Final Draft

“Oh, Brother...
”
A Deconstruction of Gender Ideologies in Grimms’ Fairy Tales

Mara Revitsky
May 10, 2020

1
There was once... a land which housed many stories.
Bluebirds and robins harmonized with each others’ sweet songs, flying to and
fro. Chipmunks and squirrels dashed behind blooming bushes, through hollow and dry
logs, and over the mossy ground searching for abundant acorns. Elegant deer led their
young to healthy grasses for a midday snack. The blazing sun radiated light and life as
small insects flew about delightful wildflowers of yellow, violet, and white. A thin
stream trickled over gray and brown pebbles.
The light breeze rustled the leaves in the mighty trees and made them dance
like young maidens at a ball, swirling and twirling with no end in sight. Shorter trees,
simple to distinguish, bordered the mass of forest beyond, an evergreen darkness that
promised wonder, adventure, and the unknown. A small footpath covered in fallen
leaves and twigs led through the forest to many different towns where many different
people called many different places home.
A young maiden followed this well worn path, unsure where it went, but sure
that she wanted to find out...
✵
Along her journey, she came across three women. The first was in a house, far
away from any other, that belonged to a man who lived alone, except for her, his
servant girl named Gretel. The second woman was crying, talking about a modest
estate where a girl named Elsie lived. The last woman the young adventuring maiden
stumbled upon was the daughter of a peasant who had a tiny house shadowed by a
colossal castle. What this young maiden discovered on her quest is sure to make one
… think.
✵
2
A quest is more than just an adventure. It requires deliberation, planning, and searching.
Two men, brothers, went on a quest for the perfect folktale. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm came of
age during the very beginning of the turbulent nineteenth century. Once the thirst for folklore
developed in them, it could not be quenched for the rest of their careers.
Their tales continue to live well beyond the authors and have become an immovable part
of pop culture. Films, television shows, and reimaginings of their tales through other lenses
began in the mid-twentieth century and continue well into contemporary media. It is no secret
that Walt Disney borrowed excessively from the brothers. Society has not come anywhere near
forgetting these tales across the entire world.
Consequently, it is necessary to examine how these tales were constructed to begin to
understand their significance. Of the 200-plus tales Jacob and Wilhelm wrote, only a handful
have been popularized and extensively studied. While the tales of “Hansel and Gretel,”
“Rapunzel,” “Cinderella,” and “Rumplestiltskin” have much to offer an analytical audience, the
brothers’ lesser known tales are very telling of Jacob and Wilhelm’s identities and values.
One value particularly pervasive and evident in their writing is gender expectations. In
three tales where the main character is female, the brothers display their political, social, and
religious values. Through a study on the time period in which they were writing, an analysis of
their source-collecting and writing processes, and a close deconstruction of the tales themselves,
the reader can begin to understand that binary gender ideologies, above all other values,
connected the nineteenth century German-speaking people and transcended generations
regardless of individual identities.

3

Time Period Analysis
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born and lived during, arguably, one of the most
turbulent times in Germany’s complicated history. They were both born towards the end of the
eighteenth century, a time when the twenty-first century idea of Germany was far from fruition.
This unrest and unstable environment sparked in them, and many others, the desire for stability.
For the brothers, stability meant a common identity that all German-speaking people could share;
their way of achieving this “German spirit” was to remind people of their shared history and
language through folklore. However, the time period in which they were collecting the tales
made it nearly impossible to achieve this goal for everyone.
The State of Europe

4
As pictured above, a series of principalities in the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) held the
German-speaking people, and these principalities were inconveniently located near France,
which sparked the revolutionary outbreaks in much of Middle and Eastern Europe.1 The French
Revolution began just three short years after both the brothers were born.2 For all of their lives,
they never saw a united Germany; Germany was unified in 1871, more than ten years after their
deaths.3 Not all of the problems for the German-speaking people were because of the French, but
Napoléon certainly left his mark on the extremely complicated timeline Germany had in the
nineteenth century.
Rising to power within the French military during the revolution, his successes led
Napoléon to crown himself emperor in 1804.4 Only a year after that, the Treaty of Pressburg led
to sixteen of the German principalities renouncing the Holy Roman Empire to open up a place
for Napoléon to move in.5 In order to manage control over his many conquered territories, the
French leader put his family members in charge of the various areas. His brother Jérôme became
the king of Westphalia in 1807, and Jacob Grimm acquired a librarian position with him.6 This
was short-lived, however, because Napoléon’s ego and power got the better of him; the other
European countries did not want to exist under an emperor. By the time Jacob and Wilhelm’s
first edition of the tales came out in 1812, a shared hatred of French occupation was enough to
1
“Timeline: The Holy Roman Empire.” History Today, March 15, 2016. The Holy Roman Empire began in
800 CE, and the power transferred hands many times. At one point, the HRE included today’s Austria,
Germany, France, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Poland, Croatia,
Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Liechtenstein.
2
Ken Mondeshien, “Introduction.” In Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret Hunt. San
Diego, CA: Canterbury Classics, 2011. xix.
3
Mondeshien, “Introduction,” xx.
4
Jason Coy, A Brief History of Germany. Facts On File. 2011. 110.
5
Coy, A Brief History,111.
6
Jack Zipes, “Introduction: Rediscovering the Original Tales of the Brothers Grimm.” In The Original Folk
and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition. Translated by Jack Zipes. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. xxiv.
5
start unifying the German-speaking people.7 From 1813 to 1815, other countries had dethroned
the French emperor, exiled him, and formed the Congress of Vienna, at which Jacob assisted, to
reorganize the places specifically impacted by his megalomania.8
For Germany, this meant forming the German Confederation, ruled by the leader of
Austria, presiding over thirty-nine states.9 Structurally, this setup did not deviate far from the
earlier empire, so naturally the people of the Confederation still weren’t too pleased with it.
Being liberated and having a constitutional government were what the people wanted,
specifically the economically and vocally growing middle class of the Grimms.10 Seeing the
advantages that other places had, like the freedom of speech and right to choose the nation’s
leaders, the bourgeois people of Germany saw more potential for their area than monarchical
tradition allowed.
