Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)

A Class 2016

Applying The Jungian Psychoanalytic Theory on

Cinderella Story by Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Abstract
This paper explores the analysis of Cinderella story by Grimm’s Fairy Tales, based on the
archetypes aspects in Jungian psychoanalytic theory. I analyse how the character’s
personality, especially main character named Cinderella based on the archetypes of Jungian
psychoanalytic theory. There are four kinds of archetypes to explore, they are persona,
shadow, anima and animus, and self. The purposes of this paper are to fulfill language
appreciation and criticism tasks, to analyse how Cinderella character’s personality based on
Jungian theory and to give additional knowledge for me and the reader. The conclusions of
this analyses are: a) the persona was represented by Cinderella that wore a nice dress to fulfill
the king’s expectation in his festival and the prince’s expectation about his future wife; b) the
shadow was reflected by step-mother and step-sisters of Cinderella who were always evil to
Cinderella; c) the anima is shown by the prince, when he cried, it showed his feminine side
and the animus is shown by the courage of Cinderella to attend the festival showed her
masculine side; and d) the Self is showed by Cinderella when she found her true self as the
owner of the gold shoes and the prince's bride.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016

1. Introduction
Humans are creatures that have character or characteristics to distinguish between one
human and another human. With character in humans, problems or incompatibilities will
appear. This human problem and how to deal with it are interesting to write in the form of
literature. Literary work is one of one's thoughts or views expressed according to experience
(Akfiningrum, 2013). Therefore, the author, as a human, expresses ideas in the form of
different characters and tries to convey a message to the reader about how to solve it. With
his ideas, the reader can get a message both implicit and explicit from the literary work.

One of the literary works is a story. Telling stories has become a tradition that most parents
do to their children. Fairy tales are children's favorites because the story is full of fantasy or
imagination. Fairy tales are simple fantasy stories that don't really happen and function to
convey moral messages (educate) and also entertain (Triyanto, 2007). The characters that
often appear in fairy tales are witches, fairies, princess-princes, trolls, giants, dwarves and
talking animals, also creatures that have other magical powers. One of the famous fairy tales
is Cinderella story.

This story tells of a beautiful girl named Cinderella who was treated badly by her stepmother
and step-sisters, who later married a handsome prince from the kingdom. In the cinderella
story, the main character is cinderella. Not only that, there are also stepmothers, step sisters,
kings, and handsome princes, which their characters can be analyzed based on the characters’
personality in Jungian psychoanalytic theory side.

The subject of Jung's study is very distinctive, which is about the archetypes of each event,
such as persona, shadow, anima-animus, and Self. Therefore, in this paper, I will analyze the
problem of this paper about how the characters in the cinderella story that are associated
with archetypes made by Carl Jung.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016

2. Literature Review
Carl Gustav Jung (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who
founded analytical psychology (Wikipedia contributors, 2019). Singh (2012) claimed that Jung
theory departs from Freud about the concept of the unconscious. Unconscious is Jung
postulated the idea of collective unconscious which its contents are archetypes.

“the contents of collective unconscious are known as archetypes i.e. pre-existant forms or
original forms.” (Jung The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 3, as cited in Singh, 2012,
p. 24) . So that, the theory of Jung concerned about the collective unconscious and
archetypes. He introduced his theory in his work entitled Archetypes and Collective
Unconscious (1961). (Jung, as cited in Rosliana, 2013, p.12).

According to Singh (2012), collective unconscious is universal in contrast with personal

unconscious (p.24). It means collective awareness is almost completely detached from all
personal aspects of one's life and seems to be universal. Personal unconscious serves to
collect all repressive, forgotten or sublimated experiences from an individual whose contents
are called complexes (Jung, as cited in Suhendra, 2012). Collective unconcious can be
understood as the universal images of certain thing that people have as their basic
consideration to take action (Jung in Rosliana, 2013, p. 22); Collective Unconscious: The
impersonal layer in the human psyche that is “inherited and shared” with other humans
(Covington, 2018, p.7) and collective unconsciousness is a storehouse of latent memories that
are inherited from the past of one's ancestors (Jung, as cited in Yusuf Ibid 2007, p. 80 – 81).
Intermediate between the conscious and the collective unconscious is the personal
unconscious made up of complexes which is linked to an archetype for complexes are
personification of archetypes (Singh, 2012, p.24). All humans have more or less the same
collective unconsciousness. Jung attributed the universal nature of the collective unconscious
to the similarity of brain structures in all human races. The similarity of the structure of the
human brain is caused by general evolution.

