the daughter of her parents in order to become a full-fledged representative of her community; on the internal (psychological) level, she is reborn and, as Rimma Efimkina says, dies as a girl in order to be reborn as a woman. Despite the similarities between the tales, there are also significant differences. It seemed to us that the German fairy tale is more ancient, taking roots from the tribal community, when the world and life of women was separated from the men's world. Over time, people added details and details that they understood; it came to us in the retelling of the Brothers Grimm. The Russian fairy tale, apparently, is more recent, from the time of the tribal community, when people already lived in families, where the male and female worlds were united by a common way of life. Although, perhaps this tale has simply undergone more changes over time. Of course, the main role in the differences in fairy tales was played by the psychological characteristics of the peoples who formed them. In the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the heroine's father is largely absent. As Maria Louise von Franz argued, the cultural and historical structure of the psyche of the Germanic peoples has developed in such a way that their anima is not formed[1]. We took the liberty of suggesting that in the psychology of these peoples there should have been compensatory mechanisms that would allow feminine energy to manifest itself, but, due to an imbalance, it manifested itself in an exaggerated form. In the fairy tale, female energy seems to fill the entire psychological space. In a Russian fairy tale, the father, although he plays an active role in the fate of the heroine, is still present. The organization of the life of the Russian people required well-coordinated collective work, where both the roles of men and women were valued. This will be reflected in the belief system of the Russian people, whose pagan characters, in most cases, lived in families, for example: a bannik with a bathhouse mistress, a housewife with a housewife, a vodyanoy with a vodyanikha.[2] Such a seemingly small difference in the structure of a fairy tale, such as the actual presence or absence of a father, significantly affects the process of initiation of our heroines. In both tales, the girl's story is described from birth. Both tales begin with the heroine's mother waiting for her husband and looking at the snow. The differences begin from the moment our heroines are conceived. The princess from the Russian fairy tale is born naturally, there is a Tsar Father, whom the mother is waiting for. The king said goodbye to the queen, got ready for the journey, and the queen sat down at the window to wait for him alone. Snow White is born when her mother makes a wish and, as if by accident, pricks herself on a spindle until she bleeds. On a winter day, while the snow was falling in flakes, the Queen sat alone and sewed under the window, which had an ebony frame. She sewed and looked at the snow, and pricked her finger with a needle until it bled. And the queen thought to herself: “Oh, if only I had a child white as snow, ruddy as blood, and black as ebony!” And soon her wish definitely came true: her daughter was born - white as snow,red as blood and black-haired; and was named Snow White for her whiteness. From the very beginning of the fairy tale, in the intrapsychic world of the Princess there is an image of her father, on the basis of which she will form her animus. In Snow White’s psyche, the role of the father is reduced to a minimum, even the moment of conception is shown symbolically (blood is injected); to form the animus, she will apparently use the internal male image of her own mother[3]. We took both of these fairy tales because in real life, even now, girls undergo psychological initiation, either using the image of their father or the internal male image of their own mother. After the birth of her daughter, the mother in both tales dies and is replaced by an evil stepmother. On Christmas Eve, on the very night, God gives the queen a daughter. Early in the morning, the welcome guest, long awaited day and night, finally returned from afar. She looked at him, sighed heavily, could not bear the admiration, and died at mass. For a long time the king was inconsolable, But what to do? and he was a sinner; The year passed like an empty dream, the Tsar married someone else. To tell the truth, young lady, she really was a queen: Tall, slender, white, and she took everything in her mind; But she is proud, fragile, self-willed and jealous. She was given one mirror as a dowry; The mirror had this property: It could speak. And as soon as her daughter was born, the Queen Mother died. A year later the King married someone else. This second wife of his was a beauty, but she was also proud and arrogant, and could not tolerate that anyone could equal her in beauty. This second wife of his was a beauty, but she was also proud and arrogant, and could not tolerate that anyone could equal her in beauty. Moreover, she had such a magic mirror, in front of which she loved to stand, admire herself and used to say: “Mirror, mirror, say quickly, Who is the most beautiful here, who is the cutest of all?” Then the mirror answered her: “You, queen, are everyone here.” miles." The death of a good mother tells us that the time has come for the mother complex to take a negative turn. In the heroine’s mind there is an image of a good, loving mother (initially the mother in both fairy tales is good), but by the time the main action of the fairy tale unfolds, the girl consciously or unconsciously perceives her mother as negative. This situation is due to the action of the Self, which guides the transition to the patriarchal phase of development. Neumann wrote: “...one of the fundamental laws of the psyche is that the Self always “dresses” or disguises itself in the archetype of a more progressive phase. And then the previously dominant archetype is constellated in its negative aspect”[4]. In order for the Ego to develop and move to the patriarchal level of development, a constellation of the maternal object in the form of the Terrible Mother is needed. In our fairy tales, the death of a good mother occurs very early, the girl has just been born, this tells us that psychologically she is not mature enough to accept such a constellation of the maternal complex, she faces