Pamina Analysis

In general, Pamina is seen to be everything her mother is not. Moberly (1967, p.225) sums her up thusly: “She is a beautiful princess, brave and unselfishly loyal, virtuous, a gentle and sympathetic listener”. Part of what makes her virtuous is her expression of more ‘feminine’ qualities; qualities that her mother very much lacks. This includes her acceptance of direction from others, particularly men, and gentle disposition. Her life is lived for the purpose of pleasing others, as she is extremely unselfish (Moberly 1967, p.225). Passiveness of character was the quality a princess had to possess in order to be painted positively in most fairy tales preceding Die Zauberflӧte (Thum 1993, p.13).
This is not to say she does not have faults, however.
First, her gentle disposition is shown in the orchestration. Just as the trombone is a symbol of the supernatural, there are also typical associations for most of the woodwinds. The clarinets “usually indicate soft and gentle feelings” (Noske 1990, p.125) and they are used almost right from the outset with Pamina. However, her first appearance is accompanied by the bassoons - in ‘Du feines Täubchen’ - which Noske refers to as a neutral instrument (1990, p.126). This could be because she’s resisting Monostatos, though she neatly completes his phrase. This shows her underlying submissiveness, as “Pamina is not characterized independently but through her complementarity with others” (Bartel 1999, p.34). Therefore she neatly follows the rhythm and melodic pattern (though sequenced) set by
Here Pamina starts to display characteristics of her mother, and the song is even in the same key as the Queen’s first aria, G minor. The comparison runs deeper, with the opening of the two arias being very similar in shape, and the focus on intervals such as a diminished seventh. This parallels the dramatic connections; both arias are born out of a sense of betrayal, although Pamina’s reaction is to surrender to thoughts of death, not to rage (Brown-Montesano 2007, p.118). The harmonic progressions are worth noting as similar to the characterisation of the Queen, though they are counteracted by the stable, pulsating rhythm in the accompaniment; Pamina is dangerously close to becoming more like her mother, though the stability underneath implies that she will overcome these changes (Bartel 1999,