Hansel and Gretel
| Hansel and Gretel | |
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| Artwork by Arthur Rackham, 1909 | |
| Folk tale | |
| Name: | Hansel and Gretel |
| Data | |
| Aarne-Thompson Grouping: | 327A |
| Country: | Germany |
| Region: | Kassel |
| Published in: | Grimm's Fairy Tales |
| Related: | The Lost Children |
Hansel and Gretel (German: Hänsel und Gretel) is a fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm. The story follows a young brother and sister who discover a house of candy and cake in the forest and a cannibalistic witch. The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck and a stop-motion animated feature film based on the opera.
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Plot
Hansel and Gretel are the young children of an impoverished woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter's wife (originally the children's biological mother, but later changed to their stepmother) announces her plan to take the children into the woods and leave them there to die, therefore with two fewer mouths to feed, she and her husband might not starve. The woodcutter reluctantly submits to his wife's scheme. They are unaware that in the children's bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, the children sneak out of the house and gather as many white pebbles as they can and return to their room.
The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and the children lay a trail of white pebbles behind them. After their parents abandon them, the children wait for the moon to rise and illuminate the pebbles. They return home safely, much to their parents' horror. A week or so later, the mother angrily orders her husband to take the children further into the woods and leave them there to die. Hansel and Gretel attempt to gather more pebbles, but find the doors locked and escape impossible.
The following morning, Hansel takes a slice of bread and leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for them to follow. However after they are once again abandoned, they find that the birds have eaten the crumbs and they are lost in the woods. After days of wandering, they follow a beautiful white pigeon to a clearing in the woods, and discover a cottage built of cake and gingerbread. They greedily begin to eat the rooftop of the house, when the door opens and a hideous old crone emerges and lures the children inside, with the promise of soft beds and delicious food.
What Hansel and Gretel do not know is that the hag is in fact a cannibalistic witch who built the house to entice children into her clutches, so that she may eat them. She locks Hansel in an iron cage in the garden and forces Gretel into becoming a slave. The witch feeds Hansel regularly to fatten him up, but Hansel cleverly sticks a bone he found in the cage (presumably a bone of its previous captive or, as some stories state, a chicken bone) and the witch feels it, thinking it to be his finger. Due to her blindness, she is fooled into thinking Hansel is still too thin to eat. After weeks of this, the witch grows impatient and decides to eat Hansel, "be he fat or lean."
She prepares the oven for Hansel, but decides she is hungry enough to eat Gretel, too. She coaxes Gretel to the oven door and asks her to put her head in to see if the flames are high enough. Gretel, sensing the witch's intent, lies that she does not understand what she means. Infuriated, the witch demonstrates, and Gretel instantly shoves the witch into the oven, slams and bolts the door and turns the heat up, burning the witch alive. She frees Hansel from the cage and the pair discover a vast treasure chest filled with jewels, gold, and diamonds. Packing the jewels into knapsacks, the children find their way home to their father. His wife has mysteriously died. The father has spent all his days lamenting the loss of his children, and is delighted to see them safe and sound, and with the witch's wealth, they live happily ever after.
Analysis
In the first editions of the Grimms' collection, there was no stepmother; the mother persuaded the father to abandon her own children. This change, as in Snow White, appears to be a deliberate toning down of the unpleasantness for society in general who can't bear to think of mothers trying to hurt and kill their own children.[1]
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.[2] 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 is also a cannibalistic witch. Besides highlighting the endangerment of children (as well as their own cleverness), they both have in common a preoccupation with food and with hurting children; the mother or stepmother wants to avoid hunger, while the witch lures children to eat her house of candy so that she can then eat them.[1]
The tale is Aarne-Thompson type 327A.[3] Another tale of this type is The Lost Children.[4] 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.[5]
Adaptations
- The opera Hänsel und Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck was first performed in Weimar on December 23, 1893, and is often performed at Christmas today.
- In 1954, the opera was adapted into a stop-motion animated film Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy with comedienne Anna Russell providing the voice of the witch. The film featured spoken dialogue, but also retained some of Humperdinck's music, sung in English instead of German.
- Donna Jo Napoli's story, "The Magic Circle" retells Hansel and Gretel from the witch's perspective. The unnamed witch was once a pious midwife and devoted mother cursed by demons into becoming a hideous witch with a hunger for human flesh. The witch willingly climbs into the oven, knowing Gretel will kill her, thus freeing her from the life she loathes.
- The 1954 Looney Tunes animated short Bewitched Bunny retells the story of Hansel and Gretel, featuring Witch Hazel and starring Bugs Bunny in a novel role, in which he rescues the children before being captured himself.