a difficult path before she can accept her mother, but therefore, oneself objectively. The internal image of the mother is especially important for the girl, identifying with whom she initially acquires her identity. Based on the point of view of Otto Kernberg [5], that as a result of a successful resolution of the oedipal conflict, the girl overcomes the oedipal mother, leaving identification with the functions of the mother, we assumed that the basis for a girl’s successful identification with her mother is her identification with the roles of mother, wife, and mistress. Our heroine will become a woman, which means that she herself will now perform the functions of a mother. She may be frightened not only by the responsibility and novelty of these roles, but also by possible aggression from her mother, whose place she will soon take. Even if the mother is positive, the girl can fantasize about her jealousy and anger, projecting her envy and fear onto the mother. The presence of a magic mirror in the stepmother's possession gives us a wide field for interpretation, since the symbolism of the mirror is very multifaceted, andThere is hardly a culture in which mirrors are not mentioned. On the one hand, they act as symbols of the divine, symbols of truth and knowledge, on the other, as symbols of deceitfulness, inauthenticity, vanity, narcissism, and madness. In its ability to reflect a person and the reality surrounding him, the mirror is consistently correlated with consciousness, thinking, which are instruments of self-knowledge and reflection of the universe; the concept of “reflection” (Latin “reflection”) brings together thought and mirror. We believe that here it is an objective reflection of the subjective fantasies of the stepmother, which for a certain period, until the Oedipal conflict appears, are real. The development of the main plot of the fairy tale takes place when the heroines have matured, become prettier and, as a result, are ready to get married. And the young princess, quietly blossoming, meanwhile grew and grew. She rose and blossomed. White-faced, black-browed, such a meek disposition. And a groom was found for her, the Prince of Elisha. Meanwhile, Snow White grew up and became prettier, she was as beautiful as a clear day. Both girls are described as extraordinary beauties, the whiteness of their skin being especially emphasized. White, like black, is colorless and neutral. Throughout the world, the color of mourning is either white or black, they symbolize the process of transition from one state to another. Also, the white color symbolizes the purity and purity of the heroine, hinting at her upcoming defloration and, on a physical level, her becoming a woman. But we are, of course, more interested in its internal, psychological initiation. It is important for us to understand what psychological changes must occur in a girl in order for her to feel like a full-fledged woman. Here we again want to draw your attention to the differences in the tales: the growing up of the Russian Princess is emphasized by the appearance of her groom, but for Snow White the time has simply come. The presence of a groom in the Princess confirms our assumption about her more developed animus figure; the absence of him in Snow White is interpreted by us as the girl’s immaturity, her insufficient readiness for change. From this point on, the way they undergo initiation will differ significantly. The moment has come when, turning to her mirror, the stepmother does not hear the usual answer. And when the queen once asked the mirror: “Mirror, mirror, quickly say, Who is the most beautiful here, who is the cutest of all?” The mirror answered her: “You, queen, are beautiful; But Snow White is still more beautiful.” The queen was horrified, turned yellow and green with envy. And then one day she called her hound and said: “Take this girl out into the forest so that she doesn’t come into my sight again. Kill her and, as proof that my order has been fulfilled, bring me her lung and liver.” So the queen, dressing up in front of her mirror, exchanged words with him: “I, tell me. the cutest of all. All rosy and white?” What's the answer to the mirror? “You are beautiful, no doubt; But the princess is the sweetest of all, the most rosy and white of all.” How the queen will jump back, Yes, she will wave her hand, Yes, she will slap the mirror, and she will stomp her heel!.. “Oh, you vile glass! You are lying to me to spite me... Throwing the mirror under the bench, She called Chernavka to her and punishes her, her Hay girl, to take the princess into the wilderness of the forest and, tying her up, leave her alive under a pine tree to be devoured by the wolves. The mirror, fulfilling its function of reflecting objective reality, shows the stepmother a changed reality that no longer corresponds to her fantasies. The conflict is growing, demanding its resolution. The growth of the oedipal conflict should lead the ego to a separation from the internal maternal object. This situation is inevitable, as E. Neumann noted, “the onset of the Oedipal conflict is due to nature”[6]. The mother aggravates the situation, not wanting to give up her position “to herself,” and the girl begins to fantasize that her mother wants her dead, at the same time she has an unconscious desire to kill her mother. This is a symbolic act associated with the daughter's inability to recognize in herself the qualities of her mother that sheperceived as negative. Internal conflict leads the heroines to the beginning of initiation. To carry out the transition from one state to another, a conductor is needed; this role is usually played by a trickster; he connects the worlds and appears whenever changes are necessary. In both tales, the arrival of the trickster is initiated by the stepmother, who wants to get rid of her stepdaughter. In the fairy tale about Snow White, the stepmother chooses Houndmaster for this role, in the fairy tale about the Dead Princess, the hay girl Chernavka. The trickster promises his stepmother to take his stepdaughter into the forest and kill her there, but he deceives her. The huntsman led the girl out of the palace into the forest, and as he took out his hunting knife to pierce the innocent heart of Snow White, she began to cry and ask: “Good man, do not kill me; I will run away into the dense forest and never return home.” The huntsman took