Analytical Setting As A Fairytale Motif: "And I Was There, Drinking Honey-beer - It Was Flowing Down My Mustache, But I Didn't Get Into My Mouth "

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

And I was there, drinking honey-beer - It was flowing down my mustache, but I didn't get into my mouth …

This is the final round of the plot.

At this point, the storyteller, or observer, appears in the tale. Which simultaneously declares the reality of everything that happens in the plot, voicing that "I was there too." But at the same time, for some reason, he could not taste the food that was offered at the feast, which was organized in honor of the completion of the story. In this place, on the one hand, there is some kind of frustration that this food cannot penetrate into it, despite all its beauty - and, then, there is a feeling of unreality of what is happening. And this turnover contains both confirmation of the realism of what is happening, and the unreality or inability to taste this food. I turned to the texts of philologists and researchers of folklore for help to understand this issue.

To substantiate my guesses, I used the work of the philologist, historian and researcher of Russian folklore D. I. Antonova "Endings of fairy tales: the path of the hero and the path of the storyteller." Which I gratefully came across on the Internet [1].

The road to another world and the crossing of the border from the world of the living to the world of the dead

And so - the tale has an introductory part, usually it is something like "In the far-off kingdom …". This beginning of the plot invites us into the unreal world, the afterlife, into the realm of the dead. In order to get into this very kingdom, the hero of a fairy tale usually needs to do something, including often taking something for food or receiving a magical gift. This becomes his way of joining the world of the dead. For the hero, this introduction is the plot of the plot. For the narrator of a fairy tale in the ending, this is a designation that he can be present as an observer, but this food from the feast is dangerous for him, and that the hero is good, the narrator is death …

These kinds of tales are called "magic" and have a three-part plot structure:

1) the road to another world and the transition of the border from the world of the living to the world of the dead,

2) adventures in the world of the dead, 3) the way back and the opposite crossing of the border.

Analyst and patient. Consciousness and Unconscious

I really want everything that I will now continue to write, and transfer to the therapeutic relationship between the analyst and the patient. And also on the relationship between Consciousness and Unconscious. After all, it seems that the narrator performs the function of the "observing Ego", which cannot take part in the unconscious transformation of the hero, but can feel it, while it should not taste this food, because then the one who can tell about all this (or symbolize) will be lost. Or, psychologically speaking, ego loss is psychosis. The heroic part eats this food and this is its entry point. The ego maintains the principle of reality, it grounds.

Dive cycle

So, first you need to eat and immerse yourself. For therapeutic deep-sea self-exploration to begin, for feats to be accomplished, internal changes have taken place.

›We can speak in this context about the transference - the analyst and everything that happened in the office is a magical journey that makes you believe that everything that happens there concerns relationships with parents, with parts of yourself, fantasies, projections, etc., but at the same time, it cannot literally be carried away. The analyst cannot become the real parent of the patient and be present at his changes (at his wedding, at his feast), but he can be there symbolically. Even every session with a patient can be viewed in this vein. First, we plunge into the distant realm, and then, at the end of the session, the patient has to experience a return to reality.

The motive of the "unfortunate path"

By the way, the options for such endings, denoting the exit from the underworld - or the inability to stay there - vary. Philologists identify various endings that can be combined with each other. But they all have a common motive - “the wrong way”. The failure of this path is viewed from the point of view of performing feats in the afterlife. This part, personifying the narrator, fails to connect with the unconscious, or "Self" in a broader sense.

• ›" And I was there. " The fact of the presence of the narrator at the feast. The narrator at the end describes a whole long story about how he was kicked out of the feast, or confines himself to the statement "I barely brought my legs home from that feast." Or it may just sound like "I was there."
• ›Inedible treat. Very often, staying at a feast is associated with food that cannot be eaten due to its inedibility. Attempts are fruitless. Food does not go into the mouth.
• ›In addition to" honey-beer ", there is also an ear, for example:› "I was there, I sipped my ear together, it ran down my whiskers, it didn't get into my mouth", "I drank a big spoon with a big spoon, it ran down my beard - it didn't get into my mouth!", "Beluga served - stayed not having dinner."
• ›In addition, other forms are used to express the fact that it was impossible for the hero to eat anything at a mysterious feast:" to whom they brought it with a ladle, but to me with a sieve ", etc.

Inedible food

For some reason, the food that the rest of the guests eat without much hindrance becomes inedible for the narrator.

