Household Stories By The Brothers Grimm (1963) - Plot & Excerpts
It has been fascinating.At first the stories made absolutely no sense to me. There were no morals. They would have a slow start, a nonsense of a middle, and an abrupt and usually violent end. I thought to myself: These are not stories for children! But as I read on I realized that I have been reading it wrong. They are meant for children. I have read them as a child. Except they were called Thakrumar Jhuli in this part of the world. I remembered I used to enjoy them, but it has been so long that I had forgotten.So I continued reading with the specs of a young child and I loved the stories. I started seeing the symbolism. I started understanding why the stories were so violent. I started realizing why these stories seemed abrupt and random and seemed to make no sense.But then I am a grown up now, too. So the "meaning" of the stories that swooshed over my head when I was younger, or something that I may have understood subconsciously was now much clearer. The standards of the times that the stories were written were so absolute and different that you have to wonder about the change in society. The stories are little life lessons where in many cases men are rewarded for their canny and bold manipulation (The Knapsack, The Hat, and the Horn; Six Soldiers of Fortune; and so on) while women are rewarded for their duty, obedience, and industriousness (Aschenputtel, Six Swans, and so on). And many contain no happily ever after at all. A moral isn't being presented here, the idea of good and evil, social and gender roles, etc are being presented.If they were written in the modern times many would probably label them sexist and carry out petitions to get them out of the library. But that has been the way of the world for many centuries before where biological inequality was the same as social inequality. I don't think the concept of 'childhood innocence' even existed in those times.I could go on, but I'll end the review with my favorite story from the book, which would I feel would sum up Brothers Grimm nicely. A cat and a mouse formed a partnership to save up for the winter. But the cat ends up stealing from the storage and when the mouse finds out, instead of justice being served, the cat ends up eating the mouse too. And the story ends there, as most of the Brothers Grimm stories do. "And that is the way of the world"---Read as a part of Coursera: Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern WorldMy essay:The morale presented in The Frog Prince seems questionable at first glance. Unlike most Grimm Brothers stories such as Sleeping Beauty or Aschenputtel were virtue was rewarded, the Princess in this story broke her promise to the frog and even threw him against the wall, yet was rewarded with a "prince with beautiful kind eyes". Yet I contend that there is moral, except that is hidden in perspective.I believe that when the frog asks the princess to "let [him] sit by thee at table, and eat from thy plate, and drink from thy cup, and sleep in thy little bed" that would actually be a form of marriage engagement, for who else would let a stranger sit by her table or eat from her plate? And the young princess has consented to this engagement just so she can get her ball back again, the ball being a catch-all for anything of much importance to her, which points to the fact that she had no real choice in the engagement. "I will promise it all, whatever you want, if you will only get me my ball again."She attempts to back off from her promise, and it was only when the King, her father, forces her to fulfull her promise does she grudgingly do so. The entire set up of the story, thus, was an analogy of an arranged marriage brokered by the father where the daughter does not find the husband attractive.The perspective I spoke about earlier comes from the fact that when one sees the events from the young girl's eyes, one understands why she would behave unwillingly. No one wants to share bed with an ugly frog. Yet, she is forced to do so by the father, and eventually finds over the course of time that the frog was actually a prince.And they lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time I believed in fairy tales, and I thought I understood them. Reading Children's and Household Tales taught me that I hadn't understood anything at all, and I'm not sure what to believe any more. Happy endings aren't any more certain in fairy tales than in real life. The greedy hen chokes to death, and everyone else dies too. The partnership between the cat and the mouse is fraught with deceit and ends in murder. Faithful John is unable to influence the new king to heed the old king's warning. The wonderful musician uses his music to torture animals. Even in the stories where the ending is happy, I find I have plenty of misgivings about continuing happiness in a world where morality is incomprehensible. What would it mean to be the child of a mother that promised you away before birth in order to save her own life from a father who threatened her with death to satisfy his avarice? The sparrow might fly over the hills and away, but it's only after a trail of thievery followed by death.If hearing fairy tales is supposed to teach a child caution, I've learned the lesson.Sometimes in the forest, a ring of mushrooms grows in an almost magical circle. Ancient superstitions say that if you step inside this ring, you'll be swept away to Faerie Land. People say: "Don't step in the fairy ring!" I've never heeded that warning. I've stepped in every Faerie Ring I've ever found. Sometimes I have even waited there patiently just to see if I'd be whisked away. I wanted to visit Faerie. I wondered what could be more wonderful than Faerie Land? Why would the ancients try to warn us away? Now, after reading the Grimm reality of early fairy tales, I'll be much more cautious."How foolish I was!" That is what I learned from The Brothers Grimm. (I originally wrote this review for a coursera course essay, and now that the assignment has been peer reviewed, I'm posting the essay here. I'm getting double-duty for my 318 words.)