pity on the pretty girl and said: “Well, go. God be with you, poor girl! Just at this time a young deer jumped out of the bushes; the huntsman pinned him, took out his lung and liver and brought them to the queen as proof that her order had been fulfilled. With the princess, Chernavka went into the forest and took her to such a distance that the princess guessed, and was scared to death, and prayed: “Life my! What, tell me, am I guilty of? Don't ruin me, girl! And when I become a queen, I will favor you.” She, loving her in her soul, didn’t kill her, didn’t tie her up, let her go and said: “Don’t worry, God be with you.” And she came home. "What? - the queen said to her, “Where is the beautiful maiden?” “There, in the forest, she stands alone,” she answers her, “Her elbows are tightly tied; If she falls into the claws of the beast, she will have to endure less, it will be easier to die.” When the time comes for a girl to grow up, she needs someone to help her with this. It’s good if it’s a mother or another more experienced woman whom the girl trusts. It will help her enter the world of femininity and get to know a man as a companion and partner, find contact with her unconscious images, in particular with the animus, which will give her the opportunity to prepare for the upcoming changes. In the tale of the Dead Princess, Chernavka, although against the will of the Princess, helps her move from the world of simply living everyday life (the conscious state) to the world of intrapsychic images (to a state that makes it possible to contact the unconscious). There is no such woman in the fairy tale about Snow White, so the trickster in this fairy tale appears as a man with a knife in his hands. A girl, whose inner male image is based on her mother’s ideas about men, forms within herself a pronounced bipolar male object. At the conscious level, men appear to her as “noble knights without fear or reproach”; at the unconscious level, she sees them as cruel animals who “want only one thing.” These are the ambivalent messages of her mother, who, on the one hand, is trying to “protect” her daughter from pain and mistakes, forbidding her to communicate with boys, in fact, perhaps, jealous of the fact that “her fairy tale is just beginning” [7]. On the other hand, she unconsciously pushes her daughter into relationships with men, trying to live through these relationships again through her. In both cases, she does not give her daughter the necessary recommendations on how to behave and does not explain what to be wary of. The girl inevitably meets the “hunter” - a threatening male figure. She allows herself to be led into a dangerous place in order to face her unconscious fears in reality. As a rule, she is simply frightened, but this incident reveals to her the contents of her unconscious ideas about men. After Snow White runs away into the forest, a fawn emerges, which the hound sacrifices, as it seems to us, in order to appease the mother object. The deer is an auspicious symbol associated with the sun, sunrise, light, purity, renewal, rebirth, creation and spirituality. He is a mediator between heaven and earth, a messenger of the gods. In medieval art in the West, the deer symbolized solitude and purity. Its appearance can symbolize both the beginning of a renewal of the psyche andto be a symbol of the blessing of the beginning process from the transcendental (unconscious). The fact that the animal is sacrificed for the sake of the heroine's successful completion of initiation indicates the ancient roots of the tale. The stepmother demands that the huntsman bring her lung and liver as proof of the heroine’s death. This is a very symbolic act, the death of a deer, including the abandonment of an instinctive part of oneself. Those instincts that help us feel ourselves, our body, our emotional states. While deep unconscious work is taking place, we may not notice our feelings and emotions, which in turn can lead to depressive apathy or the occurrence of a psychosomatic illness. It can also be noted that from the point of view of body-oriented psychology, the lung is part of the ventilation system, responsible for the autonomy of the individual. The main functions of the liver are the production of bile and reproduction, and purification of the blood. Blood is a symbol of life and energy, bile is a symbol of aggressiveness and anger. We can conclude that when the maternal object is hypertrophied, the girl perceives the mother’s action as an encroachment on her autonomy, resistance to the beginning changes and upcoming renewal, perhaps even as a threat to her vitality. Her instinctive part, devoid of bile, deprives the girl of the opportunity to freely express, or rather, feel aggression. Our heroines found themselves in the forest. But the young bride, wandering in the forest until dawn, meanwhile walked and walked and came across a tower. A dog met her, barking, ran and fell silent, playing; And then the poor thing found herself alone in a dense forest, and she became so scared that she examined every leaf on the trees, and did not know what to do and how to be. And she started to run, and ran over sharp stones and thorny bushes, and wild animals scurried past her back and forth, but did not cause her any harm. She ran as long as her quick little legs carried her, almost until the evening; when she was tired, she saw a small hut and entered it. The symbolism of the forest is primarily associated with the bodily unconscious. As is known from Jung’s work “The Spirit of Mercury”[8], the forest is associated with the psychosomatic area of ​​the psyche and, according to M. L. von Franz, finding yourself in a fairy-tale forest, you “drown in your body and only vegetate.”[9] Also, M. L. von Franz notes that, analyzing the heroine of a fairy tale who finds herself in the forest, one can come to the conclusion that “she drowned in some incomprehensible depressive apathy.”