Page:WishfulfillmentAndSymbolism.djvu/48

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WISHFULFILLMENT AND SYMBOLISM IN FAIRY TALES

into bed with her. Then the princess became very angry, took him up and flung him with all her strength against the wall. What fell down, however, was not a frog, but a prince who became her beloved spouse.

The similarity with "Oda" is very great, only that Oda after first being angry picked up the serpent in love and took it up to herself. The moment of the going over of the sexual disgust to love is somewhat displaced. Quite clearly, still more so than with Oda, is represented the original sexual aversion and prudery of the maiden, the uneasiness and shyness before the crude sexual, the penis. That there is already a sexual wish present we know. The form of the wished-for prince (serpent, frog, bear, etc.) supports a new determination. It represents the sexual uneasiness, disgust. Instead of the tale describing the change in the heroine it projects it upon the wish object. It becomes agreeable to the heroine, so a change appears, from the disagreeable to an agreeable form, from the disgusting beast into the beautiful prince.

The wicked action of the sexual rival, who has caused the change, and this well-known psychological process are here represented condensed.

The frog as a "little man" we often meet in our case histories as well as in the associations in researches with normal and hysterical women, where the so-called "failures," long reaction times and other "complex indicators" appear.[1] I refer to such an example in an earlier work.[2]

In the beginning of the fairy tale "The Sleeping Beauty" a frog appears (Grimm, No. 50, Bechstein, p. 223).

In olden times there was a king and queen who said every day: "Oh, if we only had a child!" but no child came. Then it happened that once when the queen was in her bath a frog hopped out of the water and said: "Your wish will be fulfilled; before a year goes by you will bring a daughter into the world!" What the frog prophesied came to pass and the queen bore a daughter that was beautiful beyond compare.

If the significance of the frog does not appear so evident here

  1. "Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien," edited by C. G. Jung, Leipzig, J. A. Barth.
  2. "Diagnostische Assoziationsstudien," VII Beitrag, p. 246.