The Confederation was still largely supporting the aristocrats who had monopolized the
power long enough in their minds.11 It is no wonder that another revolutionary fire was lit again
just thirty years after the Confederation was formed. In May of 1848 after the revolutionaries
made their point, a parliament in Frankfurt met to establish the type of government the bourgeois
were calling for, one with “a sense of cultural nationalism based upon shared language, customs,
and history.”12 Sadly, conservative upper classes extinguished this fire yet again only a year after
it started burning.13 Power struggled back and forth between the people and the aristocrats until
they compromised in 1871.
7
Coy, A Brief History, 110.
8
Mondeshien, “Introduction,” xix. and Coy, A Brief History, 114.
9
Coy, A Brief History, 116.
10
Ibid., 116-17.
11
Ibid., 118.
12
Ibid., 123.
13
Ibid., 124.
6
Grimms’ Personal History
These two brothers, who spent their formative, scholarly years in a political whirlwind,
deeply wanted to have Germany, not many German principalities.14 The brothers grew up in a
middle-class family and wanted to pursue civil service, so they both began studying in Kassel,
modern central Germany, when Jacob was thirteen and Wilhelm was twelve.15 There, they met
scholars and collectors of folk material that will be mentioned more in the next section of this
paper. These men instilled a hope and dream in the brothers that would last a lifetime. However
much their heads may have been in the clouds imagining what could be, reality came down hard
on Jacob and Wilhelm. Two years before they even got to school and met their influencers, their
main male influence, their father, died.16 From that time on, financial stability was a primary
concern for the Grimms. Luckily, some wealthy relatives were able to sponsor the education of
the two eldest boys of the several Grimm children.17 They both proceeded to the University of
Marburg’s law school in 1802.18 Education meant more of a chance for financial security, but not
necessarily a guarantee.
At the same time of the Napoleonic advances on the German-speaking people, the
brothers were struggling with job security, like many others in the middle class. Wilhelm
eventually found a job as a librarian in Kassel after he got his law degree. Jacob left school to
work for the Hessian War Commission in 1806 and flipped to being the private librarian for the
new King of Westphalia in 1807.19 Just when things seemed to be ironing out, their mother died
14
This feeling of freedom, revolution, and togetherness was not unlike the feelings that sparked many
revolutionaries in the era who rejected monarchies in favor of democracies like the United States.
15
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxii.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
“Brothers Grimm: Biography & Works.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 11, 2019.
19
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxiv.
7
the next year.20 At twenty-three and twenty-two, Jacob and Wilhelm were all their four younger
siblings had left in the world.
With all of these hardships, the two young men still found time for their tale collection.
By 1809, they had gathered over fifty tales for their collection and for a peer named Brentano to
use in a different project while he was working in Alsace, France. Brentano, who will be
discussed more in the next section, did not utilize these tales, but luckily he still kept the
Grimms’ manuscript. Because Brentano left the tales at the Ölenberg Monastery in Alsace, these
tales are called the Ölenberg Manuscript. Discovered over one hundred years later, this
manuscript is the only 1809 version modern scholars can access because Jacob and Wilhelm
Grimm destroyed their copy when they put it into their first edition. This manuscript, therefore,
encompasses some of the earliest versions of tales in the Kinder- und Hausmärchen (KHM).21
A momentous year and turning point for the Grimms, 1812 brought the publication of the
first volume’s first edition of the KHM and a start to their fame. This volume is unique compared
to the later ones because Wilhelm had not yet started rewriting the tales. In this sense, these 156
tales of 1812 could be the closest to their goal of conveying the pure “German spirit” or natural
form of German culture because the tales were not as adulterated as they would be later.22 Jacob
and Wilhelm included a preface in all of their editions, but this first one had a very clear
perspective given to readers on the purpose of the KHM. They wrote,
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., xxvi.
22
Ibid., xxv.
8
Nothing can better defend us than nature itself, which has let
certain flowers and leaves grow in a particular color and shape.
People who do not find them beneficial, suitable for their special
needs, which cannot be known, can easily walk right by them. But
they cannot demand that the flowers and leaves be colored and cut
in another way.23
Here, the reverence for the “pure” form of culture is abundantly clear. They saw their
tales as flowers, pure and untouched by human influence. The brothers are saying that the tales
may not be for everyone, and people do not have to read them if they aren’t going to appreciate
what they represent. The quote also indicates a clear distinction between their attempt at
preserving traditional culture and others’ thoughts on manipulating culture to serve their own
purposes, which was the last thing the brothers intended to do.24
The Grimms categorized these tales as Naturpoesie for a reason. In denotation, this word
means natural poetry, and the Grimms put with it a connotation equivalent to folklore. They
juxtaposed it with Kuntspoesie, which means “cultivated literature,” to say that gradually over
time, society favored the Kuntspoesie and in turn caused the Naturpoesie to fade away from
popular culture during the Renaissance in Europe. Naturpoesie was thought to remain only in
oral traditions until the Grimms brought it back. They found that people responded very well to it
in 1812, when the French occupation was pushing them farther away from a common German
identity.25
French control, as well as the structure of the principalities, did not truly benefit anyone
but the upper classes. Politically, the middle-class Grimms subscribed to the bourgeois agenda.
23
Ibid., xxix.
24
Notably, people from the twentieth century, mainly Hitler and Nazi Germany, ultimately manipulated
romantic works to unify Germany. Hitler was concerned with preserving a specific group as opposed to
the Grimms who were trying to unify the entire country.
25
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxv.
9
They belonged to a subgroup of the bourgeoisie called Bildungsbürgertum, which consisted of
specifically well-educated people with a strong inclination towards classic and idealistic values.26
This makes sense in conjunction with their romantic, liberal dreams of building a “democratic
nation that would unite all the German-speaking lands in peace and prosperity.”27 The Grimms
truly believed that their collection could have such an effect; however, their liberal values were
just enough to get other people connecting for a free Germany but not enough to single their tales
out as resisting the monarchy.28 For Jacob especially, developing a unified Germany was of the
utmost importance, and at one point, he truly believed they were making progress. After the
revolution of 1848, a National Assembly was formed of liberal scholars and professionals to
draft a constitution, and Jacob was proud to be elected by the people to be part of that assembly
that sadly accomplished nothing.29
Just ten years before Jacob and Wilhelm’s deaths, they published their last and seventh
edition of KHM. In the forty-odd years in between their start and end, a united Germany never
came to fruition, and the brothers grew more and more invested in the work they hoped would
help bring together a people with common language, culture, and folklore under one nation.