[10] From the above, we can conclude that in real life during this period, a girl, plunging into images of the personal unconscious, will most likely be susceptible to depressive states, or she may develop a psychosomatic illness. The forest is traditionally associated with the symbolism of the feminine principle, coming from the symbol of the Great Mother. In ancient times, when forests occupied most of the land, they were places of sacrifice and initiations. The initiation we are analyzing was carried out so that the girl could fully accept her own femininity, which is impossible to understand and accept without masculinity, which makes up the whole with her. A girl accepts herself as a woman only after accepting the masculine. Our heroines, plunging into the sphere of the personal unconscious (into the forest), the symbolism of which is associated with the feminine principle, find an “island of consciousness,” symbolized here by a house in the forest. In order for this forest to become “her” forest, she needs to gain a foothold on something that opposes it, in order not to be “swallowed” by the Great Mother, she needs to find her own house, and it is very logical that it belongs to the heroine’s internal male objects, her animus . Both girls calmly enter the house, and each begins to get used to it in her own way. In the middle of the hut there was a table with seven small plates, and on each plate there was a spoon, and then seven knives and forks, and with each utensil there was a glass. Near the table there were seven beds in a row, covered with snow-white bed linen. Snow White, who loves to eat and drinkshe wanted, she tasted vegetables and bread from each plate and drank a drop of wine from each glass, because she did not want to take everything away from one. Then, tired from walking, she tried to lie down on one of the beds; but not a single one suited her; one was too long, the other was too short, and only the seventh was just right for her. She lay down in it, crossed herself and fell asleep. She entered the gate, There was silence in the courtyard... The door quietly opened. And the princess found herself in a bright upper room; all around are benches covered with a carpet, under the saints an oak table, a stove with a tiled stove bench. The girl sees that good people live here; I know she won't be offended. Meanwhile, no one is visible. The princess walked around the house, put everything in order, lit a candle for God, lit the stove hot, climbed onto the floor and quietly lay down. The heroines behave differently in an unfamiliar place. Snow White tastes the food and wine and goes to bed. The princess cleans up, lights the stove and only after that falls asleep, this tells us that consciousness brings some order to that part of the unconscious with which it is currently interacting, making it understandable to itself. She does this without asking the owners, as if she is more or less aware of how to behave in this place, which again brings us back to the idea that the animus of this heroine is more developed and is part of the mental structure of the personality. But, be that as it may, both of them behave very delicately (Snow White eats a little from each plate, so as not to leave someone without dinner). In many fairy tales, the main characters behave this way; they do not allow themselves to be careless or too assertive when confronted with the unconscious. The princess ends up in the mansion with the seven heroes, and Snow White with the seven dwarves. The symbolism of the number seven is very multifaceted; the number seven can be obtained by adding three and four. The first of these terms is a symbol of heaven and soul, while the second personifies the earth and body. Coming together they show the unification of masculine and feminine, the integrity that arises as a result of transformation, thus we can consider the number seven as a symbol of transformation. In our fairy tales, such a multifaceted manifestation of the main character’s animus is explained by the fact that women are consciously monogamous, and accordingly, in order to maintain balance in the unconscious, her animus will be presented polygamously. A man is responsible for performing many biological functions, as people say: “...a reaper, a Swiss, and a player on the pipe.” As Emma Jung notes: “in accordance with the more varied field of male activity, the animus appears as the representative or master of every kind of ability.”[11] Or, as in our case, a group of men of different ages. By interacting (communicating) and structuring (removing), the Ego integrates masculine components into the consciousness of the individual. A girl's animus, her internal idea of ​​what a man is, and at the same time the masculine qualities of her personality, is formed, in general, on the basis of her internal image of her father. Like all archetypes, the father archetype is dual. On the one hand, he can be protective, generous, giving, on the other hand, he can be vengeful, cursing, suppressive, depriving of strength. According to J. Hall, “if a child perceives his father positively, he feels his strength and emotional support and, fueled by the father’s energy, transforms the outside world. If he perceives his father negatively, the fragile child’s psyche is destroyed... Thanks to the mother, the child can experience the world as a caring and protective environment. Thanks to his father, he can get support to enter the world. Myths about the Great Mother form a large cycle associated with the motif of death - rebirth, that is, eternal return. Myths about the Heavenly Father are associated with an eternal search, a journey from naivety to experience, from darkness to light, from home to the horizon. Each mythological cycle must be completed”[12]. A girl’s internal ideas about her father, although they are of paramount importance in the formation of the animus, are still only the basis, the basis on which the girlforms an internal male object. In order to form an animus, she needs to complement the inner male figure with various male objects that are significant to her; in fairy tales, our heroines come into contact with seven heroes, or gnomes. In real life, this stage is very similar to what happens in the unconscious. During this period, a girl can fantasize a lot about her future man: “what he is like, what he looks like, how they will meet, etc.”, as if gaining qualities, complementing the internal male image, she may have dreams in which male objects are present. But both dreams and fantasies are often not connected with reality; in the unconscious there is an active process of splitting and filling the animus, which, as a rule, is not tracked by consciousness. Snow White ends up in the dwarves' house. Gnomes are the personification of natural forces; initially, gnomes were considered the spirits of the elements of