- In 1958, a live musical adaptation of the story, starring Red Buttons, Barbara Cook, Rudy Vallee, Hans Conried (in drag as the Witch), Stubby Kaye, and Paula Laurence was presented on television by NBC. It featured songs by Alec Wilder and William Engvick, the same team that had created the Mickey Rooney Pinocchio, which had been performed live on television in 1957. A cast album of the show has recently been released on CD.[6]
- In December 1982, Live from the Met presented a complete production of Humperdinck's opera on television, again sung in English.
- In 1982 Tim Burton's "Hansel and Gretel" is a live action film short featuring Japanese actors and striking set designs reminiscent of his later work in films such as "Beetle Juice" and "Edward Scissorhands".
- In December 1983, the opera's Evening Prayer music was heard as the opening theme of the television episode "Hansel and Gretel" from the anthology series Faerie Tale Theatre.
- There is a live-action film made in 1988 starring Hugh Pollard and Nicola Stapleton.
- The season 3 Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode Gingerbread explores a new twist to the Hansel and Gretel tale, as a demon that takes the form of two murdered children in order to incite discord into small communities, turning society against itself.
- There is a 2002 live-action film which features new twists to the Hansel and Gretel story. It stars Lynn Redgrave, Howie Mandel, Dakota Fanning and Taylor Momsen.
- In an episode of Disney's House of Mouse, there is a cartoon version of the story, with Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse as Hansel and Gretel.
- There is also a South Korean live-action horror film made in 2007, which is a retelling of the story in which the children are the occupants of the house and travellers are the innocents.
- The German comedian Otto Waalkes used the Hansel and Gretel story for a large collection musical parodies. He takes the melody and text of various well known pop songs (in particular of the New German Wave) and intertwines them with parts of the Hansel and Gretel plot.
- In Once Upon a Suite Life, Hansel and Gretel are played by Zack Martin and Cody Martin.
- In a Halloween edition of The Simpsons, Treehouse of Horror XI, titled 'Scary Tales Can Come True', they parodize the story of Hansel and Gretel along with other fairytale stories, with Bart Simpson and Lisa Simpson playing as Hansel and Gretel.
- Freeway II: Confessions of a Trickbaby, a film by Matthew Bright made in 1999 is somewhat based on the story of Hansel and Gretel [7]
- Hansel and Gretel in 3D is an action packed visual FX filled version of the classic Grimm Brothers’ fairytale. In addition to the infamous witch in the gingerbread house, the film showcases the legendary creatures of German mythology. The Teutonic beings will be designed by Joseph C. Pepe, the lead character designer from Avatar (2009 film). The film is live action. The movie is being produced by Kalliope Films and Michael Bay's company The Institute, aka The Institute for the Development of Enhanced Perceptual Awareness. Kira Madallo Sesay and Scott Gardenhour are the producers of the film [8].
Other uses of the names
- There is an American industrial metal band from New York City called Hanzel und Gretyl that sing most of their songs in German.
- Hansel and Gretel appear in the Japanese horror webcomic Everafter, a story about mentally disturbed fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters; In which Hansel is obbessed with setting things on fire ( he can be seen holding a flamthrower) and Gretel is a cannibal (shackles can be seen on her wrists).
See also
- Molly Whuppie
- The Witch
- Vasilissa the Beautiful
- Foundling-Bird
- Frau Trude
- Buttercup
- The Golden Stag
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 45, 57. ISBN 0-393-05163-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=ehzvhjL5_W8C&pg=PA44.
- ↑ Lüthi, Max (1970). Once Upon A Time: On the Nature of Fairy Tales. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co.. p. 64.
- ↑ "Tales Similar to Hansel And Gretel". http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hanselgretel/other.html.
- ↑ Delarue, Paul (1956). The Borzoi Book of French Folk-Tales. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.. p. 365. http://books.google.com/books?id=qYGSS8Nt1r8C&pg=PA365.
- ↑ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Brothers Grimm. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 72. ISBN 0-393-05848-4. http://books.google.com/books?id=6gX-hNshMJEC&pg=RA1-PA72.
- ↑ http://www.amazon.com/Hansel-Gretel-Yeomen-Guard-Original/dp/B001QEIHX6/ref=pd_bxgy_m_img_b
- ↑ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0175536/
- ↑ Variety.
External links
- Project Gutenberg e-text
- SurLaLune Fairy Tale Pages: The Annotated Hansel and Gretel. Includes an annotated version, literary history, public domain artwork, modern analysis, bibliography and book gallery.
- Original versions and psychological analysis of classic fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel
- The Story of Hansel and Gretel
- Web essay on the historical background of Hänsel and Gretel
- Hansel and Gretel in 3D official website
- Variety Hansel and Gretel in 3D movie article
- The Wrap Hansel and Gretel in 3D movie article
- Entertainment Weekly Hansel and Gretel in 3D movie article
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