Hansel and Gretel

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For the opera, see Hänsel und Gretel (opera). For various films, see Hansel and Gretel (film).
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Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909.
Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909.

Hansel and Gretel (German: ''Hänsel und Gretel'') is a fairy tale of Germanic origin[citation needed], adapted by the Brothers Grimm and earlier by Giambattista Basile.

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[edit] Plot synopsis

Hansel and Gretel are the children of a poor woodcutter. Fearing starvation, the wood cutter's wife (variably called the children's mother or stepmother), convinces him to lead the children into the forest and abandon them there. Hansel and Gretel hear her plan and gather white pebbles to leave themselves a trail home. After their return, their mother convinces the wood cutter to abandon them again due to food shortages; this time however, they can only leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Unfortunately, the various animals of the woods eat their trail of breadcrumbs, causing Hansel and Gretel to become lost. (The story up to this point is identical to Perreault's Le Petit Poucet.)

Lost in the forest, they find a house made of ginger bread and candies, with sugar windows. Unable to resist, they begin to eat it. The inhabitant of the house, an old woman, invites them in and prepares a feast for them. The table is covered with candy, nuts, pancakes and other sweets. The woman, however, is a witch who has built the house to entice children to her, so that she may fatten and eat them. She locks Hansel in a cage, and makes Gretel her servant. While she prepares to cook Hansel, she orders Gretel to fetch her candies and fats to force feed Hansel. Unable to do anything, Gretel weeps bitterly and does as she is told. In the cage, Hansel finds a thin bone from the previous occupant. When the witch tells Hansel to stick out his finger (so she can tell if he is fat enough to eat), he deceives her by sticking out the bone instead. The woman has poor eyesight and is very old, and thus cannot see that Hansel's "finger" is actually a bone. Days pass by, but the witch cannot perceive how fat Hansel is getting. She gets frustrated and decides to eat him anyway, "be he fat or lean." She tells Gretel to climb into an oven to be sure it is ready to bake, but Gretel guesses that the witch intends to bake her, and tricks the witch into climbing into the oven, closing it behind her.

Taking jewels from the witch's house, they set off for home to be reunited with their father. After reuniting with their father, they all live happily ever after.

[edit] Analysis

Hansel and Gretel, illustrated in a 1927 story anthology
Hansel and Gretel, illustrated in a 1927 story anthology

The tale as we know it from Brothers Grimm was meant to be a pleasant fable for middle-class consumers of the 19th century; the original however was probably an admonishment of the hardships of medieval life.[1] Because of episodes of famine, war, plague and other reasons, abandoning children in the woods to die or fend for themselves was not unknown, in particular during the crisis of the Late Middle Ages. Many critics have posited that the tale likely stemmed from historical instances of abandonment caused by famine; see the works of Jack Zipes and Maria Tatar for example,[2] with the obvious message of not accepting the seeming generosity of strangers.

In the first editions of the Grimms' collection, there was no stepmother; the mother persuaded the father to abandon their own children. This change, as in Snow White, appears to be a deliberate toning down of the unpleasantness, for children.[3]

That the mother or stepmother happens to die when the children have killed the witch has suggested to many commentators that the mother or stepmother and the witch are, in fact, the same woman, or at least that an identity between them is strongly hinted at.[4] Indeed, a Russian folk tale exists in which the evil stepmother (also the wife of a poor woodcutter) asks her hated stepdaughter to go into the forest to borrow a light from her sister, who turns out to be Baba Yaga - who, though her house is anything but enticing, is also a cannibalistic witch. Besides the stories highlighting the endangering the children- and indeed their cleverness- they have in common a preoccupation with food: the stepmother to avoid hunger, and the witch with her house built of food and her desire to eat the children.[5]

The tale is Aarne-Thompson type 327A.[6] Another tale of this type is The Lost Children.[7] Although they are not classified under this type, the Brothers Grimm identified the French Finette Cendron and Hop o' My Thumb as parallels to the story.[8] The basic elements are found in tales throughout the world, although their simplicity makes it hard to tell whether a given instance is a borrowing or an independent invention.[9] At the end everyone lives happily ever after.

[edit] Notable derivatives

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  • Engelbert Humperdinck wrote an 1893 opera, Hänsel und Gretel, based on the fairy tale.
  • A Book of Witches (1966), by Ruth Manning-Sanders.[citation needed]
  • The novel The Magic Circle by the author Donna Jo Napoli.(1995)[citation needed]
  • The Buffy The Vampire Slayer episode Gingerbread features Hansel and Gretel as a demon who takes the form of two dead children in order to destroy peaceful communities through paranoia and witchhunts (according to the episode, some stories and fairy tales come from real events).
  • In Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters, Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax discuss one of Granny's predecessors, Black Aliss. Nanny Ogg tells Magrat that she was "shoved into her own oven by a couple of kids". A similar reference is made in the earlier 'The Light Fantastic with a witch called Goodie Whitlow[citation needed]
  • Hansel and the witch (called Frau Totenkinder, translating to Ms. Dead children or 'Killer of Children') both appear as characters in the comic book series Fables, written by Bill Willingham, which was first published in 2003. Gretel also appears but only in flashbacks.[citation needed]
  • Junko Mizuno did Hansel and Gretel as the second part of her fractured fairy tales manga stories.[citation needed]
  • Trial by Journal by Kate Klise is inspired by the Hansel and Gretel tale. The main character Lily Watson recalls how she and Perry Keet once played Hansel and Gretel in a school play. Priscilla the Gorilla begins to paint pictures of scenes in Hansel and Gretel, one being a picture of a candy house saying "LAW Remember me". Believing that Perry is somehow trying to communicate to her beyond the grave, Lily leaves an advertisement in the newspaper saying something along the lines of, "Hansel, are you trying to contact me? Gretel."[citation needed]
  • In South Korea, a film, Hansel and Gretel is due to be released on December 28. It was based on the film, although changed to horror.[citation needed]
  • In Portuguese, the children are named João (John) and Maria (Mary).
  • There is a Looney Tunes version of the story, where almost every character (except Hansel and Gretel themselves) is astonished after hearing the name "Hansel".[citation needed]
  • The American Industrial Metal band Hanzel und Gretyl takes a false-Germanic name from the history to identify themselves as pseudo-German.

[edit] Popular culture

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[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ George Gordon Coulton (1989). The Medieval Village. Page 326
  2. ^ Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, p49, ISBN 0-691-06722-8
  3. ^ Maria Tatar, p 45, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ISBN 0-393-05163-3
  4. ^ Max Lüthi, Once Upon A Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales, p 64, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., New York, 1970
  5. ^ Maria Tatar, p 57, The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ISBN 0-393-05163-3
  6. ^ Heidi Anne Heine, "Tales Similar to Hansel And Gretel"
  7. ^ Paul Delarue, The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales, p 365, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York 1956
  8. ^ Maria Tatar, The Annotated Brothers Grimm, p 72 ISBN 0-393-05848-4
  9. ^ Stith Thompson, The Folktale, p 36-7, University of California Press, Berkeley Los Angeles London, 1977
  10. ^ FIS Newsflash 135. July 11, 2007

[edit] External links

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