I want to comment on the imagery of Mother's big "slippers" in the fairy tale, The Little Match-Girl:
Imaging a slipper, a “light, low-cut shoe” that easily slips “on or off the foot.” Its not much protection in the snowy, cold weather, and then it doesn’t hold fast but slips easily off the foot. Consider also the play on words, what is a “slipper.” An intra-psychic slipper might be an aspect of ourselves that doesn’t hold fast, doesn’t grab hold. It comes into consciousness only to be lost rather quickly as it slips away. Slippers are aspects of ourselves that slip easily away from consciousness, aspects of ourselves without much constancy.
How do we translate this psychologically? We might say that the Match-Girl’s relationship to the ground, the reality principle, is slippery and that somehow it is related to her mother, perhaps part of a mother complex. She hasn’t received shoes that would provide sturdy and constant support for “taking possession of the ground,” in other words, she has not received the proper tools that would allow her to find a proper relationship to the world about her, but instead has received shoes that prove too inconsequential to be of much support in this manner, and shoes that slip off easily—a sort of inconstant (perhaps inconsistent) aid in the Match-Girl’s ability to relate to the ground, i.e. the world about her. Remember, The Match-Girl engages in fantasy to fulfill important needs.
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2 comments:
The mother is missing. The great mother is a yearning for the greater process, perhaps. What you say of the "slipper" is interesting. The story triggers something for me about compassion, compassion for the vulnerable, the needy, the lost. How do we cultivate self-compassion. How do we assist the innocent one within so she doesn't die of exposure and loneliness? She does not have the tools to survive. I wonder if the return to the great mother is a regression, not a good thing, when we have not helped to equip the young one for life? Merging with the Great Mother it seems is different than the mother complex (wanting to pull the covers over one's head and retreat from the too-muchness of life), no?? --JR
The mother complex and a regressive pulling "the cover over one's head"/"retreat" from the "too-muchness of life" might be different, or the mother complex might include this kind of regression. In any case, the retreat into the "grandmother" in the story is a retreat into the "grand" mother and a regression. It does not serve the Little Match-Girl's ego development but instead serves to avoid what Jung calls the "adaptation to life." This is as you say is "not a good thing."
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