Eckbert The Blond Literary Analysis

Throughout Eckbert the Blond the subjectivity of Berta and Eckbert can be viewed through their relationship to the old woman. As the tale unfolds the old woman’s shape shifts into an array of characters who shine light onto Berta and Eckbert’s subconscious desires. Tieck illustrates how beneficial desires and destructive instincts of the human psyche impact the judgment of both Eckbert and Berta symbolically, through the portrayal of the old woman as both a positive motherly figure and a symbol of revenge. Initially the old woman is introduced as a motherly symbol as seen by the way she treats Berta “as if [she] were her own daughter” (Zipes 286). The tucked away hut they share can be seen as a utopian landscape characterized by harmonious peace and closeness to nature. However, through this seclusion Berta begins to manifest her desire to control her own destiny and begins to imagine what immersing herself in the real world would feel like. Although autonomy is normally a predominantly …show more content…
This stage is followed by the latter stage called ‘return with the elixir’ where the hero generally returns home to the ordinary world. By Hoffmann deciding to keep Anselmus in the fantasy world, thus breaking the traditional hero journey, he is suggesting that in The Golden Pot the higher world is intertwined with the real world. He links these two worlds with the religious idea of Jacob's ladder which symbolizes a link between heaven and earth. Relating this idea to The Golden Pot the ladder is connecting the poetic imaginative world to the mundane real world. By placing Anselmus permanently in the higher world Hoffmann is showing his belief that a fairytale should deal with fantasy. He also believed that everyone should have their own private escape to the higher world which can be seen through the narrator of the story linking the reader to the higher