Advanced International Journal for Research

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Volume 7 Issue 3
May-June 2026

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Stepmothers and Absent Paternal Figures: The Inescapable Stimulus to Individuation in Grimm’s Tales

Author(s) Ms. Arundhathi Raju
Country India
Abstract This paper examines the figure of the wicked stepmother in selected Grimm fairy tales like Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel, through the lens of Jungian psychoanalysis. Challenging the conventional reading of the stepmother as a straightforward literary villain, this study argues that she functions as a psychologically necessary trigger for the protagonist's ego development and individuation. Drawing on Carl Jung's concepts of the Shadow, the Great Mother archetype, and the individuation process, as well as Erich Neumann's theory of the Uroboric stage and Bruno Bettelheim's psychoanalytic reading of fairy tales, the paper demonstrates that the stepmother's cruelty serves a structural and psychological purpose which lies in the rupture of the state of participation mystique between child and mother. This rupture introduces the child into the Reality Principle and compels the emergence of an autonomous ego. The complementary absence of the father figure, read as a failure of the Logos, creates the psychic space necessary for this individuation to take place. The paper concludes that without the stepmother's antagonism, there can be no hero.
Keywords Jungian psychoanalysis, fairy tales, individuation, Shadow archetype, stepmother, Grimm, ego development, participation mystique
Field Sociology > Linguistic / Literature
Published In Volume 7, Issue 3, May-June 2026
Published On 2026-05-06
DOI https://doi.org/10.63363/aijfr.2026.v07i03.5462
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