Pre-Critical:

In this scene the first showdown between good and evil is presented, with evil having the upper hand, this lays out a tragedy for the story to continue onto. The tragedy is the giving up of the child.

Formalist:

Witch must have great power or else the man wouldn't have agreed. The witch knows that a child is more vaulable than the rampion and manipulates the man. Naming the child Rapunzel out of thankfulness to the plant for giving them a child.

Mythological/Archetypal:

Like God when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit, the witch is filled with anger at their thievery. She punishes them by taking their child, like God when he punished Adam and Eve when he kicked them out of Eden.

Psychological:

The man is afraid of the witch. His wife was "possessed with longing" for the rampion. The man promised his first child to the witch because he was so afraid and confused.

Feminist:

In this scene we get a better look at the evil character, the witch. The husband is afraid of her. She is angry that he took food from her garden. The husband trades his baby for rampion. The witch tells him she will care for it like a mother, which shows she has a kind side. The child was a girl named Rapunzel, and her life was traded for food.

Marxist:

Higher class people when they have a child, back in the olden days would have had their child raised and cared for by a slave or something of that sort. They would not have cared for it alone.

Historical:

The main theme of this scene is giving up something that has a long-term impact in exchange for a short-term plus or benefit. In this instance in Rapunzel, the man, in order to obtain not only mercy from the witch, but the rampion as well, decides to turn his child that “will come into the world” over to the witch. He gave up the long-term thing--his child--for short-term benefit which was the rampion for his wife. This can be likened to the occurrences in Martin Luther’s life. He lobbied hard for reform in the church, which led to Protestantism. One of the themes in his movement was celibacy. With twenty years left in his life, he gave up that celibacy and became a father. It gave him a long-term label of being a hypocrite, yet a relatively short-term benefit in the joy children can bring, along with an active sex life with his wife.

Analyses for Part Two