Essay

Pinocchio through the Fairy’s Looking Glass

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Course
BUS/MKTG (ENG312)

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Thompson River University (TRU )

Fairy tales have been told for generations mostly as lessons in humanity as well as to inspire change in character. In ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio,’ the underlying moral lesson revolves around the need for honesty. In view of this moral, author Carlo Collodi imposes a strict punishment for lyi...

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pinnochio
fairy’s looking glass
pinocchio in dramatis personae
reader’s response to pinocchio

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Pinocchio through the Fairy’s Looking Glass

Fairy tales have been told for generations mostly as lessons in humanity as well as to inspire

change in character. In ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio,’ the underlying moral lesson revolves

around the need for honesty. In view of this moral, author Carlo Collodi imposes a strict

punishment for lying by growing Pinocchio’s nose bigger every time he tells a lie. This analysis

focuses on animism as seen in a psychoanalytic approach to the story.

As the plot unfolds, Pinocchio tells his first real lie upon learning about the consequences

of naively disclosing the truth. Having been tricked by Cat and Fox that “there is a blessed field

called the Field of Wonders (Chapter 12) where he could plant his pieces of gold and reap them

five-fold the next morning, Pinocchio realized that telling the truth to strangers was naïve. In his

encounters with the Fairy, the puppet decides to lie that he had lost the remaining four pieces.

From a psychoanalytic point of view, it would appear that the author wanted to demonstrate the

ripple effect of lying loosely referred to as the Pinocchio Effect where people are forced to tell

more lies to cover up previous ones. As a result, people are caught up in a complex web of lies,

as Walter Scott explains in the popular passage of Marmion, “Oh what a tangled web we weave

when first we practice to deceive” (Clancy). The Fairy uses the ‘broken cookie jar’ style of

interrogation, which is inherently deceptive since she feigns curiosity and ignorance to throw

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Pinocchio off her trail. She affirmed that everything lost in the woods is always found, which

prompts Pinocchio to tell an even clumsier lie: “I didn’t lose the four gold pieces I swallowed

them inadvertently while I was drinking your medicine” (Chapter 17). As a result, Pinocchio

finds himself entangled in a web of half-truths and familiar lies that he could have avoided had

he simply told the truth. His nose grows inches longer after every lie he tells, which Collodi uses

as the moral of the story: lying has consequences. Since the Fairy also lied at some point, such

lies are to be distinguished as ways in which adults cleverly mislead children in order to let them

learn the dangers of lying and that lies always catch up with someone. Therefore, the Fairy does

not get punished for the lie since it falls in the category one would refer to as a justifiable

misinformation.

Pinocchio in Dramatis Personae

As literary concepts, dramatis personae emerge in the works of Vladimir Propp in

reference to the tendency of fairy tales to incorporate a broad range of character types. One such

persona in Collodi’s tale is the protagonist Pinocchio around which the story revolves. The

author creates a series of events that characterize the escapades of his central character around

which the story revolves. He further develops numerous characters including helpers and villains

that help his storytelling as the plot unfolds.

One of the key turning points of the story is Pinocchio’s rude awakening upon

encountering the sly Cat and Fox who conned him with the promise of multiplying his gold.

Collodi introduces these characters in a way that the reader understands how an unsuspecting

person would fall for the tricks of professional con artists. Experience teaches us that tricksters

use deceit, psychological manipulation, and emotional blackmail to deceive their victims and

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