Ring of Power: Symbols and Themes Love Vs. Power in Wagner's Ring Circle and in Us : A Jungian-Feminist Perspective available in Paperback, eBook
Ring of Power: Symbols and Themes Love Vs. Power in Wagner's Ring Circle and in Us : A Jungian-Feminist Perspective
- ISBN-10:
- 0892540435
- ISBN-13:
- 9780892540433
- Pub. Date:
- 02/01/1999
- Publisher:
- Nicolas-Hays, Inc
- ISBN-10:
- 0892540435
- ISBN-13:
- 9780892540433
- Pub. Date:
- 02/01/1999
- Publisher:
- Nicolas-Hays, Inc
Ring of Power: Symbols and Themes Love Vs. Power in Wagner's Ring Circle and in Us : A Jungian-Feminist Perspective
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780892540433 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Nicolas-Hays, Inc |
| Publication date: | 02/01/1999 |
| Series: | Jung on the Hudson Book Series |
| Edition description: | Revised ed. |
| Pages: | 245 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.25(w) x 9.25(h) x (d) |
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Read an Excerpt
Ring of Power
Symbols and Themes Love vs. Power in Wagner's Ring Circle and in Us
By JEAN SHINODA BOLEN
Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC
Copyright © 1999 Jean Shinoda BolenAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89254-043-3
CHAPTER 1
THE RHINEGOLD
The Quest for Power and Its Psychological Cost
The Story
THREE LOVELY RIVER NYMPHS, THE RHINEMAIDENS, CAVORT playfully underwater. They teasingly remind each other that they are the guardians of the Rhinegold. A dwarf, Alberich the Nibelung, comes upon them and watches with increasing delight.
Alberich wants to join the river nymphs, but he is rebuffed. They make fun of his appearance, commenting upon his dark skin and ugly appearance. He persists and tries to catch them. They tease him cruelly. One calls him "dearest of men" and lets him caress her. Telling him sweetly that he is "shaped like a toad," she then laughs in his face and darts away. The river nymphs are beautiful, and Alberich yearns for them, chasing them with increasing desperation, as they elude his grasp while making merry cries.
Finally, almost out of control with hurt and rage, Alberich stands at the bottom of the Rhine and shakes his clenched fist at the Rhinemaidens, who swim tantalizingly above him. At that precise moment, the sun strikes what appears to be a rock formation, and the water glows with a diffuse golden light. The Rhinemaidens react to this with joy and bathe in the brightness, while Alberich's anger turns to curiosity. He is fascinated by the source of the radiance, and asks the river nymphs what it is. They tell him that it is the Rhinegold.
Alberich acts unimpressed, telling them that it is worthless "if shining on their games is all that it is good for." His deprecating comments provoke them to tell him that a man who forges a ring from the Rhinegold will create a ring of power with which he could rule the world. Because of his amorous pursuit of them, the Rhinemaidens mistakenly think that Alberich cannot do what is required to make the ring. Misjudging him (and the effect of their cruelty on him), they reveal the secret: to forge the ring of power, a man must renounce love forever.
Alberich does not hesitate for a moment. He takes the gold and declares that "in order to forge the ring of revenge, I renounce love and curse it." Darkness immediately descends.
WOTAN AND THE COST OF VALHALLA
Now the scene shifts to the mountains, where Wotan and Fricka are asleep. Wotan is dreaming of Valhalla, a great hall and stronghold that will establish "his manhood, his power, and his fame." Far in the distance, the towers of a fortress castle gleam in the morning sun. Fricka awakens first. She is startled at seeing the castle, and she shakes Wotan awake. Wotan opens his one eye, sees the huge building of his dreams, and feels pleasure and triumph. Fricka, in contrast, is anxious and feels Wotan should be also.
"Heedless one, try to remember the price that has to be paid! The castle is ready; the payment is due. Remember what you pledged!" she tells him.
Through Wotan's wife, Fricka, we learn that he had made an agreement with two giants, Fafner and Fasolt. In exchange for building Valhalla, Wotan promised to give them Fricka's sister Freya, the goddess of love, youth, and beauty. Freya's garden is the source of the golden apples that the deities eat every day; eating the apples keeps the gods eternally young and immortal. Wotan minimizes the problem, blaming Loge the trickster for getting him into this fix and also trusting him to get him out of it.