earth, like the spirits of the other three elements - air, water, fire. Dwarves are chthonic creatures, teach people crafts and are endowed with wisdom. These little people, the size of a child or less, spend most of their lives deep in the Earth. Traditionally, the symbol of the Earth is associated with the symbolism of the Great Mother, which once again confirms our idea that Snow White splits the maternal animus. Dwarves, originating from Mother Earth, perfectly personify it. They offer Snow White to stay and live with them and help with the housework, as if they are giving some kind of permission from the maternal object to be a housewife and improve in new intrapsychic roles. In the fairy tale about the Princess, the Bogatyrs offer her to choose one of them as her husband. It seemed important to us to dwell on this point in more detail. The brothers fell in love with the sweet girl. Once, as soon as it was dawn, all seven of them entered her room. The eldest said to her: “Maiden, you know: you are a sister to all of us, There are seven of us, we all love you, for ourselves We would all be glad to take you, But it’s impossible, so for God’s sake, reconcile us somehow: Be one’s wife, Be affectionate to others.” sister. Why are you shaking your head? Are you refusing us? Are the goods not for the merchants? “Oh, you, honest fellows, you are my dear brothers,” the princess says to them, “If I lie, may God command me not to leave this place alive. What do i do? because I'm a bride. For me, you are all equal, All are daring, all are smart, I love you all with all my heart; But I am forever given to another. Korolevich Elisha is dearer to me than all of them.” R. A. Johnson previously described such a situation in the myth of Tristan and Isolde, analyzing the relationship of the protagonist with his anima “... it is very difficult to bring oneself to believe that she is not a mortal woman, but a metaphysical image, possessing such a charge that physical touch it is associated with enormous risk”[13]. It seems to us that this moment describes the desire of both the male and female Ego to merge with its animus (anima). This cannot be done, and in many fairy tales and legends there is confirmation of this (the sword between Tristan and Isolde during sleep). Robert Johnson also notes that honoring and interacting with an internal figure of the opposite sex brings meaning and integrity to both internal and real life. Otherwise, our projections impoverish real life and may cause the destruction of some aspects of internal images. The Princess’s refusal tells us that she refuses to project her animus onto a real man, in other words, she refuses to marry her animus. Having lived for some time in a forest house, accepting, interacting and splitting the animus, the Ego gains sufficient energy to undergo the next stage of initiation (transformation). The stepmother in both fairy tales learns from the mirror that the main character is alive and where she is now and begins to act. All day Snow White remained alone in the house, and therefore the good gnomes warned her and said: “Beware of your stepmother! She will soon find out where you are, so don’t let anyone into the house except us.” And the queen-stepmother, having asked the mirror who was now the first beauty in the whole country, found out fromhim that Snow White is alive and she is in the forest with the mountain gnomes. And she began to think about how she could kill her stepdaughter. She dressed up as an old merchant and became completely unrecognizable and headed to the hut of the seven dwarves, knocked on their door and shouted: “Various goods, cheap, for sale!” Snow White looked out of the window. “Well, of course, I can let this merchant in here,” she thought, unlocked the door and bought herself a beautiful red cord. “Uh, child,” said the old woman, “Come here, let yourself be laced properly!” Snow White turned her back to the old woman and let her lace herself with a new lace: she laced it so tightly that Snow White immediately lost her breath and she fell dead to the ground. Soon after, the seven dwarves returned home and saw Snow White lying on the floor as if dead. They lifted her up, cut the lace, and she began to breathe again and completely came to life. When the dwarves heard from her about what happened to her, they said that it was the evil stepmother and again told Snow White not to let anyone into the house. And the evil woman, returning home to the mirror, realized that Snow White had come to life again. Using various spells, she made a poisonous comb. Then she changed clothes and took on the image of another old woman. She went to the house of the seven dwarfs and began to shout: “Goods, goods for sale!” At first, Snow White wanted to drive the old woman away, but she persuaded her to buy a poisonous comb and let her comb her hair. As soon as she ran the comb through her hair, Snow White lost consciousness. Fortunately, the dwarves soon returned home and saw that Snow White was lying dead on the ground, they found a poisonous comb in the girl’s hair, and as soon as they took it out, Snow White came to her senses and told everything that had happened to her. Then they once again told her to be careful and not open the door to anyone. Meanwhile, the queen, having returned home, and having learned from the mirror that Snow White was alive, trembled with rage. "Snow White must die! - she exclaimed. “Even if I had to die with her!” Then she went into a secret little room and there she made a poisonous apple. It looked like a wonderful apple, plump, with ruddy barrels, but just take a bite and you’ll die. The queen painted her face, dressed as a peasant woman and went to the seven dwarves. She knocked at their house, Snow White answered that she was not ordered to open the door for anyone or take anything. “Aren’t you afraid of poison?” - asked the peasant woman. - “So, look, I’ll cut the apple in half: you can eat the rosy half, and I’ll eat the other half myself.” And her apple was so skillfully prepared that only the rosy half of it was poisoned. Snow White really wanted to taste this wonderful apple, and when she saw that the peasant woman was eating her half, she could no longer resist this desire, stretched out her hand from the window and took the poisoned half of the apple. But as soon as she took a bite of it, she fell dead on the floor. Then the queen