• The hero calls the narrator to a feast, but the food on it was inedible for the rassazhchik: "… they called me to him to drink honey-beer, but I did not go: honey, they say, was bitter, and the beer was cloudy."
• ›This is how V. Ya. Propp: "As you know, food is extremely important in the transition from the kingdom of the living to the kingdom of the dead. The food of the dead has some magical properties and is dangerous for the living." Hence the prohibition of touching this food for the living."
• ›" In the American legend, the hero sometimes only pretends to eat, but in fact throws this dangerous food on the ground, "he continues [2].

This motive is close to the situation outlined by our narrator. The fact that he cannot eat anything, although he tries, does not at all contradict this idea. It is likely that here the "inedible" (ie, unsuitable for food, dangerous) for the living, the food of the dead turns into food that cannot be eaten. The food described is often really unsuitable - it is said about bitter honey and cloudy beer, there are also similar descriptions: "… Here I was treated: they took the pelvis from the bull and poured milk; then they gave a roll, in the same pelvis, help. I did not drink, did not eat …"

›Thus, an inhabitant of the real world does not have the opportunity to use something from the afterlife, which also leads to the designation of the border between sleep and reality. As an example, we can talk about a dream, where everything that happens cannot be directly transferred to reality. Those characters who dream are not literally the same people or objects, but bring us some kind of symbolic information about the dreamer. It is impossible to eat a dream with spoons of consciousness; in order to try to understand the meaning, one must be on the other side of the shore.

The motive of exile

›Following the inability to accept this food, or to comply with the canons of the hero, the narrator is usually kicked out of the feast. Because Once in the same situation as the hero of the fairy tale, the narrator behaves differently.

• “I was at that wedding too, drinking wine, flowing down my mustache, not in my mouth. They put a cap on me and push me;
• put a body on me: "You, kiddie, do not goo / do not hesitate /, get out of the yard as soon as possible."

›Expulsion is a motive that has been present in our consciousness for centuries. "Expulsion from Paradise" can be a symbolic analogy of expulsion from a feast. For the idea of mystical fusion to exist, it is also necessary to experience the impossibility of the existence of this fantasy everywhere.

›For the heroic part of the psyche to perform deeds, it is necessary to believe in a miracle, in immortality and in the help of the surrounding world. However, the part of the psyche that will narrate cannot experience the same, it must be expelled or, based on Hillman's article, experience betrayal as a necessary condition for further development [3].

›A fairy tale can only be learned as a lesson when the narrator“was, but did not stay”.

›It is also possible to draw the analogy of ending a session when the patient needs to leave the office because time is over, which can also be experienced by a part of the psyche as exile. Or it is generally about the completion of the analysis.

Escape

›Flight in the stories of fairy tales is correlated not only with the inability to be, but also with the loss of magical objects that are provided by the magical donor and are the story of the beginning of the transformation of the hero of the fairy tale.

If it is for the hero to accept magical items, this is the beginning of a magical journey.

›The storyteller is unable to use these items for some reason. For example, he is given a "blue caftan", and he throws it off when a raven flying past shouts to him about it (it seems to him that he shouts "throw off the caftan".

Thus, gifts from the afterlife do not take root in the narrator. This again brings us back to the impossibility of bringing something with us from there in the literal sense. For the observing part, the objects do not carry such a magical meaning, cannot be assimilated, it can only talk about how the heroic part deals with these objects. DI. Antonov believes, referring to other stories with folklore, that this plot is not about throwing an object out because of persecution, but rather that the hero goes “a good path” and the narrator “a bad path” [1]. His acquisition of the subject is quickly accompanied by a rejection of further movement, which does not carry a transformational character.

Received items

›Those items that the narrator receives fit into a certain range: these are mainly items of clothing (shoes, caftan, cap, cloak). From the point of view of symbols, it can be assumed that these objects are called upon to some external transformation (Person), allowing them to look somehow brighter or more attractive.

›Usually the color is also important: red or blue. Red can literally mean “beautiful” or be interpreted in its opposite as “stolen”. This is a fairly linear interpretation. Thoughts about blue are deeper. Blue is often used in the sense of black, or comes from "shining, luminous." This color usually denotes the world of the dead and the characters that emerged from it. If we reduce this to a different kind of interpretation, then we can think of the blue of the waters - as the darkness and depth of the unconscious, which cannot be taken to the surface.

›Among the objects there may also be non-clothing items, but then the end follows in the reverse order, the narrator goes to the feast with some things, the donor of which or the origin is not clear, usually these things are characterized by their fragility and unreliability. This may also include clothing made from food that is not wearable. The result is that the clothes melt in the sun, the unreliable pea whip is pecked by birds, and the "nag, wax shoulders" melted in the sun. Such plots indicate the inability of these things to reality - we can talk here about defenses that do not protect, about modes of functioning that turn out to be unreliable for interacting with the unconscious, so you have to flee.