Called "Allfather" in Germanic mythology, Wotan is a tall and powerful figure who is missing one eye. He carries a large spear with which he rules. Treaties and agreements that Wotan upholds are carved on its shaft. Loge is a quick-thinking demigod with the gift of persuasive speech, and he is often traveling, his whereabouts unknown until he shows up. In this respect, Loge resembles Hermes, the Greek messenger god. Loge is also the god of fire.
Fricka is angry and anxious about what will happen to Freya. She is critical of Wotan, saying, "Nothing is sacred; you men harden your hearts when you lust for might." He retorts, "Didn't you also want the great hall?" To this she responds, "Only because it might have enticed you to stay at home."
When the giants come to collect their payment, Wotan is evasive. When they remind him that he promised them Freya, he says he was only jesting, that she is "too lovely for dolts such as they."
Though they look alike, Fafner and Fasolt are quite different in personality. Fasolt expects to be treated fairly and is momentarily speechless. Then he reminds Wotan that their agreement was carved in runes upon the shaft of his spear. Fasolt yearns for a woman's beauty and love to grace the giants' simple home, while Fafner is motivated by envious hostility. He wants Freya in order to deprive the gods of the golden apples and looks forward to seeing the gods grow old and weak.
Confronted by the giants demanding that he pay up, Wotan counts upon Loge to come up with something the giants would want more than Freya. When Loge finally appears, however, he denies that he promised a solution; saying he only promised to look into it. Loge reports that he has roamed all over the world and has found that "nothing is of greater worth than love." However, he has heard a tale from the Rhinemaidens about a dwarf named Alberich who values a certain ring more than love.
It is a gold ring with such magic power that its owner can conquer the world. With the ring, Alberich has amassed a hoard of gold in Nibelhome, the underground home of the dwarves. On hearing of this treasure, Fafner takes Fasolt aside and forces him to agree to take this gold as payment for Valhalla. Fafner gives Wotan and Loge a day to get the gold. In the meantime the giants will take Freya as hostage, to be forfeited forever if they do not have the gold by evening. As the giants carry her off, Freya is terrified, and she cries and screams for help.
WOTAN AND LOGE VISIT ALBERICH
As soon as the giants leave with Freya, Wotan and Loge descend underground to seek Alberich. Alberich is now a tyrant who has made all the Nibelungs his slaves. He drives them mercilessly to find and mine gold, to smelt and forge it into shapes for him. He has bullied his brother Mime, who cringes in terror, to make the Tarnhelm, a headpiece crafted of beautifully wrought gold. Using the ring, Alberich has imbued the Tarnhelm with magic. It can transform the wearer into anything he desires to be or take him to any place he wishes to go. With it, Alberich has made himself invisible, the better to intimidate, strike, watch, and terrify others.
When Wotan and Loge come upon Mime, he is huddled on the ground whimpering. A large work crew of Nibelungs come into view, driven by Alberich, who is now visible, lashing at them with a whip. Seeing Mime talking with these strangers, Alberich comes over and strikes him, forcing him to join the others.
The two gods draw a mistrustful and wary Alberich into conversation. He brags that he can transform himself into anything with the Tarnhelm. Loge, ever the trickster, doubts Alberich and goads him into a demonstration. Alberich puts on the Tarnhelm, says, "Giant snake, coiling and winding!" and disappears in vapor. In his place appears a huge serpent. Wotan laughs, and Loge pretends to be afraid.
When Alberich reappears, he is smug. Loge confesses that he is wondrously impressed and wonders if he can also grow smaller and become quite tiny. Then he adds, "But maybe that's too hard." Alberich rises to the bait and shows off. He dons the Tarnhelm, says "Creeping toad, gray and crooked," and vanishes. When a toad appears, Wotan and Loge grab and capture it. Loge seizes the Tarnhelm, and Alberich suddenly becomes visible in his own shape. While Alberich tries to escape, Wotan holds him down and Loge ties him up.
