Manipulation In The Erl-King

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Recommended: Gothic imagery in literature

A lovely tranquil story of a child getting manipulated pushed onto the path of murder, caused by an all-knowing supernatural being. Taking place in the woods, the woods a desolate and hopeless void, as Goethe puts it, “a young girl would go into the wood as trustingly as Red Riding Hood to her granny's house but this light admits of no ambiguities and, here, she will be trapped in her own illusion because everything in the wood is exactly as it seems.” Although receiving a warning early on the child still enters the woods, the Erl-King lures them an irresistible temptation that draws them in. The child trusts the Erl-King and even goes into their house, as she puts it, “the room is musical and aromatic and there is always a wood fire crackling in the grate, a sweet, acrid smoke, a bright, glancing flame.” The Erl-King strips her of her clothing, “skin the rabbit,” making love to him. …show more content…

As she states, “he could thrust me into the seed-bed of next year's generation and I would have to wait until he whistled me up from my darkness before I could come back again.” The story continues by having the girl strip naked again, the girl wanting to free the caged birds who constantly wall within their imprisonment. She plots to kill the Erl-King, describing in detail how she will do it, “I shall take two huge handfuls of his rustling hair as he lies half dreaming, half waking, and wind them into ropes, very softly, so he will not wake up, and, softly, with hands as gentle as rain, I shall strangle him with them.” Opening the cages, freeing all the birds, “young girls,” and using his hair to play a melodic, grim tune on the

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