stepmother looked at her with malicious eyes, laughed loudly and said: “Well, this time the dwarfs won’t be able to revive you!” And when she came home, she learned from the mirror that she had again become the most beautiful in the world. The Princess’s stepmother also learned from the mirror that she was alive and: She decided, either not to live, or to destroy the princess. Once the young princess, waiting for her dear brothers, sang , sitting under the window. Suddenly, the dog barked angrily under the porch, and the girl saw: a poor bluebird walking around the yard, using her stick to drive the dog away. “Wait, Grandma, wait a little,” she shouts to her through the window, “I’ll threaten the dog myself and I’ll take something away for you.” The blueberry answers her: “Oh, you little girl! The damned dog overpowered, Almost ate it to death. Look, How busy he is! Come out to me.” - The princess wants to go out to her and took the bread, But she just came down from the porch, The dog barks at her feet, And won’t let her go to the old woman; As soon as the old woman goes to her, He is angrier than the forest animal, For an old woman. “What kind of miracle? Apparently, he didn’t sleep well,” the princess said to her, “Come on, catch it!” - and the bread flies. The old woman caught the bread; “Thank you,” she said. “God bless you; That’s why you should catch it!” And to the princessliquid, young, golden, the apple flies straight... The door quietly locked,... She took the apple in her hands, brought it to her scarlet lips, bit it slowly and swallowed a piece... Suddenly she, my soul,... Staggered without breathing, fell head first on the bench and became quiet, motionless... The time has come meeting with a negative maternal object, with the help of which transformation is carried out - a key stage of initiation, including regression and temporary loss of the ego, the transition to consciousness and the realization of a previously unconscious psychological need. Both of our heroines make attempts to undergo initiation, but due to the peculiarities of the personality structure, which we have talked about more than once, Snow White makes three attempts, while the Princess only needs one. Analyzing the objects brought by the stepmother to Snow White, we could not help but pay attention to the pronounced ambivalence of her behavior, characteristic of the behavior of the so-called overprotective mother. She gives Snow White the attributes of femininity, something that should help her establish herself in her new status, but she does it in a rather strange form, her natural desire to help her daughter conflicts with the desire to keep her from growing up. The first item, the lace, should emphasize the girl’s figure, make her more attractive, this is a truly feminine attribute, with its help the stepmother prepares Snow White for a new age category - a girl of marriageable age, but her way of using the lace leads the heroine to suffocation. Often an overprotective mother can be called suffocating, because she does not give the opportunity to breathe freely, overly restricts, thereby depriving her of independence. The second item was a comb. In many fairy tales, an enchanted comb is used to cause the protagonist to fall into oblivion. In our previous article “Female initiation, or how to accept the Snow Queen,” at the moment of regression of the main character, the comb was used by the maternal object so that she would forget what she set out on the journey for and remain in a dependent state. In the fairy tale “Finist the Clear Falcon,” the main character also falls under the spell of a magic comb, he loses his strength and falls into oblivion. Combs have been used in various rituals since ancient times; they are one of the most ancient inventions of man. For many peoples, combing hair and rituals associated with braiding reflected the main stages of a woman’s life. In particular, the Slavs distinguished four such stages. The first stage took place at the age of five, when the girl finally accepts her gender identity. The second stage in adolescence, when a braided braid meant that the girl was ready for marriage. The third stage, marriage, unraveled one braid and braided two. And the fourth stage is the funeral rite. A change in hairstyle symbolized a change in social status. The maternal object, making another attempt to help her daughter gain a new status, deprives her of consciousness. Brushing your hair in itself can lead to a trance-like state. It is important to note the behavior of the Dwarves. Although they are initially objects of the maternal complex, they increasingly resist it, helping Snow White free herself from the influence of her overprotective mother. The split maternal animus becomes increasingly stronger in the heroine’s psyche as her own object. The dwarves are gradually preparing Snow White for the transformation; they understand that if she goes through it too early, she will remain under the influence of the maternal object. The last item, an apple, corresponds to the item brought to the Princess. It is thanks to the apple that the girls “die” when leaving the house in the forest. The apple is one of the most common symbols - the fruit of mythology. Thanks to its round shape, the apple is a symbol of perfection, beauty, divine gift, integrity, eternity. In the biblical tradition, the apple is considered a symbol of both the fall and initiation into secret knowledge. If you cut an apple in half, its core will look like a five-pointed star, a sacred pentagram, which is a symbol of femininity, secret knowledge, and initiation. Taking a biteAn apple brought by the stepmother, the girls receive the knowledge they need for initiation, which once again shows us the ambivalence of the Stepmother's character. At a symbolic level, she shares with the girl the secret of her own femininity, which was previously perceived negatively by the heroine, since the mother herself is negative, and therefore the functions associated with the mother, and femininity in general. By accepting a gift from her stepmother, the heroine accepts both her mother and the negative in herself that she previously saw only in her mother. It is thanks to this that the transition to a new stage of development became possible. Analyzing the fairy tale, we are increasingly convinced of the Princess’s certain awareness of how she needs to behave