The Book Grimm Fairy Tales - Essay Example

As we learned to read and write we began to go through the stores ourselves. Later the fairy tales were replaced by Enid Blyton and still later Nancy Drew and Alfred Hitchcock found pride of honor in themselves. In all this, the fairy tales of the early years lingered in our subconscious and now when we read the book Grimm Fairy Tales we are pleasantly transported to our tender years as we try to decipher the similarities and the differences found in our retained memory and the actual contents found in this book. Let us now go through these similarities and differences shortly.

Story
The first thing that I noticed while reading the book was that the storyline remained almost the same. For example, in the story of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs, the truthful mirror remains the same. Snow White is depicted as beautiful as my memory prompts me. Moreover, the different attempts by the queen's mother to kill snow white- with the help of her servant, and later by herself as she tries to choke her with her ribbons, or by poisoning her by presenting a delicious apple same both in Grimm’s book and my recollection.

However, the ending of the book is different from my remembered version of the story. I had read a modern version and before that even heard from my parents that Snow White’s wicked stepmother had died of a heart attack, but Grimm’s fairytale had a different ending. In this book, the queen is given a pair of heated iron shoes with tongs and is forced to dance in them. The queen dies dancing in her death shoes.

Language
The most obvious thing that strikes out in the book is its language. Published in the year 1812, the book reflects the language of its time. The modern versions of the stories printed or remembered use the language of modern times which we are quite used to. So, in the story, we find that the language is a bit harsh for our ears. It is more direct with little subtleties. For example in the story Hansel and Gretel, when addressing his wife the woodcutter says “wife” instead of “dear” or “darling” in our modern version. Again in some instances, we find traces of poetry in the conversations of Grimm’s Fairy Tales which disappeared in the reflected versions. In the same story, the witch says,

“Nibble, nibble, gnaw,
Who is nibbling at my little house” to which the children respond
The wind, the wind,
The heaven-born wind,”
God’s Influence
The original versions of the fairy tales show a clear influence of God and morality. In one of his conversations, we find Hansel saying to his sister,
“Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in peace, God will not forsake us.” This infinite belief is not present in my remembered version of the story.

Darkness in Stories
I found that Grimm’s fairy tales had many dark elements that were somewhat removed from the Disney versions to be made suitable for children reading. For example, in the Grimm’s tale of Little Mermaid, the mermaid commits suicide at the end of the story. The removal of these gruesome parts made my stories more memorable in my childhood days as every child wants to hear good and positive stories with happy endings.

Conclusion
I found that Grimm has published a good collection of memorable stories for children, and like everything, the stories have also evolved with time and have gotten more suitable for reading for today’s children. This will help to maintain their healthy interest in stories and folk tales. Read More