The Dark Side

From the late 1930s, when Disney’s first fairy tale movie came out, to today’s society and culture, our familiarity with the Anglo-Saxon fairy tales have been about beautiful princesses, handsome princes and happily-ever-afters. Today’s culture and today’s young adults have grown up with the animated musicals from Walt Disney. But many of the tales that these films are based on are by the Grimm brothers, and they are not filled with happy endings and songs.

The Brothers Grimm did not originally write their tales for children. It was only later that they took out many of their darker themes, which were diluted even more when adapted by Disney Studios. The themes they originally had were borderline disturbing and would fit nicely into a horror film. Themes such as child abuse, revenge, suicide, and premarital sex; to name a few. With these motifs being intertwined in their stories, the tales were clearly not intended for younger audiences.

The topic of child abuse in today’s culture is hard enough to hear about. In the Grimm’s tales, and with the remnant in the Disney version, there are blatant examples of child abuse and neglect. The story of “Hansel and Gretel” is a good example of two children being deserted in the middle of the woods and left to die. Their stepmother convinces their father that they are simply two too many mouths to feed when there is barely any food. The parents abandon the children while on a walk, but since the siblings heard of the plan, they left behind a trail of breadcrumbs or pebbles. The children end up finding their way back, and once again, the stepmother proceeds to try to abandon them after convincing their father that there is not enough food to feed them.

As horrible as Hansel and Gretel’s fate was, the motif of child abuse continues in lesser-known stories the Grimm’s wrote. One of them is ‘The Twelve Brothers’. There are two versions of the tale, but the general story is of a king and a queen who have twelve sons. The king decides he wants a daughter. When his wife becomes pregnant, he declared that if it is a girl, the other children will be put to death. Between the two versions, his reasoning is different: “I would rather cut off all their heads than have a girl among them” and “If the thirteenth child you are about to bear turns out to be a girl, then the twelve boys will have to be put to death, so that her wealth can be great and so that she alone inherits the kingdom.” In the first version of this story, there is a father who would rather have his sons killed than let them have a sister as a sibling. In the second, the king seems to acknowledge the gendered unfairness of inheritance laws and tries to correct this by having his sons murdered.

While there are many other motifs that play into the rest of the story, wrongdoing against children is the important one since it cues the rest. The king in this story has twelves coffins made for his sons in an attempt to kill them. It is a cruel image of a father having coffins made while his children are still alive. While the murder of the princes is deterred by their mother, the boys are clearly being neglected, tossed aside, by their own father. This tale does turn the tables on sexism in fairy tales, however, children who rely on their parents to keep them safe are still being put in danger.

A third tale that echoes the child abuse theme of the Grimm brothers is another lesser known tale is called “The Girl Without Hands.” In this tale, a miller is offered wealth by the devil if the miller gave him what stood behind the mill. What stood behind the mill, ended up being his daughter, instead of a tree, like he had thought when he agreed to the deal. Over the three years that had passed, the miller tried to keep his daughter's hands dirty, however, she had stayed sinless and pure during the time frame. Her father cut off her hands in order to save his own life so the devil would take her and not him. This particular story is heavy in religious ideology, and the girl’s father sentences her to being seen as a thief.

Though child abuse is a terrible image, the theme of revenge is a common one with the Grimm’s tales. Bad deeds are severely punished. In the Disney version of the tales, the act of revenge is nearly non-existent. The original versions play up the “eye for an eye” way of thinking. The story of “Cinderella” is a perfect example to start with: in the original version, the stepsisters end up having their eyes pecked out as a redemption for how they treated Cinderella. In the Disney film series of the tale, the stepsisters are left alone.

While this story has been watered down to a PG rating in most of today’s accessible versions, the musical ‘Into The Woods’ does show the more graphic version of the original tale. There is a scene at the end of the first act that shows them blind. In all versions, it is clear that Cinderella’s step-family is extremely abusive towards her, making her their slave, their maid. Cinderella is written as being very sweet, kind; she never breaks and starts raging. Her stepsisters steal her clothing and she patiently allows it.

The story of “The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids” also discusses the theme of revenge. The story is of a mother goat who has seven children that she has to leave at home while she goes to get food. While she is gone, a wolf knocks on the door and eventually tricks them into letting him in. He then eats all but the youngest kid because he hides from the massacre. When the mother comes back, the youngest kid tells her the story of what happened and they go look for the wolf. The act of revenge comes when the mother cuts open the belly of the wolf to find the kids still alive and proceeds to load up his belly with stones. When the wolf wakes up, he finds himself to be thirsty and goes to a well. The stones in his stomach end up pulling him into the water and he drowns.