THE CURSE ON THE RING
Wotan and Loge return from Nibelhome with Alberich as their prisoner. Wotan demands the hoard of gold as ransom for Alberich's freedom. Alberich readily agrees and thinks he is getting off cheap; since he has the ring, he reasons that he can force the dwarves to get him more gold. At his command, the Nibelungs hurriedly bring the gold and heap it up. After all the gold is on the pile, Loge adds the Tarnhelm to the booty. Alberich initially flares up in anger, then calms himself with the knowledge that he can use the ring to order Mime to make another Tarnhelm.
Thinking the ransom complete, Alberich expects to be freed, only to hear Wotan say, "A golden ring shows on your finger. To get your freedom, that must also be left with us." Alberich is stunned at this demand. He refuses, saying, "My life, but not the ring!" Wotan then tears the ring from Alberich's finger and puts it on his own. After this Loge unties Alberich, who rages at the gods and bitterly curses the ring:
Through the ring comes unlimited power.
Now let whoever owns it find death.
Let none rejoice owning the ring, or have a happy mind.
Care shall consume the one who possesses it. Fear be the bread he eats.
While envy shall gnaw at those who wish they did.
Lusting after the ring, no one shall find any profit or delight.
Alberich leaves as the giants approach with Freya to collect their pay. Fricka and other gods join Wotan and Loge. When they see Freya, they feel their joy and youth returning. The giants place Freya between their staves, one on each side of her; this serves as a measure of the gold they require. As the gods pile up the gold, Fafner presses the gold together, demanding that the chinks be filled. All the gold is used, and still some of Freya's hair shows, until Loge adds the Tarnhelm. Then Fasolt goes up to the hoard and sees Freya's eye through a crack. Fafner demands that this cranny be filled with the gold ring on Wotan's finger.
Wotan refuses. Fasolt pulls Freya from behind the hoard, saying he will keep her forever. Freya cries out for help. When the gods urge Wotan to give up the ring, he turns on them in wrath, saying, "Leave me alone! The ring stays with me!"
At this crucial moment, the scene darkens, and a bluish light glows, as Erda, the earth goddess, suddenly arises out of the mountainous ground, stretches out a warning hand to Wotan, and tells him to "yield the cursed ring!" Saying that "wretchedness, doom, and disaster" accompany it, she insists that he hear her.
When Erda tells Wotan, "All things that are, perish. A mournful day dawns for the gods," and sinks back into the earth, Wotan unsuccessfully tries to restrain her, saying, "Wait, let me hear more wisdom!" Erda's visitation plunges Wotan into deep thought, from which he rouses himself to give the giants the ring. Freya is finally free; the gold has paid for Valhalla.
Fafner now greedily packs most of the gold in his sack. Fasolt objects and insists that they share equally. Fafner refuses. They struggle over the ring, and Fasolt succeeds in getting possession of it, but only momentarily. Fafner strikes Fasolt with his staff, takes the ring from his brother's dying grasp, puts it into the sack, and resumes packing. Wotan watches, horrified at the quickness with which the curse that Alberich put on the ring was carried out.
Fricka reminds Wotan that the gleaming fortress castle is now his to occupy, although this gives him no joy. Gloomily, he realizes, "A dreadful price paid for that hall!"
The Rhinegold ends with Wotan and Fricka leading the other gods across a rainbow bridge to far-distant Valhalla. As they cross, the gods hear the Rhinemaidens mourning their lost gold.
* * *
The Quest for Power and Its Psychological Cost
THE RING OF NIBELUNG IS FORGED, FOUGHT OVER, AND cursed in The Rhinegold. As a symbol — or ring of power — it represents the "magical thing" that we can become so obsessed with having that it takes us over. It can be wealth, fame, power over others, security, status, knowledge, sex, or an addictive substance. Anything becomes a "ring of power" if we end up being willing to sacrifice everything else in ourselves and everyone else in our lives in order to obtain it. Anything that has so strong a hold on us and requires this high a price does indeed have a "curse" on it.
THE CYCLE BEGINS: ALBERICH AND POWER
Alberich renounces love to forge the ring of power. For him it is a "ring of revenge." He seeks power after giving up on receiving love and acceptance, which he initially innocently thinks available, desperately and futilely tries to grasp, and is ridiculed for trying. For the "Alberich" in us, having power over others is an effort to compensate and retaliate for abuse, rejection, and humiliation. This is part of the psychology of people who "identify with the aggressor": the child who wants love and is instead abused becomes in turn an abusive adult.
