Among the songs I remember my mother singing to me when I was a child was one that repeated the words, “Are you sleeping?” The tune came to mind as I was ruminating on the whole concept of sleep symbolically and the way the word “sleep” has been used in literature. I thought of the line from Macbeth where the protagonist wishes he could sleep and describes “sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,” (Shakespeare Act II, Sc.2), and then I recalled Wordsworth’s words in “Ode on Intimations of Immortality” where he speaks of birth as sleep and forgetting. (Wordsworth stanza 5). Why, I wondered, has all of this come to mind?
The authors base their discussion on a Russian fairy tale, “The Maiden Tzar.” In the story a young man leaves home to go on a fishing trip where he encounters the Maiden Tzar. She tells him she loves him passionately and they become betrothed. He returns home but is to meet the Maiden Tzar again. However, under the influence of his stepmother, the young man’s tutor gives him a sleeping potion that causes him to miss his appointed meeting time with his betrothed.
There is much more to the tale, but the point I want to address here is the idea of sleep as it is used in fairy tales. Not only does it occur in this tale to interrupt the destiny of the young man but it does so as well for the heroines in “Sleeping Beauty” and “Snow White.” Basically, all of the tales deal with either a masculine or feminine that is unable to finish growing up in a sense, unable to move on in life, until by some means the opposite is met and there is some sort of union. The young hero in “The Maiden Tzar” after a long time does go in search of what he missed out on by being asleep earlier.
In the way that it is used in fairy tales, what does sleep mean? I think here it would symbolize not being very conscious. If we drift through life just doing what is expected and living in a very collective fashion, we are asleep to the hidden potential within ourselves that can only be activated by pursuing the path of individuation. Eventually, the hero in “The Maiden Tzar” begins a journey which could be compared to individuation. It isn’t easy or comfortable. But it is only through his journey that the reunion of masculine and feminine can take place.
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