Based on those theories, collective unconscious is a universal picture of a human experience

that takes place from generation to generation that is active in one's thoughts, emotions, and
actions which all humans have more or less the same collective unconscious because of one
ancestor.

Moreover, The content of collective unconscious are archetypes. Archetypes are an ancient
picture obtained from collective unconscious. These archetypes have a biological basis but
actually come from experiences repeated by human ancestors. When human experience
corresponds to latent primodial images, then archetypes will be active. These archetypes are
very numerous and potentially appear. These archetypes cannot be represented directly, but
when active, they will express themselves through several forms, such as main dreams,
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
fantasies, and delusions. Dreams are the main source of material archetypal. This dream can
produce motives unknown to the subject which is his personal experience (Jung, as cited in
Wulandari, 2018). Archetypes are similar to instincts and they reveal themselves to our
consciousness by powerful symbolic images, Archetypes can bring people under their spell –
they have a vitalizing force when people allow themselves to experience them. Archetypes
are collective, they are held in common by a social group. Archetypes appear simple on the
surface, but are complex. The identification of archetypes is a relatively modern
phenomenon. They are both images and emotions and both have to be present to radiate.

Archetypes are connected to the individual by the bridge of emotions. According to Singh
(2012) in page 25, the kinds of archetypes are: persona, shadow, anima or animus and the
self.

1. Persona

Persona is one of the archetypes existed in Jung’s theory of Analytical Psychology. Singh
(2012) highlighted that persona is an archetype of social adaptability and should be
flexible. Cassement (2001) pointed that persona is often symbolized as ‘mask’ covering our
face. Therefore, people will not see our true self unless they let go the mask. Persona is
the individual’s public image or “social mask” (Jung 1959, as cited in Covington, 2018, p.7).
Jung’s theory believes that every human being has his own mask that is not recognized by
people except one’s self. The rise of the acceptance of the social requirements is very
important in which it leads people to ‘put on’ the mask. This assumption derives from the
fact that people manage to actualize themselves by becoming what society wants them to
be. Jung called this phenomena as a compromise between one and society in order to fit
in into the community or environment. On the other word, people willingly appears to be
someone different so they can fulfill the demand of the society (Covington, 2018, p.7).

Based on the previous theory, Persona is how a character presents their self in public,
work, and family. It means that a character has a face that based on someone’s expectation
& others’ expectation. However, in this case, a character can possibly live not as their true
self.

2. Shadow
Shadow is one of the archetypes existed in Jung’s theory of Analytical Psychology. Shadow
is the dark side of human being. It is all those uncivilized desires and emotions that are
compatible with social standards and our ideal personality; all that we are ashamed of, all
that we do not want to know about ourselves (Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018). Shadow
is an archetype identified with the instinctual, primitive, and generally negative traits of
the personality that are repressed into the unconscious (Jung, 1972 as cited in Covington,
2018, p.7) and also referred to as the “counter-tendencies in the unconscious” (Jung, 1959
as cited in Covington, 2018, p.7).
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
Jung calls the other side of ourselves, which is to be found in the personal unconscious,
the shadow. Shadow is one’s anti self, the dark sister. The shadow is something more than
the personal unconscious – it is personal in so far as our own weaknesses and failings are
concerned, but since it is common to humanity it can also be said to be a collective
phenomenon. The collective aspect of shadow is expressed as a devil, a witch, or
something similar. (Singh, 2012, p.25). Jung calls the other side of ourselves, which is to
be found in the personal unconscious, the shadow. Shadow is one’s anti self, the dark
sister. All that one represses to build a persona goes into the shadow. This is close to
Freud’s concept of id. But shadow is bigger than id. It may have positive connotations. Jung
regards shadow as a tight passage, a narrow door.

As Jung states: The shadow is tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no
man is spared who goes down to the deep well... For what comes after the door is
surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with
apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and there, no mine
and no thine. (Jung The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious 3 as cited in Singh,
2012).

We can conclude that shadow is the weaknesses and failings. It may lead to the dark side
or the devil side of humanity. All that one represses to build a persona goes into the
shadow. This is close to Freud’s concept of id. However, shadow may have positive
connotations.

