The Prince and Mother Gothel

The Prince and Mother Gothel is a relationship shaped by secrecy, control, and a decisive reversal: the Prince enters Rapunzel’s tower by using the method Gothel herself established, only to find Gothel waiting in Rapunzel’s place after she uncovers his visits. Their conflict separates the lovers, sending Rapunzel into exile and the Prince into blindness and years of wandering. Its resolution comes not through Gothel’s intervention but through the reunion of Rapunzel and the Prince.

Control of the Tower

Gothel takes Rapunzel into the forest at twelve and confines her in a tower without a door or stairs, with only a small window high above the ground. The tower’s isolation makes Gothel the person who controls access to Rapunzel. When she wishes to enter, she stands at the foot of the tower and calls for Rapunzel to let down her braids.

Rapunzel’s long, fine hair, likened to spun gold, becomes the ladder by which Gothel climbs to the window. The arrangement makes the girl’s body the practical means of entering her prison: Gothel’s repeated call elicits the same response, and the tower’s otherwise inaccessible height is overcome through Rapunzel’s cooperation. This established routine later enables the Prince to enter as well.

The Prince Uses Gothel’s Method

After hearing Rapunzel sing from the tower, the Prince sees Gothel arrive and learns the signal and the means of entry. On a later visit, Rapunzel lowers her braids and he climbs up. His approach to her begins in fear: she has never seen a man and is frightened when he comes through the window. He speaks gently, explaining that her singing moved him so deeply that he could not be at peace without seeing her. Rapunzel’s fear subsides, and she accepts his marriage proposal.

The secret visits turn Gothel’s route into a clandestine passage between the tower and the outside world. Rapunzel and the Prince arrange to meet each night because Gothel is there during the day. Their escape plan depends on silk: he is to bring a skein on each visit, and Rapunzel will braid the skeins into a ladder so she can climb down and leave on his horse. Gothel does not initially notice the meetings. She discovers them only when Rapunzel asks why it is harder to hoist Gothel up than the young Prince, who reaches her quickly.

Discovery and Retaliation

Rapunzel’s question exposes the secret. Gothel cries out that the girl has betrayed her, then seizes her beautiful hair, winds the braids around her left hand, and cuts them with scissors in her right. The sheared braids fall to the ground. Gothel then takes Rapunzel to a desert, where she is forced to live a miserable and unhappy life. The cutting destroys the ladder that had served Gothel’s access and the lovers’ plan alike, while the exile removes Rapunzel from the tower and the Prince.

Gothel uses the cut braids to deceive the Prince. On the same day she sends Rapunzel away, she ties the severed hair to the window latch. When the Prince arrives and calls for Rapunzel to lower her braids, Gothel lets them fall as if the familiar routine were intact. He climbs into the tower expecting to find his beloved, but Gothel is waiting there with an angry, venomous expression. She tells him Rapunzel is gone forever and threatens that the cat that has taken her will scratch his eyes too before its work is finished.

Separation and Aftermath

The Prince is overwhelmed by grief and despair and leaps from the top of the tower. He survives the fall, but a bramble growing where he lands scratches his eyes, leaving him unable to see. He wanders through the forest, finding only roots and berries to eat and spending his time weeping and lamenting the loss of his wife. Gothel’s deception thus culminates in a reversal of the tower’s familiar ascent: the Prince can climb into it, but he cannot recover Rapunzel there, and his leap out leaves him blind.

After many years of wandering, the Prince reaches the desert where Rapunzel is barely surviving with the twins she has borne, a boy and a girl. Hearing a voice that seems familiar, he follows it until Rapunzel recognizes him. She embraces him and weeps; two of her tears fall into his eyes, and his sight suddenly returns. The tears reverse the injury associated with his desperate escape from the tower, while the reunion reconnects the two people Gothel’s deception had separated.

Resolution of the Conflict

The story’s final movement places Gothel’s coercive control against the couple’s eventual reunion. Gothel controls the tower’s access, cuts off Rapunzel’s escape plan, and makes the Prince believe that his wife is lost forever. Yet her deception does not determine the ending: after years apart, the Prince finds Rapunzel, and her tears restore the sight he lost in the aftermath of Gothel’s trick.

The Prince returns with Rapunzel to his kingdom, where a great celebration takes place, and they live happily for many years. The relation between the Prince and Gothel therefore has no reconciliation or direct resolution between the two: it is resolved through the undoing of Gothel’s separation of the lovers. The braids first used to admit Gothel and then manipulated to deceive the Prince give way to a reunion in which Rapunzel’s tears, rather than Gothel’s command, change his fate.