Their constant work with the texts served a purpose in their minds, probably for their intended
audience; however, the next sections will talk about how they ultimately may have added too
much to stay true to their Naturpoesie.
26
Jack Zipes, The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. New York: Routledge,
1988. 72.
27
Mondschein, “Introduction,” xvii.
28
Zipes, “Introduction,” xli.
29
M. Schmidt Ihms, “The Brothers Grimm and Their Collection of ‘Kinder Und Hausmärchen.’” Theoria: A
Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 45 (1975): 41. 46.
10
Historiography
Since the brothers lived and wrote over two hundred years ago, the scholarship on their
work has been extensive. Some of the first articles written about them were shortly after their
deaths at the start of the twentieth century.30 Not much was written about them until the
mid-twentieth century, and there appears to have been a boom in the literature about Jacob and
Wilhelm in the 1970’s and 80’s.31 Part of the reason for this was the bicentennial celebration of
the brothers’ birthdays.32 Consequently, the most recent surge in academic scholarship
surrounded the bicentennial anniversary of the first edition.33 Despite the vast scholarship on
these two men, researchers are still finding new things to talk about and deconstructing the tales
in unique ways.
John M. Ellis wrote his book, One Fairy Story too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their
Tales, in 1983 during the boom in Grimm academic literature. His main argument focused
around debunking the Grimms’ intentions for their Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Ellis argues that
Jacob and Wilhelm’s tales are not “of folk, or peasant, or even German origin” and that the
brothers intentionally deceived their audience by claiming that they were.34 Throughout his book,
Ellis does not hide his cynicism and skepticism. Some reviewers have even charged him with
being too emotionally attached to the subject.35
30
See Steig and Grimm (1904), Hamann (1906), Crane (1917), and Schultz (1924).
31
See Schoof (1935-63), Campbell (1956), Jolles (1958), Bolte and Polvika (1963), Denecke (1963-87),
Franz (1970), Ihms (1975), Bettelheim (1976), Rölleke (1983-86), Bottigheimer (1986), and Tatar
(1986-87).
32
Zipes, The Brothers Grimm, vii. At this time, it was also popular in the history field to seek out “real
history” in folklore.
33
See Tatar (2003), Warner (2014), Zipes translation (2014), and Zipes Grimm Legacies (2015).
34
John M. Ellis, One Fairy Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1983. 12.
35
Ruth B. Bottingheimer, "Sixteenth-Century Tale Collections and Their Use in the "Kinder- Und
Hausmärchen"." Monatshefte 84, no. 4 (1992): 145.
11
Part of Ellis’s debunking lies in interrogating the previous literature on the brothers and
why no one else addressed what he is addressing. He mentions that one writer, Schoof in 1959,
mentioned that one of the brothers’ sources was a French Huguenot family but did not analyze
what this meant: “Incredibly, Schoof did not comment on the significance of this information,
but instead went on to talk of the Grimms’ confidence in her as a storyteller, in the process of
citing the very description of her by the brothers which was so patently contradicted by the facts
[Schoof] had just given.”36 Ellis unapologetically criticizes other academics for not giving
attention to what he would call the “credibility of the Grimms’ sources” in relation to their goal
of capturing the German Volk.
More than attacking earlier historians and the sources themselves, Ellis reprimands the
brothers for their entire thinking process in collecting the tales. He says,
The brothers, like Herder before them, thought of the simpler folk of their
time as having this same natural expression because of their simpler way of
life. But there is a large gap in the logic...the ‘primitive’ way of life of
earlier cultures cannot be equated with the way of life of the lower classes
of a stratified modern society, and certainly Homer and Ossian...cannot be
juxtaposed to the illiterate members of a literate nineteenth-century
European nation…[the brothers] had to impose on [the collected tales] the
particular literate, even literary, style which they created in order to give
the illusion of a simple, unsophisticated folktale teller. The nearest
equivalent of the Homers and the Ossians in nineteenth-century Germany
were gifted storytellers like Wilhelm Grimm, not the romanticized peasants
that they and even some of their critics imagined.37
Ellis considers their collection process as much of a fairy tale as the tales themselves. His
statements allow the reader to see just how obstinately he refuses to fall under the Grimms’ spell,
which he believes everyone else has been. Logically, he does make a valid point that lower-class
does not necessarily mean more connected to the past.
36
Ellis, One Fairy Story, 32.
37
Ibid., 109.
12
For any valid points John Ellis does make, there are still some holes in his writing as
well. Bottigheimer, a reviewer of his book, makes the point that Ellis’s argument is not complete
and lacking attention to all of the editions of Kinder- und Hausmärchen. Ellis also never gives
figures to his arguments about the number of tales Wilhelm revised or the amount of tales
gathered from each source labeled in the manuscripts. Bottigheimer thinks that Ellis should have
focused more on this aspect of the tales and analyzed all of the editions, as opposed to tackling
the character of the sources, which has been discussed by various other scholars. If Ellis had an
in-depth knowledge of the entire history of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, Bottigheimer argues, then
that might lend him some more credibility as well as bolster his arguments about the sources and
how valid or invalid their contributions were to the collection.38
One of the more prolific experts on Jacob, Wilhelm, and folklore in general, Jack Zipes,
also called out Ellis for his excessive criticism in his book The Brothers Grimm: From
Enchanted Forests to the Modern World five years after the publication of Ellis’ book. He says
that Ellis makes a fair point that the Grimms made many stylistic changes to appeal to their
audiences, but Zipes thinks that the evidence does not support the deceit with which Ellis charges
the Grimms. Zipes concludes that previous scholars were also not intentionally overlooking the
Grimms’ methods and results as Ellis suggests. Zipes goes as far as accusing Ellis of being the
one to manipulate his audience.39
In Zipes’s later writings, like the introduction to his 2014 translation of the first edition,
he agrees that Ellis’ argument is not completely false, but he chooses to see a different side of the
brothers. Zipes writes, “Several scholars have accused the Grimms of...making it seem that the
38
Bottingheimer, "Sixteenth-Century Tale,” 146.
