FIGURA TRICKSTER-ULUI ÎN POVESTEA DUHUL DIN STICLĂ
THE "TRICKSTER" FIGURE IN THE STORY THE SPIRIT IN THE GLASS BOTTLE

Summary/Abstract: Through this study we want to present the elements of the trickster in the story of the Brothers Grimm, The spirit in the glass bottle. The trisckster is Mercurius, which is present in most of the alchemical treatises. Mercurius is the figure with a double character, which has inclinations towards tricks, and his capacity to transform, it makes him fit into the animal-divine category. His dual nature transform him in both, a daimonium and a savior. Mercurius in alchemy is like the ouroboros, which devours and fertilizes himself in order to be reborn. This figure is born from the sacred marriage between the Sun and Moon, which underlines his dual character. Elements of the trickster appear also in the medieval carnivals of the church, point in which the hierarchical order is changed. In The spirit in the glass bottle, the spirit is exiled into a bottle in the hollow of an oak. The oak is a prototype of the Self, an axis mundi, and its roots reach in the mineral kingdom, in the inanimate. The hero of the story goes on the road of individuation, in order to find himself. The spirit must be enclosed in the hermetic vessel in order to be tamed.This spirit has both positive and negative valences, but in the case of the story The spirit in the glass bottle, his presence is a beneficial one; this figure being a teriomorphic one that is subordinate to the one who keeps him captive. The young man manages to control the material and the spiritual parts of the spirit. Mercurius is subhuman and superhuman, being the perfect figure wich can define the concept of trickster.

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