Manipulation In The Erl-King

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.

The Erl-King through manipulation making the girl feel in a constant state of entranced vertigo, becoming extremely loyal and obedient to him.

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

fiddle.
Throughout the story, a major theme is manipulation as the Erl-King subtly manipulates the young child, bending her to his will. The Erl-King coaxing her as he makes her feel trapped in his stare, as she puts it,”The gelid green of your eyes fixes my reflective face. It is a preservative, like a green liquid amber; it catches me. I am afraid I will be trapped in it forever like the poor little ants and flies that stuck their feet in resin before the sea covered the Baltic.” Moreover, the girl bends to his well and feels as if she is floating and her only escape is the Erl-King’s coaxing whistle. Although the girl is not afraid of the Erl-King at first she soon realizes that she will be placed in a cage and becomes afraid of him. Another theme arising of freedom, as she has her epiphany she describes it as, “when I realized what the Erl-King meant to do to me, I was shaken with a terrible fear and I did not know what to do for I loved him with all my heart and yet I had no wish to join the whistling congregation he kept in his cages although he looked after them very affectionately, gave them fresh water every day and fed them well.” A sudden shift in demeanor caused by a cruel harsh epiphany, she starts to plan the Erl-King’s murder and she wishes to free the other birds, releasing them from the King’s iron grip of manipulation. Two major themes throughout the story being freedom and manipulation, moreover, the Erl-King being a fruition of manipulation. This story conveys the message of being wary of manipulation and what happens when manipulation is taken too far.