39
Zipes, The Brothers Grimm, 77.
13
tales...were from the mouths of peasants…[These scholars’ arguments]...disregard the fact that
the Grimms were transparent about their editorial principles and never purposefully deceived
their readers.”40 Here, Zipes clarifies that the brothers still retained credibility because they never
made it seem like they weren’t actively working with the tales. Zipes also sees Jacob and
Wilhelm’s fascination with the peasantry as their romanticization of the genuineness of the tales
to further the nationalism in them.41 Rather romantically, Zipes believes that the brothers did not
regard themselves as the editors of their stories but “as moral cultivators of these tales, or tillers
of the soil.”42
40
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxxii.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
14
Source-Collecting and Writing
Exposure to the Volk and Rationale for Recording Tales

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were and continue to be well-respected as academics by many
literature, history, and psychology scholars. Their rather ordinary beginnings, as mentioned in
the previous section, contributed much to their personalities, values, and opportunities. Both
brothers sought higher education, and Jacob quickly stood out to his professor of Law, Friedrich
Karl von Savigny, at the University of Marburg. Von Savigny saw the value in learning about the
law from a collective past, and he perceived that Jacob was passionate about culture in terms of
the law and the Germanic languages. As his assistant, Jacob saw just how much “the creative
spirit” embedded itself into all aspects of culture and dictated what it meant to be “German.”
This intense cultural knowledge distinguished Jacob, catching the attention of many universities
as well as individual writers.43
A group of writers—Clemens Brentano, his sister Bettina, and her husband Achim von
Arnim—desperately wanted to publish work that was “homegrown, original literature, stemming
from the Volk. ” As Romantics, they reclaimed stories that were considered old or forgotten by
most of society. Although Bettina’s work is much less well known, her brother and husband’s
collection of folk songs gained popularity in 1805. During this time, they also heard of Jacob’s
extensive cultural knowledge. Impressed by Jacob’s ideas, the three experienced writers then
prompted the brothers to take on the task of collecting authentic stories from the common people,
and sharing them with Brentano and Arnim.44
43
Ihms, “The Brothers Grimm,” 41-2.
44
Marina Warner, Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford
University Press, 2014.54-5. One of these is the notable Ö
lenberg Manuscript discussed in the previous
section.
15
Savigny, Brentano, and Arnim were not the first to be captivated by the lower class.
Johann Herder wrote an essay in 1773 that sparked intellectuals to think about the value in a
shared culture. This movement, of which the Grimms were still a part nearly fifty years later,
determined that the most genuine representation of their homeland was in “unpolished” myths,
lore, songs, and legends. Because the Volk were then popularized, aristocrats, in addition to
academics, began incorporating Volk traditions into their daily lives.45
Based on the troubled political times mentioned in the first section of this paper, it is
understandable why the people living in the same areas as the Grimms would want to foster a
common identity. For Jacob and Wilhelm, looking at the “etymological and linguistic truths that
bound the German people together” was the greatest way to solidify the region’s
interconnectedness.46 They needed a way to dismantle the wall between “sophisticated” upper
and “simple” lower class.47 Collecting these folk tales, they thought, could create a common
ground “uncontaminated by book learning, wild as the forests and mountains.”48
Ideal Audience
Their text’s name made it fairly clear who Jacob and Wilhelm intended for their ideal
audience. Kinder- und Hausmärchen, or Children’s Nursery and Household Tales, the title set by
the Grimms in 1812 continued to be the title throughout their editions until the final 1857
edition.49 Children were a huge part of the audience, but they were not the sole audience. The
45
“Fairy Tales and the Female Imagination.” Women & Children First: Spanish Women Writers & the
Fairy Tale Tradition, January 2002, 15-16.
46
James Stanlaw. “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Salem Press,
2018.
47
Ihms, “The Brothers Grimm,” 47.
48
Warner, Once Upon a Time, 57. Beyond the tales, the brothers also demonstrated their passion for
collective culture through their dictionary of the German language, Deutsches Wörterbuch, and Jacob’s
linguistic studies about the changes in Germanic sounds, Grimm’s Law.
49
Joseph Baumgartner, “The Grimm Brothers as Collectors and Editors of Fairytales.” Philippine
Quarterly of Culture and Society 7, no. 1/2 (1979): 95.
16
Grimms most likely would have simply called them “Children’s Tales” if that were the case.50
The “household” part made it clear that the brothers wanted these stories to be told to children.51
Literate adults were the ones doing the telling and reading for the most part.52 This was very
unlike the writers who came before the Grimms as well as unlike what some may have wanted.
Chaucer, Perrault, Boccaccio, and even Shakespeare wrote tales influenced by folklore, but they
had sophisticated audiences in mind.53 Jacob and Wilhelm wanted more for their work.
As mentioned before, the Grimms wanted their work to embody a “German spirit,” so it
made sense to reach as wide of an audience as possible. Impressionable children were and
continue to be little sponges waiting to take in information and to understand the world around
them. It is no secret that children of all time periods internalize what they hear and read; when
they are exposed to fairy tales, these stories become part of their “real world.”54 For a particularly
precocious child, their place as the bottom in household “hierarchy” might make them feel
“helpless.”55 Heroic characters could provide figures for children to idolize as well as to
understand what is just and what is not.56 When a good character is wronged—like many
children may feel they have been—and that wrong is set right, children identify with that
character and the character’s values.57 Consequently, internalizing these values will turn into
50
The brothers did create a smaller edition that was intended specifically for children in 1825 that
encompassed 50 tales, according to Ihms.
51
Mondschein, “Introduction,” xvi.
