Hansel And Gretel Research Paper

Throughout history in the 1800’s people that lived in that time had heard many different fairy tales that people deemed to be true. There were so many people of that generation didn’t know which ones to believe at that point. There were also many different stories that were made up just to scare people from doing certain things or even going into some places. One of those stories that are still around today is Hansel and Gretel. Hansel and Gretel is the story of two young kids who were brother and sister. They were the children of a poverty-stricken carpenter. The woodcutter’s wife then decides to send them out into the woods for them to fend and to strive on their own. Before the two parents could follow out with their terrible plan

For example, one version is how two Jewish children and their parents had escaped the Nazis horrific treatment of their people. Before the parents send their children off into the woods the two kids are given the Aliases Hansel and Gretel. This then begins the very known story of Hansel and Gretel. The “woods” in this fairytale symbolize the meaning of “anything can happen”. Some people refer to the woods as “free reign”, free to do whatever you want. I believe that is the sense Hansel and Gretel feel as they are traversing the terrain of the woods. After a certain amount of time of living at the witch’s house, Hansel and Gretel realize it is time for a change. I feel that if the two children happened to be out of the woods in a densely populated area this would have never occurred. In that time period leaving your children in the woods due to famine/poverty was surprisingly pretty normal. In most fairy tales this action of abandoning your child was usually blamed on the mom, but people didn’t believe a mother could commit such unspeakable acts so instead of calling her mom, the author changed the mom to a jealous stepmother to justify the act. To add to that fact, most of the fairy tales created back then were based on the rule of survival. Hansel and Gretel had to survive the tough conditions of living with the witch and roaming through the endless woods in order to thrive instead of giving up and just dying. This represents the strength and determination the children have throughout the