Rejection and exclusion are common childhood or adolescent experiences that are emotionally wounding. They make a person feel impotent and unlovable. Playground cruelty often compounds much deeper wounds, because the child who is ridiculed, rejected, neglected, or abused at home, is a member of a prejudiced-against minority group, or is in some way physically unacceptable by being too little, too fat, or "funny looking" has a greater susceptibility to becoming the scapegoat or the excluded one.
Children who are rejected feel that there is something wrong or ugly about them; they have a kinship with Alberich the Nibelung, who was "too dark and ugly" to play with the beautiful people. Such children may grow up to be successful adults in the eyes of others, yet still feel they are Nibelungs — little or fat or homely rejectables — underneath the image of power and sophistication that others see. For example, Gloria Steinem in Revolution From Within describes seeing herself on television and being shocked by the difference between her inner self-image as a "plump brunette from Toledo, too tall and much too pudding-faced, with a voice that felt constantly on the very edge of some unacceptable emotion," and "this thin, pretty, blondish woman of medium height who seemed confident, even blasé."
When rejection and ridicule come from the opposite sex in adolescence or young adulthood, the wound is to the sense of being attractive or potent as a sexual person. Whether a metaphor for the social swim, or the deeper meaning that equates water with emotions and feeling, Alberich was not in his element in the underwater realm of the Rhine. He did not know how to behave; he was too eager and needy. His behavior and experience were like those of the socially inept man who wants a girlfriend and reaches for first one and then another in a social setting where he is led on and then made fun of for his amorous efforts. He becomes filled with rage and humiliation if this happens; someday, when he has the upper hand, he may take revenge on other women for this.
When an abused child, a rejected adolescent, or a humiliated man is finally able to deny his desire for acceptance and love, he can become an "Alberich," a man obsessed with power and an abuser of others. He may be relatively secure only when in a position to dominate or humiliate someone else, which gives him a false and fragile sense of superiority. Lack of self-worth and experiences of devaluation, rejection, or abuse in childhood, coupled with a desire for revenge, make people prone to become like Alberich.
Although "Alberich" may not dominate our personality, there are "Nibelungs" in all of us. Each of us has qualities that were rejected by people that mattered to us, whose love we wanted. Whatever is rejected by others, especially when we were children, is likely to become unacceptable and shameful to us as well, and so we repress this part, consigning it to the "underground," which means it will be undeveloped and distorted — dwarflike. Whatever it is will continue to exist in our psyches and may have considerable hidden influence. For example, in dysfunctional families, a child may be punished for his or her sexuality, curiosity, independence, dependency, aggression, affection, or honest perceptions and as a result feel ashamed or afraid of having these feelings or instincts, which continue to exist but in a distorted, projected, or undeveloped form.
Once he has the ring of power, Alberich becomes a merciless tyrant who enslaves all of the dwarves. Abused and driven by his obsession for power, he makes the Nibelungs work night and day to build up his hoard of gold, with which he intends to extend his influence until he rules the world. Like Mime, the Nibelungs cringe in fear of Alberich and do his bidding.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Ring of Power by JEAN SHINODA BOLEN. Copyright © 1999 Jean Shinoda Bolen. Excerpted by permission of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Preface,Acknowledgments,
INTRODUCTION,
The Ring Cycle Is About Us,
CHAPTER 1 The Rhinegold: The Quest for Power and Its Psychological Cost,
CHAPTER 2 The Valkyrie: The Authoritarian Father and the Dysfunctional Family,
CHAPTER 3 Siegfried: The Hero as an Adult Child,
CHAPTER 4 Twilight of the Gods: Truth Brings an End to the Cycle of Power,
CHAPTER 5 Freeing Ourselves from the Ring Cycle,
CHAPTER 6 Beyond Valhalla: A Postpatriarchal World?,
Family Tree,
Glossary of Characters, Creatures, Objects, and Places,
Symbology of Scenes,
Selected Readings,
Discography,
Index,