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| Source: noteablebiographies.com The Grimm Brothers |
Yesterday I posted about my student book club, the Reading Warriors, and our newest adventure in reading. We've been looking at the real fairy tales from the Grimm brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. Yesterday's post discussed The Little Mermaid and Sleeping Beauty. Today I have prepared Cinderella and Snow White!
Grimm's Cinderella starts out differently than Disney's in that Cinderella's father is alive throughout the story! I can't fathom why he allows the stepmother and sisters treat her so horribly - no explanation is given. Also, the ball is three nights long and each time Cinderella goes, she asks for a dress of silver and gold from the tree and birds at her mother's grave. A fairy-god mother does not appear other than the idea of the mother watching over her from above. Each night of the ball, Cinderella runs away from the prince; however, unlike the Disney version where everything will turn back into usual at midnight, Cinderella has no reason to run away. The third night is the night when she loses the gold slipper and the prince declares he will marry the lady who fits the slipper.
This is where the Grimm version gets grim. The stepsisters' feet won't quite fit, so the stepmother tells the first one to cut off her toe, she won't need it to walk as a queen anyway. The shoe then fits and the prince almost falls for it until he sees the blood flowing from the shoe. The second sister is told to cut off her heel to make the shoe fit and once again the prince catches on just in time. Like in the Disney version, Cinderella has many animal helpers in Grimm's story, mostly birds who bring the dresses and warn the prince that he has the wrong girl, making him take notice of the bloody shoes. The birds also play a part in the last scene, when Cinderella is married and the sisters walk with her during the festivities, the birds come and peck out the stepsisters' eyes, making them go blind for their wrongdoings. Seven pages makes for quick reading and it may seem morbid, but that would be a good one to watch!
Much like Sleeping Beauty in yesterday's post, Disney's version of Snow White is pretty close to the original Grimm story. One small difference is Snow White's age. In the Grimm tale she is seven, while the Disney version implies she's at least mid-teens. Another difference is that in the Grimm tale, the evil queen disguises herself three times and tries to kill Snow White: once with tightly tied lace, once with a poison comb in her hair, and last with the poison apple, which is the only one we see in Disney's version. The only big difference is the way in which Snow White awakes after the poison apple - and for some it may be a deal breaker! At seven pages, this one is also a quick read to find out the slight and yet important change at the end.
So, even the original stories have some happily ever afters...just has to be figured out the hard way. Which original fairy tales do you wonder about?
I don't recall ever having read the real fairy tales and yet? Reading this post, I found myself nodding like I'd totally read them. I am for sure familiar with the way these stories play out. I like to think of them as more adult fairy tales but of course they were told that way to scare kids into behaving.
ReplyDeleteYea, there was always something you were supposed to learn from the whole thing. Honestly, I like the real versions better. Cinderella's stepsisters getting their eyes pecked out wins over Disney any day! But I do tend toward the dark stuff that way. Love Poe and believe the human ending of Life of Pi.
DeleteOkay, so this sounds pretty morbid and I totally want to read it now. I haven’t gotten on board with the fairy tale re-dos yet but this sounds like a goond one to start with.
ReplyDeleteYes, it is. Makes me glad Disney is the re-dos and these are the real thing. Although, my students and I noticed that even though we all picked up a Grimm version of each of these stories, there were still differences among our stories of Cinderella, for example.
DeleteImagine an illustrated version?!
DeleteInteresting! And yea, thank goodness for Disney or I’d be horrified. I just realized I both spelled “good” wrong and skipped the word “originals” - I blame the Olympics for the distraction. I haven’t read the originals OR the re-dos - I’ve only seen the Disney movies but the originals sound like a good place to start….. Okay, back to the Olympics :)
ReplyDeleteHaha! :)
DeleteI read a few of the fairy tales when I was older and had so much fun reading all the bloody details. You cannot imagine parents would share these with their children.
ReplyDeleteCurious what you will pick up next.
Yea, I can't see reading these to small children...although I guess it depends on the kid. My son heard some of these when he was at least seven. But he's also the youngest of three...and the youngest of a group of kids is not the same kind of young as when you're the first kid! Youngest gets more experience earlier in life thanks to the older siblings. Lol
DeleteI read Grimms recently (listened to them actually) and really liked them but also thought about how dark and gruesome most of them are! It's interesting to think about.
ReplyDeleteIt is really weird how dark they all are. If the intent was often to teach a lesson, it's like they were using fear to control people?!
DeleteCan I just say, I took read these fairy tales in college in a class called The Enchanted Imagination and they totally ruined Disney for me! And of course, because it was Barnard, everything was a phallic symbol. Through my daughter now, though, I'm very content to bask in the Disney versions again!
ReplyDeleteI'm not the princess-y type, even having two daughters who liked princesses when they were young, but I do have a couple favorite Disney princesses and would prefer to think The Little Mermaid happens as Disney tells it!
DeleteLove this topic! My three year old girl is obsessed with the Disney princesses and often they bother me greatly. Sometimes I find a certain power in the originals that is lost when Disney sanitizes them.
ReplyDeleteAt three I think the girl is too young for the originals, but I'd like to introduce the originals in a few years. My latest foray into this was actually with the release of 'Frozen', I had to go look at the original Hans Christen Anderson 'The Snow Queen', it's not quite as grim as Grimm and the girl power in that original is amazing. :)
Thanks for linking up!
Oh, I'll have to read The Snow Queen before I see Frozen! Thanks for that heads up. My kids just started reading the real fairy tales a couple years ago...two of them were over age ten. They thought it was pretty cool.
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