52
Literate adults include members of the upper and middle class as well as the scholars who were just as
interested in the Volk as Jacob and Wilhelm. Baumgartner points out that one serious impediment though
to this last audience was the fact that once the brothers started rewriting, the “authenticity” was in
question. It is unclear whether their contemporary scholars realized this or if it is just modern scholars.
53
Mondschein, “Introduction,” xvii. These notable tales include “Patient Griselda” and King Lear.
54
“Fairy Tale,” 29.
55
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid.
17
practicing them as future adults.58 If Jacob and Wilhelm wanted to bring people together, a great
way to do that was by instilling the same values in children. Starting from the bottom of the
bourgeoisie, while still exposing many educated adults, helped the brothers get their messages
across.
Towards the end of their time writing, this exposure occurred even more and became part
of the educational canon. Jacob and Wilhelm did know their tales had this educational potential,
and they even kept that in mind while writing. They wanted their collection to be “an educational
primer of ethics, values, and customs that would grow on readers, who would themselves grow
by reading these living relics of the past.”59 Around 1840, the tales were integrated into the
Prussian elementary schools, which only furthered the tales’ reputation and prestige.60
Ideal vs. Actual Story-telling Sources
Prestige involved much more than who was reading the tales; they had to come from
credible sources as well. Undoubtedly, the person who would ideally know stories of the Volk
with the most organic accuracy would have to be part of the volk (lower-class so that books did
not influence them), female (because stories were told around the house, and men had to work),
and old (seeing as they would have had long exposure to learning the tales and telling them many
times). A “Märchenfrau” (old, peasant woman) was what Jacob and Wilhelm needed.61
Marina Warner is a highly honored scholar of mythology and fairy tales, and her most
recent book, Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale, summarizes the Grimms’
58
59
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxx.
60
Zipes, The Brothers Grimm, 17.
61
18
personal history, exposure to folklore, and motives for collecting. Warner details one of the
brothers’ ideal, yet complicated, collecting experiences in her book. She explains,
In Marburg...they visited the hospital where an old woman was

celebrated for her repertoire, but they found she didn’t want to pass
on her lore to the fine young scholars...perhaps the old woman did
not want the elite young men to see into the secret thoughts and
dreams of revenge that generations of women have entertained?62
The Grimms found someone who matched exactly what they determined would give them the
most authentic tale. Typically, women were thought to be the storytellers of households, and a
peasant woman would not have been educated by outside influences. A woman’s age was also
significant to the brothers since older age was associated more with wisdom; yet, this ideal
woman in the hospital did not share the same values as the brothers. Perhaps their collection
process was largely like this, making their actual sources more understandable.
Through scholarly analyses of the brothers’ first edition manuscript, especially, but others
as well, it is made clear that their hope of an archetype storyteller was not made a reality. For the
most part, Jacob and Wilhelm’s sources did subscribe to one of their three criteria: women. One
of the only notable male sources was Philipp Otto Runge, a romantic German painter.63 Besides
him, the brothers also wrote “Dortchen, Gretchen, Jeanette, etc.” in the margins of their first
omen in the middle-class Wild and

edition manuscript.64 These first names belonged to young w
Hassenpflug families, who were far from poor or old. They were well-educated, from Huguenot
(French) families, were well-traveled, and were all living in the same area.65 Being well-educated
and speaking French meant that the Wild and Hassenpflug sources were highly influenced by
Perrault and other stories they may have read. Inhabiting the same geographic area could signify
62
Warner, Once Upon a Time, 57-8.
63
Baumgartner, “The Grimm Brothers,” 93-4.
64
65
Ellis, One Fairy Story, 26 and Warner, Once Upon a Time, 60.
19
that the brothers were not the most adventurous in seeking out and traveling for sources.66 Some
scholars, like Ellis, determine that the brothers were less focused on the “scientific” aspect of
collecting tales, because they did not get sources from all over the “German” territories.67
Beyond these serious flaws, these women were also exceedingly close and well-known to the
brothers. Dortchen married Wilhelm, and Jeanette’s brother married the Grimms’ sister.68
Although their names were recorded on the manuscript, they were left out of the printed version
of the first edition.
As was the name “Marie,” which has been much debated throughout scholarly Grimm
literature. “Marie'' was a figure that Hermann Grimm (Wilhelm and Dortchen’s son) mentioned
in his 1895 essay which labels her “die alte Marie,” or “Old Marie.” Early Grimm academics
thought that this had to be Marie Müller, the servant in Dortchen and Gretchen’s house. In 1810,
when the brothers were collecting some of the first stories, Marie Müller fit the bill of an old
peasant woman, and very well could have told stories to the girls that the Grimms recorded.
According to Ellis, though, the brothers would not have gotten stories from the young
middle-class women if they had the ideal at their fingertips. Also, Hermann Grimm’s life span
does not match up with the times that Marie Müller would have been in his mother’s house. Born
in 1828, his life began two years after Marie’s ended and sixteen years after she left Dortchen’s
house, making “Marie” more difficult to identify. Ellis also argues that if the brothers had
actually gotten tales from her, that they would have made her a star storyteller in the same way
that they made Dorothea Viehmann, but they did not.69
66
67
Ibid.
68
Baumgartner, “The Grimm Brothers,” 95.
69
Ellis, One Fairy Story, 29-31.
20
The Grimms portrayed Dorothea Viehman as “the very model of the romantic conception
of a teller and preserver of fairy tales,” but some believe she was really the same class as the
other sources and the brothers.70 Because she provided a large portion of the second edition for
the brothers, they decided to put her portrait at the very beginning of the 1819 book and included
a description of her: “‘A peasant woman...not much over fifty...a true Hessian.’”71 Her true
characteristics were “about 40 years of age, of immigrant Huguenot ancestry, who had grown up
speaking French.”72 Scholars like Ellis believe then that she was completely discredited as a
representative of the Volk, a nd should not be idealized in the way she was. To Ellis, this proves
that the brothers willfully deceived their readers.73 Ellis considers this deception particularly
distinctive and representative of their overall fraudulent behavior because he believes that Jacob
and Wilhelm would have chosen to highlight the source they saw as the best; if the best was not
their ideal, they must have intentionally not cared about their ideal as much as they said they did.
