The Princess and the Goblin is a story about self-realisation and the expansion of limits. The princess, Irene, is able to come to certain conclusions about herself with the help of her grandmother, who lives in the attic upstairs in the palace. The grandmother guides Irene through her rite of passage into adulthood, and helps to bring the princess and Curdie together in the end. However, the reader never really knows whether the grandmother even exists, and it is this uncertainty that causes the reader to question whether she is a personification of a force within Irene that is driving her to achieve all that she does. There are many elements of fairy tales that exist within the grandmother's world and Irene's relationship with her grandmother and her nurse, Lootie. Archetypes such as the attic, birds, the moon, and fire exist within her grandmother's world and archetypes such as the underground exist within the world she guides Irene through. The grandmother embodies characteristics of the good witch with supernatural powers, who guides Irene on her journey, while Lootie embodies characteristics of a wicked witch, who hinders her right of passage into adulthood.
Irene's first encounter with her grandmother is one of ambivalence, which parallels the stage of puberty she is in. This is the stage of her journey when she is not sure how far from the safety of her mother figure, the nurse, she should wander. Irene does not stay very long with her grandmother, as she is not fully ready to leave childhood. There are elements of Charles Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood and The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood in Irene's first visit with her grandmother. Her discovery of the grandmother is very similar to the princess' discovery of the old lady in The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood. Both princesses come to an attic, a place of enlightenment, where they meet an old woman spinning. They have both left what is safe and familiar for a place they never knew existed. A sense of danger looms over the reader's head, as the situation Irene has got herself into is so similar to the one the sleeping beauty gets herself into. There are also hints of Little Red Riding Hood's visit to her grandmother's house. The grandmother in The Princess and the Goblin calls out in an "old and rather shaky voice" (MacDonald, p. 11) for Irene to enter her room, just as the wolf does when he lures Little Red Riding Hood into her grandmother's house. It is possible that the grandmother has bad witch qualities that she is trying to hide, just as the wolf tries to disguise his evil ways to appear good. However, when the princess opens the door to the grandmother spinning, she enters another world, and is presented with an opportunity to discover herself. The reader becomes aware of this opportunity for self-discovery when the grandmother informs the princess that her name is also Irene. At this moment the princess subconsciously becomes aware of all that she is capable of without the help of the nurse. The grandmother's pigeons are a symbol of transformation and provide a clue to Irene that the time is right for her to fly away from the safety and comfort of her nest.
As the grandmother makes Irene feel more and more secure in her new world, she moves farther away from Lootie and her childhood. The grandmother encourages Irene to tell Lootie "all about [her] exactly" (MacDonald, p.17). When Irene does this, Lootie refuses to believe her, and a fight between the two ensues. Lootie becomes the wicked witch and the grandmother becomes the good witch, which is necessary for Irene to break away and begin her journey without her guardian. The grandmother becomes Irene's new guardian, something of a fairy godmother, but instead of protecting her from the evils outside of the palace by keeping her inside, she places Irene right in the middle of potential danger and guides her through this journey. When the creature with "legs as long as a horse's" (MacDonald) jumps through Irene's window, she runs out of the palace. Instead of calling out for her nurse or running to her grandmother's room, she chooses to handle this frightening situation on her own. However, she still needs guidance, and the "great silvery globe" (MacDonald, p. 108) that hangs in the middle of her grandmother's room aids her in finding her way back home. The lamp is symbolic of the moon, a symbol of transformation. When Irene arrives, her grandmother has a fire going in her room, and "her face was that of a woman of three-and-twenty" (MacDonald, p. 112). The fire is an archetype of transformation that signals to the reader that life for Irene is going to change. The grandmother mirrors this change to Irene, through her change in appearance, as if she is "dressed in the loveliest pale blue velvet" (MacDonald, p. 112) to commemorate Irene's rite of passage. The thread that Irene's grandmother gives to her allows Irene to feel secure enough to go underground without hesitation, and it is what leads her to Curdie and away from home once again.
Irene learns to guide herself without the help of her grandmother or the nurse. She becomes her own "globe of light" (MacDonald, p. 237) and no longer needs the "great silvery globe" (MacDonald, p. 108) or the pigeons that once assisted her in her transformation into a young woman. She is no longer "regarded…as little more than a baby" (MacDonald, p. 196) when she talks back to Lootie, and gives commands to the housekeeper and the captain of the gentlemen-at-arms. Irene takes charge of her own affairs without the help of either Lootie or her grandmother. The princess has her first experience with a boy when she kisses Curdie. Lootie had prevented Irene from kissing him before, and in this way hindered her passage into adulthood. The princess defies Lootie when she kisses Curdie at the end of her journey, and realises that she is now able to make decisions for herself without the permission of her nurse. The kiss marks her passage into adulthood, and she partakes in a "grand feast" (MacDonald, p. 232), a ritual of transformation. At the end of the story Lootie goes one way with Curdie and his parents and Irene and her father "r[i]de away down the side of a new stream" (MacDonald, p. 239), another archetype of transformation.
Irene's rite of passage and the archetypes that exist in this story follow the fairy tale tradition. The princess is transformed into a young woman with the aid of a helper. This helper is her grandmother, who gives her the tools to cut the invisible thread, and be led by her own powers. The princess discovers another world beyond her nursery and the walls of the palace that becomes more and more real every time she lets go of someone's hand.
Bibliography
MacDonald, George. The Princess and the Goblin. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 1996
Perrault, Charles. "Little Red Riding Hood." in Folk & Fairy Tales. Eds. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. 2nd edition. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Ltd., 1996. 25-27.
Perrault, Charles. "The Sleeping Beauty in the Wood." in Folk & Fairy Tales. Eds. Martin Hallett and Barbara Karasek. 2nd edition. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press Ltd., 1996. 40-48.