3. Anima or Animus
Jung believes that all humans are psychologically bisexual and have masculine and
feminine sides (Feist and Feist, 2008). The feminine side of a man is called anima. Jung
believes that unconsciously there are some female elements that exist in men, such as
sensitive, easy to cry, melancholy, talkative etc. The masculine side of a woman is called
an animus. Animus represents to think and reason by involving feelings or emotions. It is
capable to influence the thinking of a woman. In other words, she has his own "animus"
mechanism (Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018). The animus and the anima are very
important aspects of the male and female unconscious, specifically relating to archetypes.
The anima is basically defined as the feminine aspect of the male unconscious. The animus,
on the other hand is the masculine aspect of the female unconscious (Jung, 1964 as cited
in Covington, 2018, p.8). In essence, every man has an inner anima and every woman has
an inner animus. In brief, Anima shows a feminin side of man and Animus shows a
masculine side of a woman.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
4. The Self

Self is the archetype which becomes the center of the unconsciousness. It appears in a
dream in various symbols (Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018). Self is the center or the
deepest part in human unconsciousness. Jung views “the Self as both the center and the
totality of the psyche, it has a strong claim to be regarded as the central concept of his
entire psychology. The Self is the goal toward which the process of individuation strives”
(Papadopoulos : 2006).
Self can also be translated as who we really are or our true self. Human should recognize the
self into the consciousness part in order to have a healthy personality. Self appears in a very
complex way in our collective unconsciousness. In a dream, there are various symbols which
depict a power and figure that looks strange and unrecognized (Chris, 2018)
These are some examples of symbols that might appear in a dream (Chris, 2018):

 Person : Old priest, Wise Old Man or Woman, little kid, hermafrodit, king or queen, inner
voice whispering, guardian angel, devil or a very genius man. Physically, we do not
recognize them.
 Animal : Phoenix (a bird which is scorched and reborn from its ashes), Uruboros; totem.
 Things : Things that give particular direction, Holy Grail, Elixir of Immortality, Star of
Bethlehem, the Philosopher’s Stone.
 Geometrical Picture : A picture of a circle which is centered to one point. This is also called
“Mandala”.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016

3. Finding and Analysis

1. Persona

Persona is how a character presents their self in public, work, and family. It means that a
character has a face that based on someone’s expectation & others’ expectation. However,
in this case, a character can possibly live not as their true self. This theory proposed by Carl
Gustav Jung is experienced by Cinderella as the main character of this story.

The persona of Cinderella story was reflected by these quotation in the story:

The king’s expectation:

“Now it came to pass that the King ordained a festival that should last for three days,
and to which all the beautiful young women of that country were bidden, so that
the King’s son might choose a bride from among them.” (page 2, paragraph 6)

“And as there was no one left in the house, Cinderellla went to the hazel bush and
cried, “Little tree, little tree, shake over me, That silver and gold may come down
and cover me”. (page 3, paragraph 10)

The prince’s expectation:

“Then the bird threw down a dress of gold and silver, and a pair of slippers
embroidered with silk and silver. And in all haste she put on the dress and went to
the festival...”(page 3, paragraph 11)

“The King’s son came to meet her, and took her by the hand and danced with her,
and he refused to stand up with anyone else, so that he might not be obliged to let
go her hand. And when anyone came to claim it, he answered, “She’s my partner”.
(page 3-4, paragraph 11)

The analysis of this persona actually begins when the kings asked every beautiful young
woman should attend the festival in a beautiful appearance (wearing a nice dress and a pair
of good shoes) since the king wanted the prince to have a beautiful bride choosen from the
festival. After Cinderella heard this news, and she also wanted to attend the festival Cinderella
wore a nice dress to fullfil the King’s expectation about his festival and to fulfill the prince’s
expectation about his future wife by wearing a nice dress when she attended the festival. It
made a look that Cinderella is a beautiful, graceful, classy and wealthy girl who makes the
prince believe that Cinderella is like that. In fact, she does not have a nice dress to wear. That
is the beginning Cinderella hides her true identity from everyone and it is shown the persona.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
2. Shadow

Shadow is the weaknesses and failings. It may lead to the dark side or the devil side of
humanity. All that one represses to build a persona goes into the shadow. This is close to
Freud’s concept of id. However, shadow may have positive connotations.

The shadow of this story is reflected by these quotations:

Stepmother’s shadow:

“Then the maiden brought the dish to her step mother, feeling joyful, and thinking
that now she should go to the feast, but the joyful, and thinking that now she should
go to the feast; but the step-mother said, “No, Cinderella, you have no proper
clothes, and you do not know how to dance, and you would be laughed at!” and when
Cinderella cried for disappointment, she added, “If you can pick two dishes full of
lentils out the ashes, nice and clean, you shall go with us,” thinking to herself, “for
that is not possible.” (page 3, paragraph 8)

Stepsister’s shadow:

“Is the stupid creature to sit in the same room with us?” said they; “those who eat
food must earn it. She is nothing but a kitchen- maid!” They took away her pretty
dresses, and put on her an old gray kirtle, and gave her wooden shoes to wear.”
(page 1, paragraph 3)

The analysis of shadow can be seen clearly that the shadow is not reflected in Cinderella as
the main character, but rather reflected in the stepmother and step sisters of Cinderella. This
shadow appears when Cinderella’s stepmother underestimate Cinderella by not letting her to
go to the festival in the sake of nice dress that is not possessed by Cinderella, and keep asking
her to do many chores so that she could not attend the festival and when stepsisters did not
regard Cinderella as their stepsister, but merely as their housemaid. These are shown that the
stepmother and stepsisters treated Cinderella badly and showed the dark side or their
shadow.

