The shadow in fairy tales: what we hide from ourselves and how to notice it

At a writing workshop, someone else’s story receives praise. An editor genuinely hears what makes its ending work, yet also notices an urge to bring up its weaknesses. Yesterday she might have called this professional rigour. Today another thought becomes available: she wanted that kind of attention herself. Her skill has not disappeared; a wish for special recognition has appeared beside it.

This is one place to begin thinking about the shadow. The subject includes more than cruelty and dark secrets. Sometimes what is hardest to acknowledge is an ordinary wish: to receive praise, have influence, charge more, or stop helping when there is no energy left. Fairy tales give such contradictions characters and events. We can first consider what a character does and then decide whether anything feels familiar.

This article offers adult self-reflection. The Jungian shadow is used as an interpretive perspective, not a diagnosis. A fairy-tale exercise does not replace psychotherapy or require revisiting your most painful memories.

In the Jungian tradition, the shadow concerns aspects of experience that are difficult to include in our conscious picture of ourselves. Someone who thinks of themselves as generous may struggle to notice greed. Someone proud of independence may feel ashamed of needing support. A considerate person may have trouble finding words for anger. The issue is a contradiction between experience and a familiar self-image, rather than a separate evil creature within. The American Psychological Association dictionary describes the concept within analytical psychology.

Abilities can also go unacknowledged. In a family where attracting attention was discouraged, an adult may work skilfully yet hesitate to put their name on their work. Other people’s boldness looks like arrogance. Perhaps the irritation includes a wish to allow themselves more freedom. The other person may genuinely be inconsiderate, too. A shadow interpretation should be checked against the situation rather than used to erase other explanations.

Here, the concept serves as a question: what has the familiar explanation left out? It cannot reveal the hidden cause of another person’s actions from a single message, or determine someone’s character from a drawing.

A teacher prepares a lesson, chooses examples and answers questions. Their professional role helps students know what to expect. In Jungian language, the persona concerns how a person presents themselves to others. It need not be dishonest: the image of a thoughtful professional can reflect real knowledge and effort.

Difficulty develops when there is almost no room outside the role. “A good psychologist never gets angry.” “A talented writer never feels envy.” “A caring person is always available.” Fatigue and envy then need a respectable explanation quickly. A psychologist calls their own irritation the other person’s resistance; a writer blames another author’s success on an audience with no taste; a helper resents someone who manages alone.

Any of these explanations might sometimes be accurate. Inquiry begins with a willingness to leave another possibility alongside them: perhaps I also wanted to be needed, admired or indispensable.

Writing about ourselves can be difficult even privately. A character is easier to disagree with: they agreed too quickly, stayed silent, concealed an ability or demanded a reward. A story makes a sequence visible: what happened before a decision, what the character did and who was affected. This distance may make observation more manageable, although no particular response is guaranteed.

Marie-Louise von Franz explored the subject in Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales. Her work belongs to a tradition of psychological interpretation. For personal reading, several possibilities can remain open: a character might evoke one’s own reaction, an actual other person, a social arrangement, or simply be compelling as a character. There is no universal code assigning a fixed personal meaning to every giant.

Sometimes “Where is my shadow?” can wait. A more useful first question is: what exactly did this character do that made me pause over this scene?

In Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Shadow”, a scholar’s shadow leaves him, returns wealthy and gradually imposes its own rules. The scholar becomes subordinate to his former companion. It is an unsettling story about appearances, status and losing the right to describe what is happening.

One psychological reading can consider capacities the scholar barely uses: influencing others, negotiating terms, occupying space and recognising calculation. Yet his shadow’s actions do not become acceptable. It exploits dependence and removes the person who could challenge its account. A need for recognition neither explains everything nor removes responsibility for coercion.

A contemporary echo appears when someone can no longer correct their public image. An expert must always know the answer because the audience bought certainty. A team hides an error because its brand promises perfection. Who is making decisions now, and what happens to whoever points out the discrepancy?

