The middle of Pinocchio begins with Gepetto letting Pinocchio go off to school with the other kids by giving him an apple and a book. This happens after Gepetto realizes his wish has come true and that Pinocchio has become a genuine being. At this point in the story, Pinocchio must learn the difference between right and wrong by listening to his conscience, so that he can become a genuine individual. However, this is much harder than it seems, and Pinocchio becomes involved with some nefarious characters and their schemes.

While watching Pinocchio be let off to school, you will notice that Gepetto is really excited about this; in fact, Gepetto is pretty much pushing him out of the door. And Pinocchio himself is pretty happy to join with the other children to go to school. This scene largely draws parallels to what happens in real life when a child is first let off to school by his or her parents. However, the child [Pinocchio] isn’t cowering in the corner overburden with fear, and the parents [Gepetto] aren’t freaking out, worrying about all of the things that could go wrong. Gepetto clearly has faith in Pinocchio’s ability to accomplish this next step in his development, and Pinocchio himself is ready to go beyond the boundaries of the familiar home. And he’s ready because he was prepared by both his father [Gepetto] which represents culture, and by his mother [blue fairy] which represents nature. Not only that, but Gepetto and the blue fairy facilitated the development of Pinocchio’s individuality by giving him a voice; contrastingly, the tyrannical father archetype would have just made Pinocchio a slave to his whims, and the oedipal mother archetype would have just let Pinocchio stay at home forever, sacrificing Pinocchio’s individuality for not having to bear the responsibility of being a productive member of society.

As we can see from that scene, Pinocchio is clearly ready to learn what it means to be a “good boy,” and Pinocchio is ready to go to school and become socialized with others. However, Pinocchio is soon going to realize that this is much more complicated than he might think, because not only are there complications in the world, but there is also malevolence. There are people in the world who are not oriented towards the ideal like Gepetto is; rather, these people wish to inflict evil upon others and desire for things not to go right. And Pinocchio has no defense against this malevolence, especially since Jiminy Cricket overslept and isn’t with Pinocchio, which is how Pinocchio gets tangled up with unsavory characters throughout the film. However, despite this, Pinocchio is as prepared as he ever could be, and now it’s up to him whether or not he can learn what it means to differentiate good and evil, learning to become an individual or giving into the temptations of becoming a slave to others.

In the next scene, we see a fox and a cat, who in this film are the first unsavory characters we see. In films, the fox usually represents the trickster archetype. The trickster is a clever, mischievous man or creature who survives the challenges of the world through trickery and deceit. And the cat is just the fox’s henchman who follows him around and agrees with whatever the fox says and does. They both think they’re tough and dangerous; however, we will soon later see that they’re not: they’re just cowardly, confusing their unwillingness to abide by reasonable rules as an indication of their heroic courage. This is something we can see in real life too, as Friedrich Nietzsche observed that people don’t exactly follow the law because they are inherently good, but because some are afraid of getting caught. Which is something to think about: do you follow the law because you are inherently good, or have you just never been put into a position where you can break the law and get away with it? Many people might find it to be the latter if they think they are good people, but really, they just have never been put into a position where they could be bad.

The fox and the cat then see a sign displaying a character named Stromboli who has a puppet show. If you remember in the beginning of Pinocchio where the carving of the angry man’s head was shown, that represented the tyrant who wasn’t happy that Pinocchio now had a voice. Stromboli is a manifestation of that archetype, and we will see that in how he treats Pinocchio later. It’s also worth thinking about the fact that Stromboli is a puppet master, because that is also attached to this archetypal theme: the tyrant likes to pull the strings of the individual to control them.

So the fox and cat continue to talk about Stromboli until they eventually see Pinocchio – a puppet who’s moving without string – and they think something like: a puppet master would pay a lot of money for something like that. So they try to befriend Pinocchio through false enthusiasm, which works because not only is Pinocchio naïve, but also because Jiminy Cricket, the conscience, isn’t there to help Pinocchio.

They then go see Stromboli, and along the way, they sing An Actor’s Life for Me, which is a song about the delights of being a celebrity. But in the context of what is happening here, it can be added that the song and movie are portraying the delights of becoming a celebrity through no real work. Through this route, Pinocchio doesn’t have to get an education, which requires a lot of difficulty; he can just take the easy route and skip past all of that to become a celebrity. Jiminy Cricket is then shown to us, running after Pinocchio and trying to convince him not to give into this temptation, but Pinocchio simply ignores him. This is one of the themes I talked about earlier in the beginning of Pinocchio where as humans, we can choose to ignore when our conscience “bugs” us, and that is associated with the free will aspect of human beings. It is also associated with the idea that the conscience is not omniscient, which is shown to us how Jiminy Cricket keeps failing at his job; despite him basically being knighted by a deity.

The day then turns to night with Stromboli’s show about to start, and Jiminy Cricket is seen watching what is about to happen as well as the crowd of people. During the show, you will notice that Pinocchio begins moving with strings attached to him, like an actual puppet; but he then breaks free of these strings and moves on his own, shocking and amazing the entire crowd. You can think about if that happened in real life, which would be shocking as well; however, I think this represents something larger in a sense. When a child lets go of his or her strings and begins to show their individuality, it can shock and amaze the parents, teachers, or anyone else. If you think of a child that’s able to show independence at a very early age to his or her teachers, then that will be noticed by others, as well as other students.  And I think that’s essentially an idea the movie tries to illustrate to us.

So, as Pinocchio lets go of his strings and falls down the stairs, he clearly makes a fool of himself to Stromboli, his conscience, and the crowd at large. And this represents how we are when we grow up, we try our best to show independence, but at the same time, we make fools out of ourselves constantly as we learn. Furthermore, we aren’t the only ones who see this – sometimes we make fools out of ourselves in front of everyone to see, and your conscience might not be too happy with that either. This is seen specifically in Jiminy Cricket frowning and angry at the fact that Pinocchio has just made a fool of himself in front of others.

Well, Stromboli too is definitely not happy about this, and as he puts his back to crowd, he begins shouting at Pinocchio. Like I said before, Stromboli represents the tyrant or the negative aspect of the masculine, and at the same time, he doesn’t want anyone else to see what he is truly like. At the same time, because Stromboli does this, he does not actually realize the crowd is enjoying the show despite the failure. These kinds of actions can be displayed in real life too by the typical tyrannical parents who don’t realize that people or society is reacting differently than they are to what is going on. Then as soon as Stromboli stops yelling at Pinocchio, he hears the crowd laughing at what Pinocchio just did; so he immediately hides his true nature and smiles at the crowd. He is there to look good in public and to make money; however, fundamentally Stromboli is the manifestation of the tyrannical king.