The Child as the Hero...

Growing up, I always imagined myself as the hero in the movies I watched or in the books that were read to me by my parents. My childhood friends and I always argued over which main character we were in a particular movie. For instance, the Star Wars trilogy was always one that was highly contested for roles. Everyone wanted to be the Jedi Luke Skywalker. Looking back, I can see why we all wanted to be him. Luke was a young hero who had to seemingly overcome insurmountable odds to make the universe emerge from darkness.  In all three movies, my young eyes watched as he went from a farmhand to a Jedi Master.
 

Like Luke Skywalker, fairytales are littered with young or even child heroes. These heroes have to overcome insurmountable odds and mature into the next stage of life as well. For instance, the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk is just one example. In the story, Jack mistakenly sells the family’s only source of income, a cow, for beans. His mother punishes Jack when he returns home, and then proceeds to throw the beans out the window. The beans overnight grow into a giant beanstalk. Jack climbs the beanstalk and encounters a giant. Three times he outwits his opponent, the giant, and steals treasures from him. Jack does this in order to replace the money lost from the sale of the cow for beans. Another tale that contains the child as a hero is Hansel and Gretel. In this tale, Hansel and Gretel’s parents abandon the two children due to fear of starvation. The first time they are abandoned, Hansel and Gretel find their way back home from a trail of polished stones that Hansel left as the children were being led astray. The second time they are led away, the children leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find their way back. Unfortunately, birds eat their trail of breadcrumbs and they can no loner find their way home. Consequently, the two siblings are lost in the woods and after some time find refuge at a gingerbread house. Hansel and Gretel begin eating the house due to their starvation and dismiss a voice that they hear as wind. Suddenly, a woman who was owner of the house appears and takes them in for the night. The woman provides the children with food and shelter. However, the woman’s hospitality is a trick. She is in fact a witch that wants to fatten Hansel up to eat him. Hansel and Gretel get the best of the witch in the end. They trick the witch by using a bone as Hansel’s finger so that the witch would think he was not gaining weight. Eventually, the children push the witch into the oven to kill her and they escape.
 

From a Freudian psychoanalytical perspective, we can begin to identify the purpose of using children as heroes. Children are prime subjects for this due to their various stages of development that illuminate the ID, Ego, and Superego. If we go back and analyze Hansel and Gretel, we can see this relationship between a child’s development and the ID, Ego, and Superego. The ID in this story manifests itself in the children’s impulsive decision to eat the gingerbread house. Hansel and Gretel are so starved that they need to fulfill their internal desire to eat. As they are eating the house, they hear a voice that says “who is nibbling at my house.” This voice was a warning sign to let them know what they were doing was wrong. The voice can be interpreted as the superego in the story. However, since they are young and have not developed yet, it makes sense that they would ignore this warning sign. Finally the ego comes into play and it symbolizes maturity of the children. The children no longer react to impulsive behaviors and begin to think logically. They devise a plan using a bone as Hansel’s finger and get the witch to go into the oven in order to kill her. The child as a hero allows us to see the ID, Ego, and Superego in the simplest of forms. Not only can adults see this connection, but children can unconsciously see it as well.