How does the Grimms’ Fairy Tales relate to Women?
The Brothers Grimm are credited as two of history’s greatest storytellers in German culture. They created a well-known collection composed of volumes of fairy tales known as Grimms’ Fairy Tales. These tales include stories about the protagonist which is focused on a single event such as marriage. Most importantly, the majority of male writers had their protagonists as male and rarely female. This was not the case for the Brothers Grimm, many of their fairy tales included female main characters. In addition, any event that occurred in the tale would surface around the protagonist whether good or bad. Nonetheless, these fairy tales were similar to each other greatly because of gender, special events and relationships. More specifically, these tales would eventually have an ending which involves happiness. For example, tales such as Cinderella and Snow White relate to each other because the plot of the story is similar. Which includes a beautiful young female who has selfish family members such as their stepmother or stepsisters preventing them from seeking what interests them. In this case, they prevent the protagonist from finding their love and eventually get married.
The Grimm Brothers’ Cinderella fairy tale completely matches this description. This tale features a wicked step mother and step sisters who control the protagonist’s actions. In addition, the story is based on an important main event which is the hunt conducted by the prince to find the owner of the missing slipper. Which results in the prince finding the missing slipper and marrying the owner of it. In addition, this fairy tale was originally published in 1634.
Illustration of Grimm’s Fairy Tale named Cinderella which shows the female main character
The stepsisters expressed how desperate they were throughout the story to gain status through marriage, this ideology symbolizes the feminist point of view of how women sacrifice their bodies, intellects, and aspirations in hope of finding a man. The subject of feminism in these stories is hard to resist considering that most of the Grimms’ fairy tales place women in the main roles.
Majority of notable women writers around the 1800’s to 1900’s were aware of the bourgeoisie and their ideology of women. Women did not agree with their ideology, they wanted to improve the awareness between men and women rights which was originally causing gender inequality. The fairy tale The Twelve Brothers describes a typical story about the role of women. Which is the story of a king who sentences his twelve sons to death if a daughter is born to him. In response, the queen helps them escape this fate and in result living in the forest.
Illustration of the Grimm’s Fairy Tale The Twelve Brothers which shows a mother holding a baby while being surrounded by twelve crows which symbolizes the twelve brothers
It should be socially acceptable to recognize somebody as female. What women truly seek is for everybody to be considered as an individual without prejudices that censure every woman in a certain way because of how the patriarchy of society believes it should be. This is also similar to the bourgeoisie ideology of femininity. In result, to achieve this goal they have to enforce this knowledge and share this information to make it aware for others.
1 “The material supporting this information is from xxx and yyy“
2 “The material supporting this information is from xxx and yyy and zzz“
How did they contribute to German culture and literature?
These tales the scholars originally created in the first edition were extremely exciting and exhilarating due to the classic and scholarly tales. Throughout time these editions improved in later editions which made the Brothers Grimm academic work more widely accepted in not only German culture but also all around Europe. Most importantly, this is a great award for recognition of their work because tales and poetry was originally influenced by the French, troubadours, and trouvères. Without obtaining the knowledge they have learned from the French and others they would have never came across this project. In addition, this means the collection of the fairy tales the Brothers Grimm created impacted society greatly because it contributed to the German culture and scholarly work because they were originally the first well-known writers which created many fairy tales. It is reasonable to understand how they impacted society because even to today’s day their fairy tales are still being used and reproduced in different graphic qualities for movies. For example, Disney has been reproducing edited versions of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales since they were first established. This supports my previous statement because this shows how important the Brothers Grimm are because their material is still used to today’s society.
The Grimm Brothers originally contributed to German history and literature because of their ideology The First Sound Shift which is discussed in greater detail in the “Grimm’s Family” tab. In addition, Jacob was mainly involved in this project and received a scholarship for his scholarly project. Their next great contribution was the collection of fairy tales.
3 “The material supporting this information is from xxx“
How were the Brothers Grimm influenced by other cultures such as the French?
Illustration of the Grimms’ Fairy Tale The Little Red Cap
Many of these fairy tales still exist and are played across the world. In result, these fairy tales which the Grimm Brothers originally produced became internationally accepted. For example, a famous fairy tale they produced called The Little Red Cap(originally called The Little Red Riding Hood) is a French influenced story which was first published by Charles Perrault. This means the Brothers Grimm were inspired by the French writer Charles Perrault to produce their own version of The Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale because of their interest in the story. The Brothers Grimm version of the fairy tale involves a little girl as the protagonist and the plot involves the protagonist delivering food to her grandmother but she is forced to deal with The Big Bad Wolf on her way there. The difference between the brothers version and other versions is that the protagonist dies and there isn’t happiness at the end compared to later tales. This is one of the most widely used tales in today’s society. An example would be how it has been recreated by Disney into a movie version where the story is quite similar to the original fairy tale. Not to mention the fairy tale has been recently remade with different graphic quality for movies.
4 “The material supporting this information is from xxx“
Illustration of the Grimms’ Fairy Tale Snow White which shows the female character main character
Another well-known fairy tale which influenced many people in their childhood is Snow White. Snow White has a similar plot to most tales collected by Brothers Grimm. Which involves a beautiful young girl who has a jealous stepmother or stepsisters. Except the protagonist depends on her mirror to tell her the true destiny for her future. As most fairy tales created by the brothers it relates to feminism and how the prescribed roles for women are only wife or mother. The difference between later versions of this tale and the original version made by the brothers is not great in change because only small events are changed. In addition, the idea of the story is quite similar but the newer versions just have less violent and sexual scenes.
5 “The material supporting this information is from xxx“
To return to home page click this
Project Grimm 