Analyzing Brothers Grimm's Story 'The Frog Prince'

Many times writers are inspired by works they have read before, and create spawns of those pieces with a twist. I will be reflecting on Brothers Grimm’s story “The Frog Prince” a tale of a selfish princess and a frog in need with a plan. And I will be comparing this to one of the poems we reviewed in class, Katharyn Howd Machan’s poem “Hazel Tells LaVerne,” a poem on a realistic woman with a sassy mouth. Both these pieces of literature seem to be reflections of one another, however also can be contrasted. These two passages have similar storylines but are executed differently with tone, characterization and tone in order to accomplish the story of women given the opportunities to make a come up with the help of a frog. The poem “Hazel Tells

The speaker however is not buying into the ideas presented. "An how can I be a princess/ me a princess/ well my mouth drops/all the way to the floor... well I screams/ ya little green pervert… The toilet down three times/ me/ a princess." So we see with her tone of disbelief that she isn't buying into this frog trying to get her to be his princess because she can't imagine herself, a cleaning lady, being a princess. The tone of the poem seems to be sarcastic, humorous, formal and colloquial. The poet creates a form is so short, sweet and to the point with these few worded lines that gives us the sense that this is a dialogue. In the sense of our formalist approach towards the poem we begin with the diction at hand. In the way the words are written it shows us that it is more of a slang or casual conversation than formal one. It also shows with how the speaker is telling the story that the speaker is most likely an underclass woman who does this job because of her socioeconomic status and education. However, our speaker may have little to no education, she's very aware that her social status compared to this "frog." The irony in the poem is the repetition of