What do You think about Household Stories By The Brothers Grimm (1963)?
Coursera - Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern WorldFinished 1/2 the stories.My essay: The Clever Shall Inherit?Throughout one’s reading of Grimm’s Household Tales, several familiar faces appear. However, these tales are interspersed between oddities like Clever Grethel, Cat and Mouse in Partnership, and The Three Spinsters. What do we make of these? They definitely do not sing the familiar praises to those who work hard, or those who wait patiently for their prince to come, nor do they give sound warning such as “Don’t talk to strangers.” Let us examine a few odd tales.Clever Grethel “gave herself great airs, and thought herself very fine indeed” (9). We are told that this is not a hard-working, humble person, and we naturally don’t want to be like her. Yet, she is the one who outsmarts her masters.Cat and Mouse in Partnership teaches that although opposites attract, it’d be best to settle down with one similar to yourself, otherwise your differences might lead to an untimely end. But, as the tale-teller concludes, “that is the way of the world” (39).The Three Spinsters highlights a girl who “was too lazy and would not spin,” which was a necessity for women of the times to do (82). The hard workers are described as having deformed features, while the lazy girl doesn’t work, lies about accomplishments, gets the prince, and never has to lift a finger again.All three of the victorious characters (Grethel, Cat, and the lazy girl) used cunning and wit to get their desires. Many different angles could be examined, but the approach I am choosing to highlight is this: Sometimes, those who do evil are just as successful as those who do good.Why does our culture shield the hard truths from the youth, but those who lived hundreds of years ago didn’t? I would argue that the hard tales are just as necessary to building character as the pleasant ones.
—April
Essay for the 'Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World' course offered by the University of Michigan at www.coursera.org:In Household Stories, the brothers Grimm look to arm children with a more realistic view of the world by presenting them with an array of tales with counterintuitive and sometimes conflicting moralities.In the dominant cultural narrative, children’s stories have come to follow a predictable arc: Good people are confronted by an unpleasant force, fall into oppression, discover a hidden power or quality, overcome the oppressor and live happily ever after. Phrases like ‘fairytale romance’ and ‘Cinderella story’ stem from the idealized worlds presented in these stories. This is in stark contrast with the world painted by the brothers Grimm.The Death of the Hen (p.12) is a gloomy tale that features the death of all its characters. In Hansel and Grethel (p.85), a mother plots to abandon her children in the woods because she cannot feed them. In Cat and Mouse in Partnership (p.37), the mouse, who has been cheated by the cat throughout the story, gets eaten by him. “And that is the way of the world,” the tale concludes.Sometimes, stories seem to have contradictory morals: Dishonesty and cunning are severely punished in The Goose Girl (p.20) but rewarded in Clever Grethel (p.9). Obedience pays off in Mother Hulda (p.128), but laziness does in The Three Spinsters (p.82). Animals are cruelly treated by humans in The Wonderful Musician (p.52) but get the upper hand in The Bremen Town Musicians (p.136). Justice and injustice seem to be equal possibilities in this world.Conventional wisdom states children must be provided with sweet, utopian fiction where the choice between good and evil is clear and all ends well. However, the very idealism of these stories makes them unrealistic. Through their morally ambiguous fantasy tales, the brothers Grimm not only gave children an unpredictable and entertaining reading experience, but also prepared them for a complex and treacherous journey through the real world.
—Aditya Mallya
For a great book to read that will keep you at the edge of your seat. Than read The House hold tales of Brothers Grimm. The book I am reading is written by Jacob Grimm and I can't wait to start Wilhems book it to see how Wilhelm Grimm's writing style is different. It is about the original fariey tales before they were rewritten and changed to be better suited for children. In this book all the storys are very raw and interesting to read the fariey tales are very creepy and full of muture words and a advance writing style. The strength in this book is that it is so well constucted and uses amazing figurative language. It makes me feel like I have transformed and morfed in to the story I usally hate to read but with this book I finally felt the love and the power books can share with the reader. The weekness is this book is that there is tons of old language in this book your head will be in a dictionary non stop but I also found the old language makes the book more powerful and interesting. I read this book on my iPhone and in real pages in a paper book is about 420 pages and the book has not bored me since I started with a new story every week with the same great writing style and imagination used I feel I will never get sick of it. There are two books in this series and both of them are really long if you have the app iBooks you can get both Grimm books for free. If your in to creepy and unique storys than you will love the original Grimm Fairy Tales.
—Jazz