People cannot see the cloth but fear admitting it. The swindlers have linked seeing the garment to intelligence and fitness for office. A simple observation becomes a threat to one’s position. Someone agrees with another person’s confidence despite having no evidence before their eyes.

The emperor is not the only interesting character. What does the official fear? What is the crowd protecting? How hard is it to be the first to say there is no result? Similar tension appears at work when asking for clarification feels embarrassing, or requesting evidence is treated as an insult to a master.

An expert needs to tolerate clarification. A listener needs room to ask, “Could you show how this works in an example?” Acknowledging uncertainty gives the conversation something that can be examined.

In the Grimms’ tale, the hero conceals his golden hair. One possible reading attends to the act of covering something valuable and conspicuous to avoid attention. This can lead into questions about abilities that exist but remain unused or unacknowledged.

Someone edits other people’s writing for years but calls their own work “nothing special.” They explain complex ideas clearly yet decline to lead a small meeting. They need not remove their cap in front of the whole world. Showing one page to a thoughtful reader, arranging a trial session or requesting specific feedback may be enough. An ability needs practice, conditions and a choice about whom to show it to.

Privacy and caution can be sensible decisions. The question concerns their cost: what has to be given up in order never to become visible?

Dmytro Telushko’s forthcoming Ukrainian workbook, “Казкотерапія. Тінь: про те, що ми в собі не визнаємо,” includes the original tale “Майстриня дзвонів і другий голос” — the bellmaker and the second voice. After someone jokes about her bell’s rough lower resonance, Lada begins muffling it with a strip of leather. People praise the softness of her work, while more ambitious pieces remain under a cloth.

When the craftsman Severyn arrives, she helps him increasingly. Her help is genuinely useful, but a hope for special recognition develops alongside it. Another craftswoman’s arrival makes that hope more visible: for a moment, Lada wants the visitor to make a mistake. Later she speaks sharply to a boy who has merely returned her forgotten cup, then apologises.

The scene matters because of its particulars. Envy does not erase Lada’s skill; real skill does not justify being harsh. She can acknowledge the pleasure she anticipated in someone else’s failure, thank the boy, apologise and return to her own work. Several distinct tasks become available instead of a verdict on her entire character.

Later, the unmuffled bell helps send a necessary signal through the noise of the fair. The story does not promise that everyone will now love its sound. Reclaiming a capacity does not remove questions of proportion, appropriateness and other people’s responses. Lada still has to choose how to use her voice.

This continues the discussion in “Imperfect experts: how knowledge coexists with the shadow”. A person can understand a psychological mechanism well while struggling to notice their own involvement in it. Knowledge helps describe experience, but can also become a persuasive vocabulary of self-justification.

Imagine a teacher who created a useful course and feels angry when students mention another author. The material can be assessed on its merits: are its claims accurate, its examples clear, its skills usable? Separately, consider how the teacher handles disagreement. If students are forbidden to read others, learning is being restricted, whatever the teacher may be feeling.

Or a practitioner accustomed to being indispensable keeps offering more help. Acknowledging a wish to be needed may matter for that practitioner. For the client, another question is essential: can they refuse, finish the work or seek a second opinion without punishment or shame? Knowing the hidden cause is not a prerequisite for assessing consequences.

The shadow perspective deepens the subject by asking where a personal need sits within a professional role. Recognition can take the form of honest credit and transparent payment. Influence can be limited by agreed responsibilities. A need for support can be taken to one’s own therapy, supervision or colleagues, without making a client responsible for meeting it.

Disappointment encourages sweeping conclusions: if an author was envious or had difficult relationships, none of their ideas can matter. The opposite movement is familiar too: because an idea helped, every action of its author must be defended. Both make assessment less precise.