The argument could be made that it is a mother avenging her children and that lesson of the story is to never mess with a mother’s children since “hell hath no fury.” However, any way it is spun, it still a story of revenge. The “forgive and forget” lesson that many children are taught is thrown away in this tale.

This same lesson is forgotten in the tale of “Snow White”. The Grimm’s original version is very vengeful. The innocence that Disney associated with the tale was tailored for a child’s media consumption in 1937. The beginning of the story is that a beautiful princess with fair skin is born and soon after her mother dies. Her father marries a woman who is so vain and wicked to the point of constantly standing in front of a mirror in repeatedly asking who the fairest woman in the land was. The mirror always answered that she was until one day it replied that Snow White was the fairest in all the land. Enraged, the step-mother hires a huntsman to kill the girl. Eventually, the evil queen is forced to wear a pair of iron shoes that had been heated on coals. She is made to dance in them until she dies.

To continue the dark themes of the Grimm’s tales, suicide becomes the next one in this discussion. This changes from the ideas from harming others, to harming oneself. The motif of suicidal actions reaffirm the brothers’ original intentions to not have children read these tales. In today’s society, suicide is usually not taken lightly. In fact, there are several hotlines one can call in an emergency.

The story of “Rumpelstiltskin” is an example of a character committing suicide in some form or another. The general summary of this tale is that a father - in some versions it is a king, in others, it is a miller- who brags that his daughter can spin straw into gold. The girl cannot actually complete this task so she has a manikin do it for her. On the third day of doing this, the girl has no way in which to pay the manikin so she promises her first child. The girl is later married to a king, and soon they have their first child together. The manikin returns and at seeing the new queen’s sorrow of losing her first baby, he gives her three chances to guess his name.

Now, for the ending, there is a debate on how to interpret it. However, the little man is outraged enough that he essentially pulls himself in half. Whether this happened because of rage or by accident, Rumplestiltskin does indeed commit suicide. This character, however, is not the only one to do so in the gruesome tales the Grimm’s brothers wrote. In a lesser known tale called, “Bearskin”, the theme of suicide is once again shown.

The tale of “Bearskin” is the story of three girls and a man who made a deal with the devil. The deal was that he had to spend seven years unwashed and wearing a bearskin as a cloak, and using it only as his bed, to be able to have a lifetime of wealth. When he shows kindness to a stranger and the stranger promises Bearskin one of his three daughters. Upon meeting the sisters, the eldest two are disgusted by him. The youngest, however, agrees to marry him in three years after his deal is through. When he returns, the older sisters are so furious that one hangs herself, the other drowns herself when he returns a wealthy, handsome man.

The older sisters proceed to kill themselves because they were angry at themselves for not marrying the man when he was unkempt and at their younger sister agreeing to it before he became wealthy. Like in Rumpelstiltskin, these girls kill themselves because they lost. Suicide is shown as a logical response to losing something.

Today’s audience is used to the watered-down, Disney-fied, song-and-dance versions of the Grimm brother's tales. They are used to the happily ever after, very much altered with beautiful princesses and handsome princes. The versions current generations are used to are a far cry from the original vision that was had when these tales were first written. In truth, there are no real happy-endings in the tales. They are dark and grim; depressing and full of graphic violence. Even though these tales were eventually altered for a child audience, they still were not always full of happy endings. They were to teach hard lessons to children.

Citations

Fairy Tale Origins: The Twelve Brothers. (2012, September 20). Retrieved April 24, 2016, from http://mythsweliveby.tumblr.com/post/31943429018/the-twelve-brothers

Klein, A. (2014, August 2). The Gruesome Side of Grimm's Fairy Tales. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://daddu.net/gruesome-side-grimms-fairy-tales/

The Girl Without Hands. (2013, July 20). Retrieved April 26, 2016, from http://one-elevenbooks.com/the-girl-without-hands/

The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids: Short summary, analysis, and more. (2015, April 3). Retrieved April 26, 2016.

Holloway, A. (2015, October 12). Exploring the True Origins of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Retrieved April 25, 2016, from http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends/exploring-true-origins-snow-white-and-seven-dwarfs-004150

The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm - Rumpelstiltskin Summary & Analysis. (2016). Retrieved April 26, 2016, from http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-brothers-grimm/chapanal055.html#gsc.t