Billy Ray Blog #8

In the Hansel and Gretel tales we have read, the main topic is primarily “the child as a hero.” The child is a hero in these tales because either the boy or girl rescue each other, and sometimes they even return to their father with treasures that help the poor family out. In the tale Fulano de Tal and His Children, the little girl is the hero at first when she uses flour to successfully track the way back home for her and her brother. Once they are officially lost and end up captured by the witch, the sister gives he brother advice to deceive the witch into thinking the brother is too thin to eat. When she sees that the witch is going to eat her brother anyway, she helps him escape and they both manage to be their own heroes by pushing the witch into the oven after the brother plays dumb with the witch. The boy and girl return home with the gold which makes them and their father wealthy. The father kills the teacher (stepmother) and the kids are both their own heroes and heroes to their father because of the gold they returned with. 

 

In another tale we read by Charles Perrault named Little Thumbling, the youngest boy is the hero. The youngest of seven boys is named Little Thumbling and he’s the smallest but the wisest. The scenario of most Hansel and Gretel stories unfolds, and the boys are deserted in the woods after Little Thumbling helps them find their way home the first time with the use of pebbles. Little Thumbling is smart in knowing that the ogre is too impatient to wait for his friends to come to slaughter and eat the boys. So, Little Thumbling takes it into his own hands to take the golden crowns off the ogres' daughters heads and put them on his brothers' heads. The ogre then kills his own daughters (thinking he killed the boys) and once he figures out the horrific mistake he made, the boys have already escaped, and he hunts them down. Little Thumbling’s deceitfulness does not end here though, as he manages to steal the ogre's magical boots when he falls asleep near the boys. Little Thumbling is the hero in this because he is selfless and brave, which saves himself and his brothers, and he also returns home with all the ogre had after tricking him and his wife. 

 

Bettelheim discusses the meaning of Hansel and Gretel from a Freudian psychoanalytical point of view. A lot of this tale has to do with the Phallic stage of the theory, and Bettelheim says, “the story gives body to the anxieties and learning tasks of the young child who must overcome and sublimate his primitive incorporative and hence destructive desires” (Bettelheim pg 160). Bettelheim also mentions how the gingerbread house can represent that of a loving and caring mother, which the children did not have and had a desire for in a way. Then, he goes on to mention how the witch is a personification of the destructive aspects of orality. Lastly, Bruno Bettelheim says that in order for the kids to survive they need to exchange subservience to the pressures of the id for acting in accordance with the ego. The tale of Hansel and Gretel fits perfectly into Freuds psychoanalytical theory.