3. Anima-Animus

Jung believes that all humans are psychologically bisexual and have masculine and feminine
sides (Feist and Feist, 2008). The feminine side of a man is called anima. Jung believes that
unconsciously there are some female elements that exist in men, such as sensitive, easy to
cry, melancholy, talkative etc. The anima was shown in the quotation:
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
“And when she stood up, and the Prince looked in her face, he knew again the
beautiful maiden that had dance with him, and he cried, “This is the right bridge!”
(page 6, paragraph 20)

The analysis is that we can see the anima of the prince character, who in the story says that
the prince cried when he managed to find Cinderella as his bride. the word crying is the main
focus of this analysis because crying is usually not something that is often done by men and
shows the feminine side of the prince. the stereotype of a man is a strong and not easy to
cry and usually cry is more directed at a woman.

Furthermore, the masculine side of a woman is called an animus. Jung also believes that
unconsciously there are several male elements in women. Animus represents to think and
reason by involving feelings or emotions. It is capable to influence the thinking of a woman.
In other words, she has his own "animus" mechanism. We can see from the main character,
Cinderella somehow acts like a man along with male characteristics. It is shown in the
quotation:

“And in all haste she put on dress and went to the festival. But her step-mother and
sister did not know her, and though she must be a foreign Princes, she looked so
beautiful in her golden dress.” (page 3, paragraph 11)

The analysis of this quotation is the animus of cinderella reflected by the courage of
cinderella. It is showed when she still came to come to the festival even though his
stepmother was not allowed at all. It showed her masculine side.

The other quotation that supported the animus of Cinderella is:

“… There she was obliged to do heavy work from morning to night, get up early in the
morning, draw water, make the fires, cook, and wash. Besides that, the sisters did their
utmost to torment her- mocking her, and strewing peas and lentils among the ashes, and
setting her to pick them up.”(page 1-2, paragraph 4)

The analysis of this quotation is the animus of cinderella reflected by Cinderella when she
had to do some heavy works from morning to night and it was being the main focus of this
analysis. Cinderella can do what usually a man do and it refers to heavy work from morning
to night. So that, when Cinderella did it, she showed a masculine side of herself.

4. The Self

Self is the archetype which becomes the center of the unconsciousness. It appears in a dream
in various symbols. In this story, the main character experienced some unsconsciousness
that appears in a dream. The quotation to support this is:
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
“Then she sat down on a stool drew her foot out of the heavy wooden shoe, and slipped it
into the golden one, which fitted it perfectly. And when she stood up, and the Prince looked
in her face, he knew again the beatiful maiden that had danced with him, and he cried,
“This is maiden that had danced with him, and he cried, “This is the right bridge!” (page
6, paragraph 20)

The focus of the analysis is that when Cinderella managed to find her true self according to
what she expected and dreamed of in her unconsciousness, to become the bride of the
prince in the castle. It showed her ‘self’.

4. Discussion
The first archetype that I want discussed is about Persona. As stated in the theory previously
by Cassement in 2001, persona is often symbolized as ‘mask’ covering our face. Therefore,
people will not see our true self unless they let go the mask. It is related with the analysis,
when Cinderella used a nice dress and a pair of gold shoes as ‘a mask’ to cover her true self
(she looked looks smelly and dirty merely as a housmaid), by making a look like she is a
beautiful, graceful, classy and wealthy girl. So that, she can fullfil the king’s expectation and
the prince’s expectation. It is showed her persona.

Based on that, I believe that each of individual or human has something he/she has to deal
in life. It leads someone to ‘wear’ that mask in order to be approved in that situation,
environment or society. Although it causes him to lie or cheat himself to be someone else.
Jung’s theory believes that every human being has his own mask that is not recognized by
people except one’s self.

The second archetype is shadow. As stated in the theory by Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018
that shadow is the dark side of human being. It is all those uncivilized desires and emotions
that are compatible with social standards and our ideal personality; all that we are ashamed
of, all that we do not want to know about ourselves. It is related with the analysis when the
step-mother and step-sisters of cinderella treated cinderella unkindly and made the
cinderella’s life full of wounds and tears. They had shown their shadow.

