Hansel And Gretel: The Grimm Brothers Fairy Tales

There are numerous genre’s in literature, but the level of importance and influence on an individual will differ. Exposure to books and stories is especially important for children because it their chance to acclimate themselves to written language and in turn create their own visuals for the toneless words. “Why Fairy Tales Matter: The Performative and the Transformative”, by Maria Tatar contains an ample amount of textual evidence from author’s research into fairytales, as well as writer’s personal experiences with fairytales. Although Tatar supports her claims with evidence, her resources are not concrete, and seems excessive at times. Also, her assertions are weakened by her failure to defend her conclusion against competing beliefs.

Maria Tatar’s “An Introduction to Fairy Tales” discusses the impact on how the stories help guide the children from their younger age. The first five paragraphs of the article mentioned about how the children can overflow with imagination, and can vividly see their reality of desire and also, fear. The fairytales can also corrupt the naïve minds of the child in a way of making them realize the reality of the world is unjustified, and people can be harsh. Moreover, Tatar gives an explanation on how people grow up with the same fairy tales with different versions; which gives an entirely different personal idea. Fairy tales also develop the child’s intellectual mind by reading various kinds of genre.

Similarly, in Hansel and Gretel, the stepmother believes the children are in her way, as they are the ones eating the food. She wants to split the food between only her and her husband, and believes the children eat too much and will be the reason they starve. This clearly shows she is envious of the children, just as the Queen was. And, just like the Queen, is punished for her crimes by death. The

According to “The Bedford Book of Genres” A Genre is a compositions kind, category or sort”. One type of genre in Children’s literature is the Fairy Tale. Fairy tales can be difficult to define as many of the characteristics cross over into fables and folklore. In the beginning fairy tales were original targeted at adults as well as children and were both oral and written works. It is a type of short story usually about elves, fairies, dragons, or other magical beings with the point of teaching a lesson and involving a far-fetched sequence of events. This form may be used by authors as a way of examining the human condition or to recreate a sense of the fantastic. They have a conventional, happy ever after style full of magic and romance.

Fairy tales have been passed down from generation to generation, each person in one way or another altering the tale to reflect a piece of their life in the work . The Brothers Grimm wrote hundreds of fairy tales in their life time and in these works they used their childhood experiences as reference. Because of the hardships they faced growing up their tales take on a more gruesome approach to fairy tales. Because their mother was their only caregiver growing up, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm reflect their fondness towards her through the strong willed, independent female characters in their fairy tales. Female heroines are rarely seen in modern day fairy tales, but as a result of their childhood the Brothers Grimm utilized them frequently

Fairy Tales are not just stories that parents tell to their children, but stories with hidden valuable messages which are mostly left on a side. In the article “An Introduction to Fairy Tales,” Maria Tatar clearly explains how people need fairy tales in their lives. Tatar also states how fairy tales have the ability to take the listener, especially children’s, into a journey in which they can play with their imagination so that they can discover their deepest fears and wishes. Personally I agree with the author, because of the fact that in an individual’s lives as they get older, they will try to define themselves, sometimes comparing their own life with a character from their favorite story or Fairy Tale.

If defined from “conte féerique”, a work is a fairy tale due to its narrative form. Narrative form is in turn defined in two ways, as the process of narration or as the narrative account itself, known as the story. Firstly, the fairy tale process of narration has a consensus definition, determined by its origin and function. Secondly, the narrative account of a fairy tale encompasses several sub-sections including setting, characters, and style. Fairy tales originate in the oral tradition of folk tales. Both Vladimir Propp and Karel Čapek argue that key to this tradition is the repeated interaction between performer and

Every girl has at one time wanted to be a princess. We held this belief because of the stories we were told as young girls. The stories we heard in which poor peasant girls could become princesses through perseverance, patience, beauty or wit. These stories were introduced to us under the guise of fairytales, which, for many of us are synonymous with the name Grimm, although several of our favorite fairytales are by other authors. Even if you don’t know the name Grimm, you know at least one story by the brothers Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel, and the list continues. The Grimm Brothers collected and wrote stories scattered throughout the rural countryside, recording them based on a general

As a first argument, supporting that fairy tales should be read to children, it must be mentioned that fairy tales and

It was said by an anonymous author, that war changes the inherently good and unique spirit of the human race into the brute savages that they once had been. In The True Story of Hansel and Gretel characters have never known freedom from this war torn Europe. Bloodshed and violence are all that these characters have lived with and therefore we see no other traits other than those that are a direct result of these unfortunate and gruesome circumstances. Throughout this book, the actions of Major Frankel, although looked upon as always evil, give the reader a sense that before these atrocities were committed he had an inherently good heart.

Set in Poland during the German occupation, “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel” is told as a fairy tale, utilizing many of the elements that are common to fairy tales.

Each character is unique in their own way. When comparing the female roles, you can easily see that the stepmother and evil witch are more similar compared to Gretel. In the journal, The History of Gender Ideology in Brothers Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Tazeen Erun states in her that “female curiosity is castigated as the death principle whereas male curiosity as a liberating, life-giving force”. The gender roles show a connection between family ties and bring

As we grow up, we hear fairy tales and we read them into our lives. Every word and every image is imprinted into our minds. The fairy tales we read are never abandoned. They grow with us and our dreams become molds of the many morals and happily ever afters fairy tales display. We tell children fairy tales when they go to sleep and they read them in school and we even have them watch Disney adaptions that reinforce them further. Generally, they were everywhere while we grew up and they continue to be present while children are growing up now. But what influence do these stories have? We casually expose our children to these tales, but in some cases they can have particularly, harmful personal effects on them, although there is nothing completely or visibly “bad” about them or about the characters in them. Before we divulge our youth to these stories, we should assess their substance and see what sort of effect they may be having on them. They have received so much scrutiny and have been studied by many. Recognizing fairy tales effects on the minds of children is vital in their development. This paper will focus on the underlying messages that the average person wouldn’t recognize in these everyday stories. There’s a modern distort with fairy tales because while they still are widely popular with the youth, they influence children’s self images, outlooks on reality and expectations for their futures, especially for young women.

Children are led to believe that Hansel and Gretel, in the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” by the Grimm brothers, are the protagonists or “the good guys” of the story. Bettelheim believes that in fairy tales all characters are either good or bad and that they are not ambiguous. To be ambiguous is to have a double meaning or to be unclear about decisions that are made. After examining Hansel and Gretel’s actions more thoroughly it is discovered that there is ambiguity in the choices they make, therefore rejecting Bettelheim’s previous claim on how fairy tale characters are never ambiguous. Initially, I agreed with Bettelheim’s statement on non ambiguous fairy tale characters because in the beginning they were merely victims of the antagonist’s decisions, but then I started noticing Hansel and Gretel’s counteractions and how it did not comply under the category of “good” or benign. Although Hansel and Gretel may appear to be “good” in the eyes of the children, Hansel and Gretel’s ambiguous actions have led me to believe otherwise.

Fairy tales are something that everyone has read or seen, they all seem to have important lessons at the end of each one to teach young children some of the lessons they need for life. These fairy tales when we were younger all seemed innocent and something we all hoped that would happen to us. Little did we know as we got older that the fairy tales we all knew and loved when we were younger, weren't as innocent as they seemed.