›Thus, we see a certain set of motives included in the endings of the" unfortunate path ":

›1) the narrator's assertion that he has visited a certain locus belonging to a fabulous space;

›2) a message that, having got there, he had to eat some food;

›3) characterization of food as tasteless / unfit for consumption;

›4) refusal of food / inability to eat it;

›5) beating and exile;

›6) stand-alone motives for receiving gifts with their subsequent loss, as well as comic return back * …

Variants of the "successful" path

›In contrast to the considered final formulas, the variant of the" good path "is built according to the classic scenario of a fairy tale. There is a motive for testing food, but the hero-narrator does not break the rules: “I myself was his guest. He drank braga, ate halva!”; “We arranged a rich wedding. And they gave me a good drink, and now they live in happiness and prosperity”; “I was there recently, I drank honey-beer, I bathed in milk, I wiped myself off”

›After that, it is no longer a question of expulsion and flight, but of crossing the border and successfully returning back. This motive is presented through the interaction between two areas or loci (by opposition).

Plots of this kind are also aimed at combining one reality with another, unconscious and collective, for example, with personal and individual.

For example, in Persian fairy tales the following plots are found: “We went up - we found yogurt, but they considered our fairy tale to be true. We went back downstairs, plunged into the serum, and our fairy tale turned into a fable”.

At the forefront is still the theme of the otherness of something for one of the poles: what is reality in one place turns out to be fiction in another.

The therapeutic space can be the place where the integration of both layers of experience takes place, by telling a third about them. There is someone who observes how the other is dipped in milk and whey, thereby observing the possibility of existence and were and were not at the same time in parallel spaces of sleep and reality. In this case, we can talk about what in Jungian analysis is called "conjunction" - the union of the male and female poles, or the alchemical process of achieving balance between opposites.

›In the motives of the" good journey "we have three oppositions:

I) curdled whey, 2) top-bottom, 3) by-fiction.

1) Curdled whey

›In different variations of the" Good Trail "endings, the hero-storyteller can drink a certain drink or swim in it. Bathing in two liquids is a well-known fairy tale motive: both the hero and the antagonist (the old king) bathe in milk and water with different consequences. V. Ya. Propp emphasized that this motive is associated with the transformation of a person on the way to another world and back [2]. As in the fairy tale, two liquids are most often mentioned in the final formulas: whey (churning) and yogurt, which corresponds to double crossing the border.

›A variant of the endings where it is said about drinking liquids (“We hurried up - we drank whey, went down - we ate yogurt”(quoted from [1]), in turn, refers to the fabulous motif of“living and dead”(“strong and weak”) water …

These drinks are also used to move between worlds: “a dead man who wants to go to another world uses water alone. A living person who wants to get there also uses only one. A person who has set foot on the path of death and wants to return to life uses both types of water”[2]. Similarly, the crossing of the border by the hero-storyteller is accompanied by drinking two different liquids….

The analysis process involves facing death or the impossibility of the old way of functioning, which is equivalent to walking into the "world of the dead."

2) Top-bottom

›The concepts of“top”and“bottom”complement the opposition of“curdled milk”and“whey”in the endings under consideration; in a fairy-tale context, they are directly related to the opposition of the earthly and other worlds. In accordance with one of the basic mythological models, the other world is removed from the earthly one vertically - up and / or down. In the endings, the use of these concepts is unstable - "up" and "down" can be mentioned by the narrator on the way both there and back. Such instability, in turn, is characteristic of mythology and folklore: the system has the ability to "roll over", i.e. the concepts of "top" or "bottom" both can mean both the realm of the dead and the world of the living.

This story is consistent with the principle of enathiodromia, which Jung often refers to in his writings. “What is above, so below”, seemingly the opposite, what needs to be polarized relative to the other, can be at the same time a reflection of the other pole. Jung argued that energy may not exist if the polarity that precedes it is not established [4].

3) Fairy-tale

›The third opposition, reality and fiction, is a very remarkable motive that introduces the category of reality or relationship to reality into the story. In Persian fairy tales, such examples are often found: “We went upstairs - we found yogurt, but they considered our fairy tale to be true. We returned downstairs - plunged into the serum, and our fairy tale turned into a fable”; “And we went downstairs - we found yogurt, ran the upper path - saw the whey, called our fairy tale a fable. They hurried upstairs - they drank the whey, went downstairs - they ate the sour milk, our fairy tale became a reality”[cited from 1], etc.

