1. Analysis of Rapunzel
It is helpful in all fairy tales to look at the way the story is structured. Who are the characters at the beginning and who is there at the end. The story of Rapunzel opens with a man and a woman who have no child. The story ends with Rapunzel and the Prince and a boy and a girl. The opening suggests a sterility; the ending suggests a balance.

2. Analysis of Rapunzel
The middle of this story is made up of a series of pairs of relationships: the husband and wife are first, then the witch and Rapunzel are second; Rapunzel and the prince are third and the prince and the witch are fourth. This middle section is completed with Rapunzel being far away and the blind prince seeking her on his own.

3. Analysis of Rapunzel
Another key to interpretation is the various pictures the story conveys. The man and woman can see the rampion plants but the man has to climb into the walled garden to obtain (steal) them, he is caught but forgiven for a price. Rapunzel, who grew into the most beautiful child beneath the sun, is kept in a tower from the age of 12, and has to be stolen, at least her heart was stolen, and then she is caught and was thrown out. Not forgiven, thus balancing the original forgiving.

4. Analysis of Rapunzel
Rapunzel has hair of spun gold twenty ells long when unbraided (gold = purity, gold can not be corrupted). Gothel can climb this hair to reach Rapunzel's window. The King's son also climbs the hair. He visits in the evening. The witch visits by day. When Rapunzel tells the witch about his visits, she cuts off her hair, places her in a desert and causes the prince to be blinded. Rapunzel gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The tears of Rapunzel restore the prince's vision.

5. Analysis of Rapunzel Gold Nuggets Straight from the ground
Rusty iron, a few years old

6. Analysis of Rapunzel
Let’s look at a religious theme. First we see the mother’s longing for the forbidden rampion. Here we are once again, back in the garden of Eden with the woman wanting the forbidden apple from the tree of knowledge. Once she has the rampion she, “longs for it thrice as much.” (wants more knowledge). There is an ever increasing craving (strong desire) for an ever diminishing pleasure. The woman eats the forbidden rampion, and then her craving increases for more and the witch, like a good drug dealer, supplies all she wants.

7. Analysis of Rapunzel
The end result, and the cost, of her eating the forbidden rampion is that she must give up what she originally longed for: the child (innocence). The forbidden pleasure cost her the real pleasure which was the child. The witch, like god, controls the woman’s world (the rampion), and forgives but does not forget – there is always a price to pay.

8. Analysis of Rapunzel
Why was Rapunzel put in the tower from the age of twelve? Was it protect her from the world, or protect her from the desires of men? (When this story was being told, the age of being able have children was quite young by today’s standards.) Yet, Rapunzel is in fact in prison, and what do we with the really bad criminals? The ones who behave the worst? We put them in solitary confinement (live on their own). That is what Rapunzel is in. The only human she is allowed to see is the one who is cruel and mean to her.

9. Analysis of Rapunzel
What Rapunzel also represents is that try as you may, the human soul cannot be killed. Though she is in almost complete isolation the one thing the enchantress can’t take away from her, try as she may, is her voice. What does she do in captivity? She sings. You can keep a bird in a cage, but you can’t keep its song in a cage.

10. Analysis of Rapunzel
From a religious point of view, the story of Rapunzel is the story of all humanity really. We have all been taken captive by evil, the evil of our own sin. We find ourselves trapped in a tower of this sin with no escape. Yet god in his mercy saw the pain of this condition and heard the voice of our pain and sent a prince to rescue us. Christ came to free us from the bondage of being enslaved to sin. (The Christian religion was more important in the days this story was told than it is nowadays.)

11. Analysis of Rapunzel
Why does she allow the prince to climb her hair? Was it out of mistake, was it teenage sexual desire, was it a desire for adventure, was it to punish the witch?
The King's son wished to go in to her, and sought to find a door in the tower, but there was none. Why not; The King’s son wished to visit her/see her/talk to her/etc. Why ‘go in’ and why was there no ‘door’. And why a ‘tower’? The sexual images are obvious.
And why long hair? Because long hair is symbolic of health and vigor.

12. Analysis of Rapunzel
The prince visits many times “bring each time a silken rope”. “They agreed that he should come to her every evening” Why a silken rope, and why not a complete ladder? Why not a cotton rope/a strong rope/? Because silk has a relationship with spiders’ webs and being trapped. Slowly she is being tapped, yet it is also her escape. Also, Rapunzel seems to be in no hurry to escape, why could that be? Maybe she felt safe in her prison and fearful of the outside world she had never seen. Maybe she has more control in ‘her world’, even though it’s a prison.

13. Analysis of Rapunzel
Eventually she became pregnant (so they weren’t just chatting and looking at the moon every evening) but we are not told this until almost the end when we find out she has had twin children.

14. Analysis of Rapunzel
Another puzzle is why did Rapunzel say to the witch “Mother Gothel, how is it that you climb up here so slowly, and the King's son is with me in a moment?" Was this to punish the witch; show her superiority by saying “I know something you don’t know”, was Rapunzel really that stupid, or was she having second thoughts about facing the big world outside? Does she want to stop the rebel inside and sit pretty in the tower for all time?

15. Analysis of Rapunzel
The witch punishes Rapunzel by cutting off her hair. Why? Well cutting off a woman’s hair has almost always been a punishment for a woman who did not behave how she was ‘supposed’ to behave, in other words a woman who had lovers, rather than a husband, or maybe both. And in fairy tales beauty is synonymous with goodness and desirability, you have to wonder what this did to Rapunzel's self-esteem.

16. Analysis of Rapunzel
Most fairy-tale heroines suffer degradation or persecution (e.g., Cinderella scrubbing in the ashes, Snow White being thrown out of her own kingdom), but then they get married and live happily ever after. But Rapunzel had to suffer (1) because of her parents (original sin in the bible) and (2) because she had a sexual relationship while unmarried and became pregnant (a big mistake in those days). So she had to endure a solitary childhood, imprisonment as a young teenager and then endure even more struggles once she grew up and reached marriageable age. Instead of getting her man, she ends up a bald, single mother with two children. Why no reward for our girl's years of suffering?

17. Analysis of Rapunzel
The witch tricks the prince, and the prince, thinking only of his night’s adventures, is easily fooled. The prince over-reacts, jumps from the tower (what a hero!) and stabs his eyes on some thorns. Or, the prince being blinded by his desire for Rapunzel can do nothing except suffer punishment for his behavior. He is a prince but now can only eat the food of beggars. And all he can do is cry for his love. Why is he so weak? Because he is a soft-living prince who always got what he wanted. The prince’s character is very weak in this story, as in many fairy-tales.

18. Analysis of Rapunzel
Rapunzel probably has to pay some sort of price for acting in what early modern German's might have seen as a less than respectable way. So she's banished to a desolate land, bald, and with two babies and zero hope.
About now a fairy godmother would be really useful, but Rapunzel has to struggle all on her own, until she meets her prince and heals his blindness with her tears (her love). Why she has magic tears, we don't know, but it works out in her favor since the prince takes her and his kids back to his kingdom.

19. Analysis of Rapunzel The moral:
life can be a struggle, but if Rapunzel can make it through the difficult childhood and teenage years, so can you.

20. Analysis of Rapunzel