The other finding that is no mention in previous findings and analysis is Cinderella has
shadow. This is seen when Cinderella violates the orders of her stepmother who completely
forbade her to go to the festival. but he still left. this indicates that Cinderella is also a
naughty child because she does not listen to orders from her parents even when she reaches
the festival she does not greet her stepbrother or stepmother. This is what shows the
shadow of cinderella, but based on context, the shadow here is in positive connotative.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016
Based on that, I underlined that the shadow does not only discuss in negative connotation
but also can in the positive connotation. It is related with the previous theory by Singh (2012)
that shadow is bigger than id. It may have positive connotations.

The anima-animus was the third archetypes that I want to discuss.I will begin with Anima. As
stated in the theory previously by Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018, that Anima showed a
feminine side of man. It is related with the analysis when The prince as a man showed his
feminine side when he cried after he found his bride. Cry was the main sign to show the
prince’s feminine side.

After that, Animus, it showed a maskulin side of woman (Jung as cited in Wulandari, 2018).
This theory related with the analysis when Cinderella should do a heavy work from morning
to night like a man. She showed the maskulin side of herself.

The last archetype that I want to discussed is The Self. Self is the archetype which becomes
the center of the unconsciousness. It appears in a dream in various symbols. Self can also be
translated as who we really are or our true self. Human should recognize the self into the
consciousness part in order to have a healthy personality. Self appears in a very complex way
in our collective unconsciousness. In a dream, there are various symbols which depict a
power and figure that looks strange and unrecognized (Jung theory as cited in Wulandari and
Chris, 2018).

It is show when Cinderella managed to find her true self to become the bride of the prince
in the castle. Indirectly, She had fulfilled what she expected and dreamed of in her
unconsciousness. Cinderella’s dream is to be the bried of the prince, which her dream here
or her unconscious and when her dream came true in her real life, it was being a symbol to
show who she is or her true self.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016

5. Limitation
This paper has a limitation on several aspects, this can be seen from several aspects, first, the
scopes are too small because the text is only one, so there is a lack of reference or detailed
and explicit description of personality characters based on jungian theory. I only rely on what
is in the text without other alternative references.

Secondly, the limitation of previous research, when searching for previous research on this
topic, I found it difficult because of the lack of interest of researchers to analyze this topic and
also the lack of the latest previous research, if there were, only old articles in the 90s, causing
a lack of information clear, reliable, updated and complete, the lack of additional references
for the author to provide accurate information as a reference, and to make the theory
information presented to be overlapping and less reliable and valid because it does not quote
or take reading material from the original source but takes theory original that has been
written again by others.

In other words, the lack of a review of the literature is used as a basis for the author to achieve
his goals and help identify the scope of the work done so far. therefore, if you want to write
a paper you should find and collect more and more recent literature reviews.

Third, there is no methodology in this paper so that this paper is incomplete. therefore, it is
expected in the next paper to be able to include the complete outline component. Difficulties
will also arise if I do not determine and hold the right methodology in accordance with what
I want to try carefully, especially those that are in accordance with this topic.

The last, fourth, it should increase knowledge and discussion on this topic in order to better
understand the findings of this topic, minimize the potential mistakes that will be made,
adjust and place work results in a more appropriate context and increase credibility to explore
more about this topic.
 Vitria Mbindi Sombo Patty (1605085004)
A Class 2016

6. Conclusion
The Jungian Psychoanalytic Theory was made by Carl Gustav Jungian or Jung. His theory
concerned about the collective unconscious and archetypes. Collective Unconscious is a
universal picture of a human experience that takes place from generation to generation that
is active in one's thoughts, emotions, and actions which all humans have more or less the
same collective unconscious because of one ancestor. The contain of collective unconscious
is called archetypes. Archetypes reveal themselves to our consciousness by powerful symbolic
images, Archetypes can bring people under their spell – they have a vitalizing force when
people allow themselves to experience them. There are four kinds of archetypes: persona,
shadow, anima or animus and the self.

The archetypes in the cinderella story are: a) the persona was represented by Cinderella that
wore a nice dress to fulfill the king’s expectation in his festival and the prince’s expectation
about his future wife; b) the shadow was reflected by step-mother and step-sisters of
Cinderella who were always evil to Cinderella; c) the anima is shown by the prince, when he
cried, it showed his feminine side and the animus is shown by the courage of Cinderella to
attend the festival showed her masculine side; and d) the Self is showed by Cinderella when
she found her true self as the owner of the gold shoes and the prince's bride.