Grimm Brothers Essay
Juan Antonio Bayona said, “If you want to tell grown-up fairy tales, you have to look for the dark side.” That quote really plays a big role in how the Grimm brothers wrote their fairy tales. The tales they told of, were dark and scary times, not the happy go lucky prince charming stories they are made out to be now. When the Grimm brothers first wrote the stories, they were about such things as women being dragged through streets in a nail-studded barrel. Does that sound very pleasant? One of their stories, “The Star Money” really stood out to me. While I was reading it I could really find things that I felt related to me and my own life.
The Grimm brothers wrote over 200 fairy tales, which they put into a book and called them the Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm stories were first published in 1812 where things weren’t the best all around. When the brothers were in school, they met someone who showed them a library full of tales from old manuscripts, far beyond anything they’d ever seen. After them seeing and reading these stories, they decided to collect their own stories. The stories they were told were from women, young and old, ones told to them orally, and the library their old professor showed them. Times got hard when their father died, and when one brother got terribly sick, so the eldest brother had to take on the father role and provide for his siblings. But they had to adapt to the changes going on around them, because of how important money was, to change the seemingly “violent” stories and make them better for children. For example, in the story “The Goose Girl,” a servant girl pretended to be a Chambermaid. She fooled the young Prince into thinking she was his true princess, but she was not. When the old king asked her what should happen to someone who would do such a thing, she said, "She deserves no better fate than to be stripped stark naked, and put in a barrel that is studded inside with sharp nails. Two white horses should be hitched to it, and they should drag her along through one street after another, until she is dead.”(false bride). So the king made it so, that is exactly what was to happen to her. Now, don’t you think that’s pretty violent for a child to read? In my eyes it is. (Jacob & Wilhelm, #89)
However, when I finally got a chance to look at their stories I was just amazed. Yes, the writing style they had was odd, but back when they were writing these stories it wasn’t in the normal style. For example, a particular story I read was “The Star Money.” It was about a young girl whose parents had both died, so she basically had nothing. She had no house, no bed, all she had were the clothes on her back and a little bit of bread someone had kindly given her. As she went into the city, numerous people came up to her and asked her for something, and every time she gave it to them. A gentleman came up and asked for bread and she gave it to him; a child said his head was cold so she gave him her hood. So many more people asked her for something, and she gave it to them every time. Even though it seemed she had nothing, God could see how humble she was really being, and he decided that he would reward her for what she had been doing. While she was in the forest, she had not one thing left in her possession. While standing in the forest she noticed gold stars just falling from the sky, or so she thought. They were, in fact, nothing else but hard, smooth pieces of money; and yes, she had just given her shirt away, she had a new one made of the finest linen. After that she put the money into her shirt and she became rich for the rest of her life. Now, God knew she was struggling on her own, but he also saw how she still gave up what she had for someone who only asked for it.
Although my own personal experiences aren’t exactly matching with this story, there are still aspects that seem to intertwine. In the story, the girl was asked over and over again for something, and every time they asked she gave it to them. In my own life, it seems that’s what I’ve been going through. People have asked me for lots of things. No, it’s not always the physical things like a shirt or hat, but they’ve asked me to invest my time, and feelings all for what seems like nothing in the end. But, what I really hope for is that God can too see what I’ve gone through, all the time I’ve invested in many things like emotions and time, and sometimes even the physical aspects. For example, I’ve had people come up to me and ask me for some spare change so they could get something to eat, so instead I went into a 7-eleven and bought them something to eat. I bought the woman a hotdog and a bag of chips, it wasn’t a whole lot to give her, but she appreciated it a lot. When I was a little girl I remember watching Cinderella and wondering when that would happen to me. I wanted a Prince Charming to come and sweep me off my feet and take me to a kingdom and be happy, but still I can’t seem to find him. We all in our own ways, live fairy tale lives. We all want to have a Prince Charming come and sweep us off our feet and take us away to where everything is just roses and sunshine. In reality, that’s not at all true. Yes, you may find that sweet “Prince Charming” and you think nothing could ever go wrong, but something is bound to happen to set it in a downward spiral. We just need to get our heads out of the clouds and come back to reality and open our eyes.
The Grimm brothers writing style was very dark and seemed to be kind of demented; a style that was very different for people. The kind of stories they would write about weren’t about Prince Charming coming to steal you away, rather they were about women being dragged through streets in a nail studded barrel. After being somehow persuaded by money, they revised the stories to be more suitable for children to read. However, reading “The Star Money” it kind of spoke to me in a way. Seeing how humble she was after she still had nothing, is truly inspiring. I love how it makes me want to be the same way in my own life.
Works Cited
The Brothers Grimm. “ The Star Money.” Fairy Tales. 1812. Project Gutenberg, 2008. <http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~spok/grimmtmp/118.txt> Internet. (Brothers Grimm)
O’Neill, Thomas. “Guardians of the Fairy Tale: The Brothers Grimm.” Living in the World: Cultural Themes for Writers. 1et ed. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014. 44-57. Print.