74
Dorothea Viehmann is a high point of contention between Ellis and other prominent
scholars of the Grimms, like Jack Zipes. Zipes upholds that Viehmann was indeed part of the
lower class, making her identities and perspective closer to their ideal than the aristocratic
women. He thinks that Ellis is too harsh in his judgement. Zipes acknowledges that Viehmann
had history with other languages, but that does not mean her tales are any less authentic to the
70
Baumgartner, “The Grimm Brothers,” 95.
71
Ibid., 93-4.
72
Ibid.
73
74
Ibid., 35.
21
Volk.The brothers clearly made some choices, like any writer must; those choices can impact a
piece more than a writer may intend.75
Rewriting the Tales
Not only were the sources somewhat problematic, but putting the tales on paper proved to
be even more difficult. Because these tales were traditionally thought to be told orally, they had a
vastly different impact when written on a page—not necessarily a good one. These raw
transcriptions were not particularly easy to understand or read; and if the story is hard for anyone
to make sense of, how popular can it be?76 Wilhelm and Jacob, however, did not know this at the
beginning of their hunt for authenticity. Warner quotes Jacob as saying, “‘it is important that
these items should be gathered faithfully and truly, without decoration and addition and with the
greatest possible precision and detail, from the mouths of the storytellers.’”77 Jacob believed that
the only way for the tales to be “sincere” was for them to be free of interference by the author.
That optimistic bubble, inside which the brothers found themselves, was soon to be popped.
Rewriting was inevitable.
Largely, the sources they got were not ideal because of the added cultural perspectives of
other places like France. This had a negative impact on the brothers, sending them into a state of
anxious bewilderment, so much so that they had to almost entirely rewrite the tales.78 The
sources were not the only aspect that prompted rewriting. Some aspects of the tales were deemed
inappropriate for the time period’s audience, such as premarital sexual encounters.79 A perfect
75
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxxiii.
76
“Fairy Tale,” 10. “Popular” refers to the tales being liked, read, and bought by many people.
77
Warner, Once Upon a Time, 57.
78
Ibid., 58-9.
79
Ibid., 60.
22
example of this is the well-known tale “Rapunzel.” In all editions, the prince sneaks into the
tower, but the first edition is fairly explicit when it reads,
At first Rapunzel was terribly afraid, but soon the young prince
pleased her so much that she agreed to see him every day and pull
him up into the tower. Thus, for a while they had a merry time and
enjoyed each other’s company. The fairy didn’t become aware of
this until, one day, Rapunzel began talking and said to her, “Tell
me, Mother Gothel, why are my clothes becoming too tight? They
don’t fit me any more.” “Oh, you godless child!” the fairy replied.
80
Even though it appears to be an innocent question, they still detail her pregnancy a little too
clearly. Compared with the version in the last edition, it is clear that Wilhelm did some subtle
rewriting. That version says,
At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man such as her

eyes had never yet beheld, came to her; but the King’s son began
to talk to her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been
so stirred that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to
see her. Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she
would take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young
and handsome, she thought, “He will love me more than old Dame
Gothel does;” and she said yes, and laid her hand in his. She said,
“I will willingly go away with you, but I do not know how to get
down. Bring with you a skein of silk every time that you come, and
I will weave a ladder with it, and when that is ready I will descend,
and you will take me on your horse.” They agreed that until that
time he should come to her every evening, for the old woman came
by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until once
Rapunzel said to her, “Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that
you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young King’s
son—he is with me in hardly a minute.” “Ah! You wicked child,”
cried the enchantress.81
80
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete
First Edition. Translated by Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. 39.
81
The Brothers Grimm. Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret Hunt. San Diego, CA:
Canterbury Classics, 2011. 45-6.
23
Here, it is clearly not the same question as before that alludes to a growing belly, but the
promise of and plan for marriage is made explicitly clear before Rapunzel and the prince develop
their short relationship. The Grimms’ intended audience, which would be highly religious, would
probably more willingly accept this sex because Rapunzel and the prince were basically married.
While Wilhelm manipulated this portion of the story, he still kept the bit at the end about
Rapunzel having twins after being exiled by the enchantress; he did not completely eliminate the
idea that they had sex, only made it more acceptable by the time’s standards.
Wilhelm’s literary skills were put to use more than those of Jacob, who primarily
functioned as the note-taker.82 Often, Wilhelm’s changes did demonstrate his way with words
and his overall dedication to the task at hand. He “shaped and polished, cadenced and
ornamented many of the best-known tales over the course of nearly fifty years.”83 From the
brothers’ first edition to the last, Wilhelm took on the responsibility and role of writer, not
merely collector. He even manipulated plots that were lacking a finished ending.84
His rewriting served many purposes beyond comprehension, censorship, and
completeness.85 Wilhelm’s work also made the tales more general and identifiable with ideally
any audience. He removed some spatial or temporal indicators in the tales in order to make them
limitless.86 Starting stories with “Once upon a time,” puts the reader in some control over when
and where the story happens. Contrastingly, it can also make the reader feel like the story is
82
83
84
Ihms, “The Brothers Grimm,” 48. The brothers’ last edition was not the end of the editions, largely due
to the fact that the tales have been translated into many languages. Some writers like Angela Carter,
Helen Oyeyemi, and Carmen Maria Machado have drafted their own feminist editions of Grimm tales. The
tales’ futurity is long-lasting.
85
While rewriting was extremely common among the tales, it is worth noting that Wilhelm did not rewrite
every single tale.
86
24
ancient when it is much more current.87 Warner uses an example in her book of the beginning of
one tale that Wilhelm rewrote two different times. These revisions were about helping to place
the reader within the scene more than the original transcription could do.