with images of the unconscious. She gives bread to the beggar woman who brought the apple. The princess pays tribute to the unconscious, in return receiving from it a gift - help in the transition to a new stage of development. There was an exchange of energies. Since ancient times, in Rus' they treated the guest with bread and salt, thereby saying that they were welcoming him into the house, recognizing him as one of their own. Likewise, at a wedding, after the ceremony, the mother gives bread and salt to the newlyweds; in some places, the newlyweds are sprinkled with grain, welcoming a new family. In the fairy tale by A.S. Pushkin's dog tries to stop the princess from eating an apple. The dog is the animal closest to man; it accompanies man throughout the day of life and is his guide through the night of death. Great guides of souls such as Anubis, Hecate and Hermes are depicted with the head of a dog or have a dog as their attribute. In many mythologies, the dog guards the borders between worlds, is the guardian and ruler of the underworld, where chthonic and lunar deities rule. This is the world of dreams, the kingdom of darkness, the other side of life, where, however, there is a point at which death becomes rebirth. The dog guards the realm of the unconscious. And as Jung wrote in “Mysterium Coniuntionis” [14] it is a “matrix” that needs to be opened in order to release the contents of the unconscious. The death of the dog in the fairy tale tells us that the unconscious work that took place in the unconscious is being integrated into consciousness. Which leads to the beginning of the transformation of the Ego and the unconscious. Both girls plunged into a transformative sleep, and the heroes and the gnomes, returning home, found them “dead.” The brothers at that time were returning home in a crowd... They galloped up, entered, gasped. Running in, the Dog rushed headlong towards the apple, barking, got angry, swallowed it, fell over and died. It was drunk with poison, you know, it was. In front of the dead princess, the brothers, in spiritual grief, all hung their heads... They wanted to bury her and changed their minds. She, As if under the wing of a dream, lay so quiet, fresh, That she just couldn’t breathe... Having performed a sad ritual, Here they put the corpse of the young princess in a crystal coffin - and the crowd carried her to an empty mountain, And at midnight, her coffin was carefully screwed to six pillars on cast-iron chains , The dwarves returned home and found Snow White stretched out on the floor, lifeless, dead. They raised her, began to look for the cause of her death - they looked for poison, unlaced her dress, combed her hair, washed her with water and wine; however, nothing could help her. Snow White was dead and remained dead. They put her in a coffin and, all seven of them sitting around her body, began to mourn and mourned for exactly three days in a row. They were already planning to bury her, but she seemed fresh in appearance, as if she were alive. The dwarfs said: “No, we cannot lower her into the dark bowels of the earth,” and they ordered another, transparent crystal coffin for her, put Snow White in it, so that she could be seen from all sides, and wrote her name in gold letters on the lid and that she was a king's daughter. Then they carried the coffin to the top of the mountain, and one of the dwarves remained with it constantly on guard. The fact that the coffins are not lowered into the ground also tells us that the death of the heroines is not real, but symbolic, it is necessary for the subsequent revival of the personality, but in a different status. Lower into the ground, in analytical language, give back to the bosom Great mother. In contrast, our heroines are brought to the mountain, which is usuallyassociated with the patriarchal principle (Zeus living on Mount Olympus). An interesting fact is that the dwarves bring the coffin with Snow White to the top of the mountain, which means bringing some unconscious motives to a conscious level. And as a result, it symbolizes her acceptance of the masculine, and a demonstration of her readiness to accept a new status in the patriarchal world. The princess is placed in a cave in the mountain; as is known, the cave is a maternal symbol, which, uniting here with the paternal symbol of the mountain, can symbolize the interaction of the paternal and maternal principles that have come to harmony. Both girls are placed in a crystal coffin; in the German epic there is a legend about the crystal mountain, which was considered a place in the other world. It is home to many fairy-tale creatures. In fairy tales, people are brought there for liberation, or, as it seems to us, in our case, for transformation. The moment of transition from one state to another. They transform from immature girls into women who are aware of their negative sides. They are ready to meet the animus, each of them is ready to become a wife and accept him as a husband - to accept their inner creative potential. Meanwhile, Prince Elisha is galloping around the world for his bride. No way! He weeps bitterly, And whoever he asks, His question is tricky for everyone; Who laughs in his face, Who would rather turn away; The young man finally turned to the red sun. “Our sunshine! You walk all year round across the sky, bringing Winter together with the warm spring, You see us all below you. Or will you refuse me an answer? Have you seen a young princess anywhere in the world? I am her groom.”— “You are my light,” the red sun answered, “I I haven’t seen the princess. You know, she’s no longer alive. Maybe a month, my neighbor, I met her somewhere or noticed a trace of her.” Elisha waited for the dark night in his anguish. As soon as the month appeared, He chased after it with prayer. “A month, a month, my friend, Gilded horn! You rise in the deep darkness, Round-faced, bright-eyed, And, loving your custom, The stars look at you. Or will you refuse me an answer? Have you seen a young princess anywhere in the world? I am her groom." - “My brother,” answers the clear moon, “I have not seen a red maiden. I stand on guard Only in my turn. Without me, the princess apparently ran away.” .