Separate the questions. How well supported is this particular advice? Is the professional working within their competence? How do they respond to a mistake, a refusal or a question about fees? Do they accept responsibility for consequences? The answers may differ. A useful text can remain useful while you decline personal collaboration.

Imperfection does not make fatigue equivalent to humiliation, or an unfortunate remark equivalent to repeated boundary violations. Where there are threats, coercion or exploitation of dependence, a reader need not find enough sympathy to stay. Understanding a possible need does not create an obligation to tolerate harmful ways of satisfying it.

A response to an expert can also contain something about the listener. Someone confidently names their fee and irritation arises: “How can they ask that much?” Perhaps the price really does not match the service. Perhaps there is also a wish to stop working for almost nothing. These questions deserve separate attention.

Specific facts matter: what was said, what agreement was broken, and what would I want to allow myself even if this person disappeared from view tomorrow? Projection remains a hypothesis for self-inquiry. It should not be used to close down someone else’s complaint with “That is just your shadow.”

Choose a short episode: a character conceals an ability, agrees against their wishes, demands more or stays silent. Write down what they did and what followed, without deciding what sort of person they are overall.

Then ask: what might they have wanted? What detail supports that possibility? What other explanation could fit? A character may be silent through fear of losing approval, but may also lack time, words or information. Leave room for what is unknown.

Invent one different action that acknowledges the wish while causing less harm. Replace an unspoken price for helping with an agreement about scope. Return to one’s own project rather than belittling someone else’s work. Allow only part of a draft to be shown rather than demand disclosure. Note what would be uncomfortable about the alternative: a different approach need not feel pleasant immediately.

If you wish, find a modest echo in your own week and choose a small experiment, such as clarifying a deadline before agreeing. A personal example is optional; the whole exercise can stay within the tale. A drawing can be equally simple: a character, a shadow and one action between them. Its meaning belongs to the person who drew it.

MriyaRun is preparing Dmytro Telushko’s practical workbook “Казкотерапія. Тінь: про те, що ми в собі не визнаємо,” part of the “Трансформація казкою” series. The cover shown is from the forthcoming book’s layout. This is an announcement, not a statement that sales have begun; no release date is being announced here.

The supplied V15 layout has 230 pages: a twenty-eight-day story following editor Marta Savenko, Lada’s original fairy tale with a return to her story, six thematic practices and eighteen fairy-tale retellings. Marta explores envy, hidden expectations around helping, a wish for closeness, influence, anger and unacknowledged capacities. Her story offers distance: a reader’s own example need not resemble her romantic circumstances.

A small companion also appears in the layout: a black cat holding a glass. Its printed movements are designed as a flipbook, while the reader can draw its shadow alongside it. That shadow need not become correct or disappear by the end. A few marks or one changed detail are enough; simply watching the cat is also an option. This is a playful way of making a story, not a test with a concealed score.

While the new book is being prepared, the catalogue includes the existing hardcover “Казкотерапія” practical book, a separate Ukrainian-language volume about life scripts and familiar roles. It should not be confused with the forthcoming shadow workbook: their contents differ.

Sometimes a modest observation remains: the help was sincere and gratitude was wanted; the criticism had substance but envy made it sharper; another person’s talent irritated partly because one’s own work had been under a cloth for too long. That is enough for a beginning. A clearer agreement, a correction or some time for one’s own project can follow.

Read this way, the shadow helps preserve the complexity of a living person. An expert can know something important and need recognition. A character can feel envy and act honestly. A reader can lack a final explanation yet already see a next step they would like to choose.

APA Dictionary: Shadow defines the Jungian concept. IAAP: Analytical Psychology provides context for persona and shadow. Marie-Louise von Franz’s Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales explores psychological interpretation. Andersen’s Fairy Tales contains “The Shadow” and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Lada’s and Marta’s examples and the forthcoming book’s description draw on the author’s V15 layout. The readings and questions in this article are our suggestions for self-reflection, not quotations from Jung or von Franz.