“The king’s daughter went out into the forest…” (1810 version)
“There was once a king’s daughter…” (1812 version)
“In the olden days, when wishing still worked, there lived a king
whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest daughter was
so lovely that even the sun...was struck with wonder…” (1857
version)88
In this example Wilhelm’s addition of context and background information better establishes the
gendered qualities of the princess as well as the magical aspect found in most tales. The added
drama and stylistic conventions do not go unnoticed here.89 More than this drama, the rewrites
also placed more emphasis on the moral lessons in the tales. Ihms concludes that Wilhelm did
prioritize the “parable,” which in turn made the tales less representative of the “German” spirit
and more linked to the values of the middle class: “While he set the tale down, he allowed his
own fears and hopes to shape it.”90 Despite rewriting this piece for comprehension,
dramatization, and stylistic quality, Wilhelm’s creative process ultimately embedded his own
cultural, political, religious, and highly-gendered values into the tales that were supposed to
represent a shared cultural identity. Instead of representing distant and authentic German spirit,
eliminating or adding cultural components like sexuality reflected and connected nineteenth
century values.

87
Ibid.
88
89
Stanlaw.
90
25
Tale Deconstruction
The overpowering aroma of chicken and wine made the young maiden peek into the first house of the
nobleman where she saw a cook.
“Clever Gretel”
Tale 77
Gretel is the cook of the house, and the master nobleman informs her that he will have a guest
for dinner. This is no problem for Gretel, and she easily roasts two nice chickens. Because of the
work cooking the chickens, she goes to the cellar to get a sip of wine. Her problem is that she
cannot drink without eating something. The guest hasn’t arrived yet, and the master goes out to
find him. Gretel, still hungry, notices that one of the chickens’ wings is slightly burnt, and she
decides that it would be best to just eat that little bit. This spirals into her eating both chickens in
one sitting. To cover her bad habit, she runs to the guest before he arrives and says that her
master wants to cut the guest’s ear off. He runs away screaming. Gretel then exclaims to her
master that the guest came in, stole the chickens, and ran off. Both men buy her story, and the
reader and Gretel are the only ones who know the truth.
While this tale is mainly comedic, it is unmistakably influenced by the Grimms’ social
identities. As mentioned in the time period analysis section of this paper, the brothers were
devotedly Protestant and middle class. These prove to be large issues in “Clever Gretel.”
However, the gendered implications of these social identities are even more telling of the
brothers’ values.
Religious values are deeply embedded in this tale. In the first line of the tale, Gretel is
described as wearing red shoes.91 While this may seem irrelevant to her profession as a cook, the
color of her shoes is of the utmost relevance; red shoes are distinguished by scholars as markers
of overt female sexuality.92 Furthermore, Gretel also calls attention to her vanity a few lines after
91
The Brothers Grimm, Grimm’s Complete, 280.
92
“Fairy Tales,” 26.
26
when she says, “‘You certainly are a pretty girl!’” to herself.93 She does not seem afraid of her
sexuality in ways that religiously devoted people of the time likely were, which stems back to the
original biblical figure, Eve. Like Eve, Gretel appears to be ruled by her desires of all sorts, even
though her openness allows for more comedy in the tale.
Along with her vanity and sexuality, her gluttonous behavior also seems to go against
religious values. As Protestants and scholars, the brothers were likely well-versed in scripture
and would feel a similar way to this quote in Proverbs 23:20-21, “Be not among winebibbers;
among riotous eaters of flesh:For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty.”94 That in
mind, Gretel is described this way by the brothers: “when she came home she drank, in her
gladness of heart, a gulp of wine, and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of
whatever she was cooking until she was satisfied.”95 She is insatiably thirsty and hungry, which
the Protestants would not have valued.
This supposed gluttony appears more complex and related to class issues once Gretel
begins to eat the chickens she prepared for her master. She says, “‘Hallo, Gretel, enjoy
yourself...why should God’s good gifts be spoiled?’”96 She convinces herself to eat excessively
because she does not want to waste good food. As a cook, she’s likely around food all the time,
but that does not mean she has access to it in the same way her master does. If you were part of
the servant class, good food was a luxury. Surely, anyone going through tough economic
struggles, like the Grimms did, would not want to see these chickens wasted either. Gretel
remarks to her master, “‘If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away from the fire, but
93
94
“Proverbs 23:20 - 23:21.” King James Bible Online. Accessed March 20, 2020.
95
96
Ibid., 281.
27
it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten directly, when they are juiciest.’”97 The food is
quite literally a hot commodity. Readers would likely understand Gretel not allowing food to go
to waste, but she very well could also be using this as an excuse.
Along with her attitude toward food, bourgeois readers may also have appreciated her
work ethic. Working diligently mattered to the bourgeoisie, especially when the worker in
question was a servant like Gretel. Their stability in life was not due to old money passed down
from their parents; they had to work, and work well, for what they wanted. Gretel is not very
different from them. Although she is trapped in a gendered career, she still strives to do her job.
The tale says, “Gretel was not idle.”98 Arguably, she may have even done her job too well in
tempting herself to eat the thoroughly-cooked chickens. More than this, she is clever enough to
preserve her position with her master so as not to lose her job: “‘Master will observe that
something is missing.’”99 If she really only cared about eating the food, she would not have
scared away the guest or hidden the truth from her master that she was responsible for the
chickens. While the bourgeois audience likely wouldn’t support dishonesty, they would probably
understand her self-sustaining motivations. If her master found out the truth, he would not
hesitate to severely punish her. Furthermore, it is Gretel’s job to care for and about her master, so
they would not fault her for being apprehensive about his reaction and probable punishment.100
Gretel’s resourcefulness and trickster mindset make this story entertaining for the
audience largely because she breaks the rules, but still succeeds and wins. She is an underdog in
97
Ibid., 280.
98
Ibid., 281. People like the Grimms would have most certainly believed the old saying that idle hands do
the devil’s work.
99
Ibid., 280.
100
Though, one could argue Gretel does not fully follow this because she does not exactly make him
more food after she eats all of his chickens.