— “How insulting!” - The prince answered. The clear moon continued: “Wait; Perhaps the Wind knows about her. He will help. Now go to him, Don’t be sad, goodbye.” Elisha, without losing heart, rushed to the wind, calling out: “Wind, wind! You are powerful, You drive away flocks of clouds, You stir the blue sea, You blow everywhere in the open space. You are not afraid of anyone, Except God alone. Or will you refuse me an answer? Have you seen a young princess anywhere in the world? I am her groom." - “Wait, - The wild wind answers, - There is a high mountain behind the quietly flowing river, In that hole there is a deep hole; In that hole, in the sad darkness, A crystal coffin is swinging on chains between the pillars. No traces can be seen around that empty place, In that coffin is your bride.” The wind is far away. he ran. The prince burst into tears and went to the empty place to look at the beautiful bride just once more. Here he comes; and a steep mountain rose in front of him; Around it there is an empty country; Under the mountain there is a dark entrance. He quickly goes there. In front of him, in the sad darkness, a crystal coffin sways, And in that crystal coffin the princess sleeps in eternal sleep. And he hit the coffin of his dear bride with all his might. The coffin broke. The maiden suddenly came to life. She looks around with amazed eyes, And, swaying over the chains, Sighing, she said: “How long have I slept!” And she gets up from the coffin... Ah! It’s nice, They set off on their way back, And the rumor is already trumpeting: The king’s daughter is alive! It happened once that the king’s son drove into that forest, he saw a coffin on the mountain and the beautiful Snow White in the coffin and read what was written on the lid of the coffin in gold letters . Then he said to the dwarves: “Give me the coffin, I will give you everything you want for it.” But the dwarfs answered: “We will not give it up for all the gold in the world.” But the prince did not back down: “So give it to me, I can’t get enough of Snow White: it seems that life won’t be nice for me without her! Give it as a gift, and I will honor and appreciate her as a dear friend!” The good gnomes took pity when they heardsuch a hot speech from the mouth of the prince, and they gave him Snow White’s coffin. The prince ordered his servants to carry the coffin on their shoulders. They carried him and tripped over some twig, and from this shock the piece of poisoned apple that she had bitten jumped out of Snow White’s throat. As a piece of apple jumped out, she opened her eyes, lifted the lid of the coffin, and she herself stood up in it, alive and well. "My God! Where am I? - she exclaimed. The prince said joyfully: “I have you, I have you!” - He told her everything that happened and added: “You are dearer to me than anyone in the world; Let’s go with me to my father’s castle - and be my wife.” Thanks to the changes that have occurred with the Princess, her animus is also in development; in search of a bride, it becomes a kind of test. Having exhausted the possibilities of obtaining help from simple objects, he turned to transcendental energies. He first turned to the Sun, traditionally associated with the Father archetype, then to the Moon, which was originally associated with the Great Mother archetype, and subsequently with the anima. But he received the answer about where to find the Princess from the Wind. The wind is able to travel long distances in a short time, is mobile, changeable and very fast. As Emma Jung wrote[15], these qualities are inherent in many gods; in her work “Anima and Animus” she mentions such gods as Wotan the god of the wind, Locke the god of lies, Mercury, they are united by the fact that they represent the ability to discover new things, logos, dynamism, they all have an archetypal nature and relate to the impersonal unconscious. Jung, in his work Mysterium Coniuntionis[16], described the role of Mercury in the union of opposites. In the Russian version of the fairy tale, the wind seems to unite the knowledge of the Sun and the Moon, female and male. And it is the Wind that gives the answer to the whereabouts of the princess, thereby serving not only as a unification of collective archetypes, but also connecting the heroine’s Ego and her animus to restore the integrity of the psyche. If the Princess is mature enough to meet the animus one on one, then Snow White still needs the support and care of the dwarves. Her fiancé is also being tested; he needs to convince the dwarves of the strength of his intentions. Although the girl has prepared for marriage, the projections of the maternal animus will influence her perception of the male object. The fact that the Princess woke up from a strong blow that broke the crystal coffin led us to the idea of ​​defloration. The psychological transformation culminated in a transformation on the physical level. Snow White woke up from the collision of the coffin with a twig; it is not difficult to assume that this is also a hint of defloration. Thanks to the fact that she became a woman, the piece of apple that was blocking her breathing fell out, and she managed to get rid of the influence of her suffocating, overprotective mother. Both fairy tales end with a marriage between the Tsarevich and the Princess, Snow White and the Prince. Marriage is a symbol of the union of opposites, an alchemical coniunctio between two or more parts of the personality. Both heroines accept both their shadow sides, represented by the negative mother complex, and the positive side of their animus, which will allow them to connect the Ego with the creative resources of the unconscious. Coniunctio shows us that the personality, in the process of testing and subsequent transformation, has achieved integrity and unity. Another symbol of the heroines' maturation is the death of their stepmother. At home at that time, idle, the wicked stepmother sat in front of her mirror and talked with him, saying: “Am I the cutest of all, the most rosy and white?” whiter." The evil stepmother, jumping up, breaking the mirror on the floor, ran straight through the door and met the princess. Then she was overcome with melancholy, and the queen died. As soon as she was buried, the wedding was immediately celebrated, and Elisha married his bride; Snow White agreed and went with him, and their wedding was celebrated with great splendor and splendor. Snow White's evil stepmother was also invited to this celebration. At first she didn’t want to go to the wedding at all, but she went, but barely crossed the threshold of the wedding.