Famine And Hunger In The Fairy Tale

Fairy tales play a huge part of many part of many kids childhoods.When most people imagine fairytales, they will imagine a princess that needs saving or a princess finding love with a prince.The tales almost always have an happy ending. Most fairy tales convey a moral or lesson for example,in the story of Cinderella the moral is supposed to be to fight for what you want with a hard work and a good heart. But what if these fairytales are not at all what you thought they were? Fairy tales are passed down many many times as the years go on. As the years go on these fairytales change sometimes so much they are unrecognizable to the original tale. Cinema and children’s books usually cut out dark subject matter and morals out of the tales to make …show more content…
The Famine is the reason the story is really happening. “The tale shows the hardships of medieval life famine, war, and plagues were commonplace, abandoning children was not an unknown thing.”(SurLaLune 2) This shows how difficult medieval life was and how desperate people were for survival and if losing your children was what it took to survive then they were willing to do it. This just shows how bad the quality of life must have been. “How are we going to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything for ourselves.”(Grimm 1) Brothers Grimm are trying to show the extent of lack of food and how food was a constant worry and issue of people’s everyday life. “ Famine was added to the tale as justification for the parents actions.” (Mundy 4) This shows why the Grimms Brothers added famine into the story. Famine was added to the story to give a reason for the parents completely neglecting their children. If a situation is a life or death type of situation people think whatever terrible thing they did is completely justified by the …show more content…
“ We must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our coffins, and she left him no peace until he consented.”(Grimm 2). This quote shows how the evil stepmother will do anything for her and her husband’s survival and if they did not take action soon they will all actually starve to death. Survival is the only thing on her mind. “ Be quiet Gretel” said Hansel, do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way to help us.”(Grimm 1) The author wrote this to show how Hansel is making plans for their survival and will not let the parents lose them. “Do not cry Gretel the good god will help us.” This quote shows how all they can do is hope that they will survive the horrible situation they are