As you can see, the attitude to the fairy tale changes on different sides of the line crossed by the hero: crossing the border leads him into a space where the fairy tale turns out to be true (reality), the reverse transition leads to a world where the fairy tale is a fiction. Another interesting option is: "This fairy tale is ours - reality, you go up - you will find yogurt, if you go down, you will find yogurt, and in our fairy tale you will find the truth" [cited from 1]. In order to discover the truth in what was told, it is necessary, therefore, to cross the border - a fairy tale is recognized as a truth belonging to another space: what is unreal in the earthly world is real in the other world, and vice versa. This is how the relationship between the world of the living and the dead is built in folklore; the world of the dead - the "inverted" world of the living….

Truth is a very subjective concept, however, coming into analysis, we want to get confirmation whether our world is real or it is fictional. The existence of "were" and "were not" is, on the one hand, a way of adaptation, since the inner world of experiences and our subjective reality, which is significant for us, may not matter for the people around us, and thus appear in this part of interaction with the world as “fictional”, but if you lose connection with the pole of the unconscious, you can lose faith in the existence of another way evaluating yourself and the world. The analyst acts as a lifter who drives between top and bottom, recording the fact that a person is moving, while remaining himself.

Return and transfer of knowledge

›The motive of return is presented in the endings of the" good luck "in a variety of modifications. Traditionally, the narrator claims that he appeared among the listeners, in a given area, state, etc. directly from the fabulous locus: “Now I have come from there and found myself among you”; “They are there now, but I have come to you,” etc. This motive is often associated with another thought: as a result of the movement, the hero-storyteller transfers the knowledge he has received to people (“… I was at this feast too. I drank the mash with them., I drank honey beer, talked to him, but I forgot to ask about anything ", etc. Often the narrator emphasizes that he himself was an eyewitness to the events described; … and at their death I, the sage, remained; and when I die, every story is over, "etc. This, in turn, confirms the reliability of the fairytale events - having visited another world, the narrator receives knowledge that he successfully passes on to the listeners …

The presence of new knowledge in the process of transformation needs confirmation and requires objectification. The dream we dreamed that changed our life has its own significance and needs to be perceived as real.

Fairy-mythological model

›As you can see, both versions of the considered endings are built according to a fairy-tale mythological model. In the endings of the "good path" the hero-narrator passes the test of food - he eats at a feast, drinks a certain liquid or bathes in it, as a result of which he overcomes the border, successfully moves in a fairy locus. Having gained some knowledge, he comes back, sometimes performing similar operations. and transfers knowledge to people.

The variant of the "unfortunate path" is close to this model, but the path of the hero is mirrored in relation to the first variant. The fairytale hero violates the rules of behavior, which entails a change in the entire system - the situation is turned upside down when a mockery, a joking context appears. The comic is drawn to the figure of a hero-storyteller who performs unsuccessful actions (he could not eat food, was kicked out, lost his gifts). It is interesting that in some variants of such endings a buffoonish (buffoonery) attribute is mentioned - a cap: “… here they gave me a cap and pushed it over there”; “… Put a cap on me and push me,” etc.; unlike other objects, it does not disappear on the way back …

If we assume a later version - the motive of the "unsuccessful path", then in this context, consciousness acquires more and more relevance - to lose a cap, it is as if to lose consciousness as a way of orientation. Also, derision in this later version suggests shame and embarrassment for having to do such strange things. Probably, the era of the Enlightenment and the development of the cult of consciousness, conditioned by the work of Descartes, influenced how to relate to what was happening on the other side. We can assume that in the analysis we will have to deal with both options for passing the path.

Summary

The motives of "successful" and "unsuccessful" paths can be interpreted as variants of the process in the space of the analyst's office. Both options can be metaphors for the analytic process of transformation and healing and the patient's attitude towards them, expressed in what position of the narrator he chooses during the story. For example, in the extent to which he is ready to trust his dreams as reality, or to disown them as inedible. And also depending on what this very walk in the other world is associated with. Perhaps, if this is the fear of insanity and psychosis, then "honey-beer" is the most likely position in relation to the analytical process. However, in general, I would look at both of these options, just as a metaphor for what happens in the office, just in two such mirrored options.

Literature:

1. Antonov D. I. Endings of fairy tales: the path of the hero and the path of the storyteller. Zhivaya Starina: A magazine about Russian folklore and traditional culture. No. 2. 2011. P. 2–4.
2. Propp V. Ya. The historical roots of the fairy tale. M., 1996
3. Hillman J. Betrayal The problem of evil in analytical psychology. Scientific and practical journal Jungian analysis. No4 (19) 2014
4. Jung K. G. Psychology of the unconscious. - M., 1994. S. 117-118.