Folkloric Wisdom in “Silver Hands”

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Folkloric Wisdom in Silver Hands:

Healing the Wounded Feminine Through Heroic Transformation

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The Heroine’s Journey represents a different, but complimentary, analysis of the Feminine individuation process than that of the Masculine in the Hero’s Journey. The transformations are deeply internal, both spiritual and intellectual, and always address a healing rebirth of Feminine identity awareness. Folklore and fairy tales have long been primary sources for inheritance of the commonsense principles of life, particularly the motifs and archetypes that support Feminine individuation. In his essay on individuation, Hasan El-Shamy writes, “individuation may be viewed as the gaining of wisdom” (264).

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The tale of Silver Hands, also known as The Armless Maiden or The Girl With No Hands, has appeared in numerous cultures for centuries, and describes the specifically Feminine need for triumph over abuse, lack of self-worth and suppressed identity, all victories that come with wisdom as the prize. The Feminine aspect, however, is something more sophisticated and expansive than that which can be defined by biological gender. Jungian Archetypal criticism points to the premise that the Masculine and Feminine aspects are inherent in men and women alike. Based on this assertion, Silver Hands is a message of healing for all of humankind.

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The application of Jungian theory to Silver Hands revolves around the premises of what Jung called the anima and animus, deeply embedded entities of the human psyche. His revealing work with the anima and animus are the formal foundation of much scholarly thought on issues related to men, women, relationships, and other aspects of the processes of psychological development and individuation. The animus is “the personification of the masculine principle in women” (Edinger).[1] The anima is, likewise, the “personification of the feminine principle in men” (Edinger). The basic structure of Jung’s theory is this: that all men have an anima and all women have an animus, and these “other” entities reside independently in the subconscious of every human, bringing either great harm or balance to the waking individual.

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The motif structure of Silver Hands follows this pattern: 1) Mutilation, 2) Royal Marriage, 3) Calumniation, and 4) Restoration (Lindahl, 3). However, the motifs should be viewed as subplots that support the nature of the heroic journey tale-type. In Silver Hands, the heroine embarks on the physical journey that structures the tale; however, her real journey is inward, and most of the physical encounters she experiences are archetypes and motifs of feminine individuation – or stages of the process of the Heroine’s Journey. This inward journey represents the real psychological and emotional experiences of women and girls as they go through the different phases of life, and involves several stages of growth that cycle repeatedly throughout life.

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The process begins with a Separation from the Feminine (when a woman denies herself in an attempt to identify with the masculine – or make a place for herself in a patriarchal society). Then follows the Descent and Initiation (when the feminine awakens to a sense of spiritual aridity – or death to herself – and voluntarily returns to the dark, primordial inner self to reclaim that which was lost). The final experience in the growth cycle is the Ascent (the rebirth of the feminine as she returns to the light with new knowledge and wisdom about herself and her world). The journey occurs cyclically in the life of the feminine, the descent usually marked by extreme conditions such as the death of a loved one, a job change, children leaving home, etc. The purpose of the journey is to initiate a spiritual and intellectual growth wherein the feminine learns to accept and respect herself, as well as take the reigns of authority in directing the course of her own life.

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Emma Jung credits the Feminine with a special relationship to nature, or the elemental. This is not a gender-based premise, but rather an explanation of one of the characteristics of the Feminine, which may be observed in both women and men. Silver Hands incorporates both the archetype of a Mother Earth entity and the motif of Nature as a Healer. To demonstrate this idea, here is a brief retelling of the tale:

A young girl allows herself to be victimized to save her thoughtless, self-obsessed father from the consequences of his destructive acts against the forest around their home. She allows her hands to be cut off – a motif that represents the loss of her ability to create. This loss destroys her self-worth and identity and corresponds to the initial phase of the Heroine’s Journey, or a separation from the feminine. The girl leaves her home in the crippled forest and wanders alone for a time, lost and starving. She comes to an orchard full of pear trees, and using her teeth she picks one to stave off her starvation. The King who owns the orchard observes her and falls in love with her. He orders silver hands to be fashioned for her, marries her, and promptly goes off to war. Even though she has found an ally and identified with the Masculine in her life, she is still lost to herself and alone. The king’s mother engages in great deceit to rid her son of the wife she doesn’t like. When Silver Hands innocently falls under the spell of her mother-in-law’s wicked lies, she believes forlornly that her husband wishes her dead. This awakens in her a knowledge of her own spiritual aridity and, upon the birth of her daughter, she returns to the forest to search out her original identity. This stage represents a return to the primordial darkness, or womb of the earth, in the Heroine’s Journey. After seven years in the forest with her daughter, she comes to a stream, plunges her stumps into its waters, and discovers that her hands have grown anew. Meanwhile, the king has returned from war and is heartbroken to find his wife gone. He searches for her for another seven years, finds her, and through a series of tests wins her back.

