Now I want to go into the narrative style, can anyone help me with that?
fterwards as they came back, the elder was at the left, and the younger at the right, and then the pigeons pecked out the other eye from each."
"'Cut the toe off; when thou art Queen thou wilt have no more need to go on foot.'"
"'Kill her, and bring me back her heart as a token.'"
The Grimm's fairytales were, and have remained, some of the most violent and gruesome tales told. Although the tales were originated with the purpose of adult entertainment, they have been reiterated to children for centuries. This horrific style is one that has been questioned, regarding its audience, for as long as the Grimm's stories have been around.
There have been many critics of the Grimms' work over the years. Maria Tatar, author of The Hard Facts of the Grimm’s Fairy Tales, holds an extremely critical view of the tales told, and the content in them. She states, "Even those who know that Snow White's stepmother arranges the murder of her stepdaughter, that doves peck out the eyes of Cinderella's stepsisters, that Briar Rose's suitors bleed to death on the hedge surrounding her castle, or that a mad rage drives Rumpelstiltski
n to tear himself in two, will find themselves hardly prepared for the graphic descriptions of murder, mutilation, cannibalism, and infanticide that fill the pages of these bedtime stories for children."
In transition from the first edition of Children's and Household Tales to the second, the volume and depth of the Grimm's violent style intensified. In the second edition, holes left open in the first edition, were filled with grotesque details, altering the reader's visions into much more vivid, and misshapen imagery. An example of this is the adjustment of the story of Aschenputtel. In the first version, the stepsisters were merely spared their vision. In the second edition of the tales however, Wilhelm Grimm found it necessary to enhance the image in the reader's mind. The line was altered to read, "So both sisters were punished with blindness to the end of their days for being so wicked and false." This embellishment of details was common for the Grimms. Another example of this is in the ending of Rumpelstiltski
n's tale. In the original version, Rumpelstiltski
n departed on a flying spoon at the end of the story. As the Grimms retell the account in the second edition of Children's and Household Tales, the character is so infuriated with the Queen's detection of his name that he tears himself in two.
The Grimms rarely toned down their tales, nor did they weaken the brutal punishments, pain, or suffering that is contained in their stories. If this opportunity was taken, it was generally by the encouragement of a friend or colleague, not an alteration the Grimms themselves could be held responsible for. Rather than diminishing the dreadful descriptions and text of their stories, the Grimms were better known for merely intensifying these violent details.
Although the Grimms were writers of violent, vivid imagery, they avoided the topics of pregnancy and incest. In the tales that were revised by the Grimms, plots involving these topics were modified into bloody, gory, attention-getting details, or perhaps, dismissed completely. The story of Hans Dumm, as originally told in the first edition of the tales, included Hans Dumm having the ability to impregnate women by merely wishing for them to be so. The Grimms, unable to handle these kinds of "certain conditions and relationships," as they so modestly referred to them, eliminated the story completely when putting together the second edition.
The Grimms were, and have remained to be, remembered for their children's stories. These stories being read to children to fall asleep at night, to console and comfort them, and to give them a sense of peace and well-being. Contradictory, however, these tales were merely violent and bloody depictions of once calm and relaxing tales that could be enjoyed by all.
Works Cited:
Tatar, Maria. The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
-April Lindquist
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~ajc5656/narrative.html