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Thus, the healing of the wounded Masculine and the integration of the masculine and feminine occur when the King and Silver Hands acknowledge and forgive the deceit and are rejoined as one. This process is described using male and female genders as devices to act out the archetypes of the Masculine and Feminine aspects, yet it is clearly applicable to the process of healthy integration between the two in an individual of either gender. According to Jungian psychoanalytical theory, a man who suppresses his feminine aspect, or a woman who suppresses her masculine aspect, will demonstrate physically or psychically the destructive nature of physic imbalance. Silver Hands’ imbalance originated in the abusive, or neglectful, relationship she had with her father that culminated in the loss of her capacity to create. Her transformation cycle corresponds to that which we experience when illness, disfigurement, or other strife comes our way.

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In her essay, “Healing the Wounded Wild,” Kim Antieau clarifies the importance of the Nature as Healer Motif by demonstrating the damage we suffer when natural habitats are brutalized and plundered. Silver Hands’ father was the perpetrator of this initial damage when he chopped down the forest around their home, resulting in his accidental destruction of a tree that belonged to the devil. His wrongdoing was further complicated by the bargain he made to compensate the devil for his loss. This is the act of selling Silver Hands or otherwise wounding her in the same manner that he plundered the forest. Eco-feminism illuminates a connection between the “death of nature and the rape of women” (Downing, 269). The rape of women symbolizes the silencing of the Feminine voice. Without a voice, the Feminine cannot communicate her intuitive relationship with the elemental – her natural inclination toward nature – and becomes ineffectual. The destructive outcome of this suppression is an imbalance that allows Masculine aggression an unchecked, arrogant attitude toward nature. When nature ceases to be perceived as having intrinsic value, it suffers from the same kind of rape and oppression that affects women who are also perceived to be property of little or no value.

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The healing of Silver Hands springs from her reconnection to Nature, which is, in this story, an archetype for the Feminine creative or life-giver. Clarrissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D., a Jungian psychoanalyst and Cantadora, address the soul of Feminine creativity as the “Rio Abajo Rio,” or, the river beneath the river, that flows continually in our lives (Estes, 297). She writes of the Feminine life-giving soul,

Creating one thing at a certain point in the river feeds those who come to the river, feeds creatures far downstream, yet others in the deep. Creativity is not a solitary movement. That’s its power. Whatever is touched by it, whoever hears it, sees it, knows it, is fed. That is why beholding someone else’s creative word, image, idea, fills us up, inspires us to our own creative work. A single creative act can cause a torrent to break through stone (298).

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Nature provides for us a mental and spiritual playground on which we can explore and contemplate infinity – a space in which to be creative. This is seen clearly in the Feminine aspect of intuition and closeness to nature. When illness, strife, or other hardship – the loss of her hands in Silver Hands’ case – enters our lives, the Rio Abajo Rio becomes clogged and ceases to flow. This represents the wound from which the heroine must journey to the “primordial depths’ in order to heal. The implication of Silver Hands’ act of plunging her stumps into the river is that she has reached the deepest, coolest, safest part of the depths, and reaffirms the motif that nature, especially water, offers healing and sanctuary. Allen Chinen, Ph.D. describes it this way:

The link between water and the Feminine is not surprising because the qualities of the one reflect the virtues of the other. Water is flexible – when blocked it simply flows around the obstacle with quiet, steady energy, gradually wearing down the obstructions. Water can also be astonishingly powerful, emerging in a flood that clears everything in its path. The power of water is often overlooked, though, because it seems so ordinary and mundane – just like Feminine vitality. Yet water is life-giving, nurturing, and generative, whether as amniotic fluid or as rain brining crops to fruition (108).

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Silver Hands offers further encouragement and instruction of a healing nature in its Rites of Passage motif. The Handless Maiden wandering alone and starving urges us to press on bravely, reminding us that we have the strength and power to initiate and follow through on our own restoration to wholeness. Her transformative journey expresses a message of hope for all who are wandering lost in their journeys. However, in addition to the positive messages in the story, it also offers a warning to a world in which the aspects of the Masculine and Feminine are allowed to self-perpetuate their estrangement generation after generation. The tale exposes the horrible truth of the silenced Feminine voice in its description of the mutilation of the innocent. The loss of the maiden’s hands corresponds to the psychological amputation of the Feminine voice in cultures where social pressures discourage Feminine expression (Chinen, 102). In essence, this is a social castration, confining the Feminine to a manageable stereotype that has a very limited effect on world.

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On the surface, this tale strikes a familiar chord for many women; however, a deeper look at the morphology of the tale reveals the true nature of the motifs and archetypes, and how they work together to impart a primitive, instructional folk knowledge of the need for balance between the Masculine and Feminine aspects of the human psyche. The tale illustrates a cruel, harsh estrangement between them, and provides a picture of the healing restoration that comes from healthy individuation, tolerance, and respect for each other – not only between individuals, but especially in the internal life of the individual.


[1]    For an in-depth discussion see Dr. Edinger’s “An Outline of Analytical Psychology” – first published in Quadrant: A Publication of the Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc., New York, N.Y., 1968.