28
terms of station and gender. Gretel also illustrates the duality of views on women at the time. On
one hand, many nineteenth-century men could say that female sins are the reason for every
sexually immoral thing in the world. On the other, she is not truly seen by the men in the story,
which allows for them to see her as a pure source of information. She lies to both of their faces,
but they believe her because they see her as a feeble woman who would never do anything
against them. In this way, she somewhat breaks stereotypes since she is smart enough to know
what words and actions will make the men in the story react the way she wants them to in order
to avoid conflict for her. Gretel was clever enough to save herself and cover up the missing
chickens, but her master might eventually notice all the missing wine.101

101
This interpretation is not the only option for this tale. Some may see Gretel as purely lucky or just a
high-functioning alcoholic, not necessarily someone who is intentionally being deceptive. It is possible to
see “clever” as an ironic title instead of the literal interpretation this paper takes.
29
The young maiden then noticed a woman sitting on a boulder crying out for help. It was Elsie.
“Clever Elsie”
Tale 34
Elsie is old enough to get married now, and her parents desperately want her out of their hair. A
suitor named Hans wants a wise wife, so Elsie has to prove herself. When he is over at their
house for dinner, Elsie goes down to the cellar for beer, and her eyes wander. She sees a great
pickaxe and thinks of her future child with Hans and how she’s worried that her future child will
be killed by this pickaxe. A servant girl is first to check on her and cries with Elsie about this
potentially horrific future event. A young boy is next to start crying with Elsie. Her mother goes
down to find them and begins crying too. Father also cries because of the possibility of his
grandson dying. Hans, however, takes Elsie’s apprehension for wisdom. After they’ve been
married for a significant amount of time, he orders her one day to go cut corn for them to make
bread. She goes to the field with some broth to eat. She reasons that she should eat the broth
before cutting the corn. Then she debates on whether she should reap first or sleep first, and she
chooses to sleep. Hans sees she did not do anything, and he hangs a bird catching net around
her that has little bells on it. These bells make her question whether she is really Clever Elsie or
not. She goes to the door of her own house and asks if Elsie is inside, and Hans says yes. Elsie
goes to other doors to see if people will let her in, but no one does because of the frightening
bells. Then she runs away never to be seen again.
This tale, unlike the others analyzed in this paper, went through significant alterations
from the first edition to the last edition. Wilhelm’s rewriting completely changed the tone of the
piece, allowing for more ambiguity and uncertainty in the plot, specifically the ending.
In the first edition, the tale begins: “Hans’s Trina was lazy and didn’t want to do any
work.” There is no explanation of who or where or how Hans and Trina (later changed to Elsie)
got together in the first place; the only background given is that the female character is lazy. The
tale illustrates this laziness, but the original is explicit about how the audience should view the
female character.102
102
Grimm, The Original, 115.
30
As mentioned previously, the brothers and the bourgeoisie highly valued a strong work
ethic regardless of gender. Women were not exempt from work, so one could assume while
reading that the audience should not idolize this character. Her reasoning and inner thoughts are
included: “‘What should I do? Should I eat, sleep, or work?’” All of these are necessary for
survival, but one cannot eat if one does not work. Because the text mentions that Trina sleeps
during the day and wakes up at night to avoid work, the work she is responsible for is likely
outside, though the tale is ambiguous about the specific tasks. Further supporting that she is
avoiding daily work, the trouble begins when “Hans [returns] home at noon and [finds] Trina
sleeping again in their room.” This makes it seem like Hans has caught her sleeping before and is
tired of her laziness.103
In retribution, the first edition’s Hans “ [takes] his knife and [cuts] off her dress at the
knees.”104 This seems to be a highly gendered punishment linking her immorality in work ethic
to her sexuality. Exposing her legs like this makes her question her identity: “when she went
outside to work and saw that the dress was so short she became frightened and wondered
whether she really was Trina.”105 Instead of giving a punishment that may fit the crime, like an
endless sleeping potion, punishing her by sexualizing her points more at her failing female
gender expectations like obedience and being the caretaker of husbands and households.
To discern her identity, she asks the people of their household “‘Is Hans’s Trina inside?’
Since the others thought she was in her usual place, they answered: ‘Yes, she’s lying down in her
room and sleeping.’”106 Here, the audience sees how it was more common for her to be sleeping
103
Ibid.
104
Ibid.
105
Ibid.
106
Ibid., 116.
31
than to be working, as well as having the audience infer that Hans left before she woke up since
he does not answer this question. The female character’s reaction to this answer displays even
more immorality by the Grimms’ standards: “‘Well, then I’m not me,’ Trina said in delight. So
she went off to the village and never returned, and this is how Hans got rid of his Trina.”107 She
gets excited because she does not have to be herself. This can be interpreted in a number of
ways: 1.) she is happy she isn’t Trina because Trina had work to do, 2.) she is happy that Trina is
the fraud, so she is not this immoral person, or 3.) she is happy because she has a fresh start since
no one seems to want her there. Possibly all three are relevant, but she chooses to leave and
never come back, which seems like what her and Hans want most. Hans clearly wanted a wife
who was responsible and sensible, and the female character wanted to do what pleased herself,
not her husband.
The female character of the last edition, Elsie, still puts herself first when it matters most,
yet the rewriting of this tale is significant. From the beginning, the characters are given much
more context than in the first version.108 The last edition’s tale starts with Elsie’s parents wanting
to marry her off: “[H]er father said, ‘We will get her married.’ ‘Yes,’ said the mother; ‘if only
anyone would come who would have her.’”109 Her mother’s comment makes it seem like Elsie is
not as likeable as the father may have someone believe, and that marrying her off would be no
easy task. This shows that Elsie is imperfect rather than directly telling the audience her flaw,
which makes the readers question what is not right with her. When a suitor, Hans, does come
along, he specifies that “‘If [Elsie] is not really wise, I won’t have her,’” and the father reassures
107
Ibid.
108
This extra content in the beginning could be the result of the brothers combining “Hans’s Trina” with
another tale they collected later on or simply a background story that Wilhelm created to show Elsie’s
character rather than explicitly telling the reader.
109
32
Hans that “‘she is sharp enough.’”110 Commonly, these men are discussing Elsie’s future without
her input or opportunity to advocate for herself. If she really were clever, the father would
probably be singing her praises much louder, and she might even be part of the conversation.111
When Hans comes to their house to see for himself, Elsie appears to be the obedient and
thoughtful wife valued by men of any class. She listens when her mother tells her to fetch beer
from the cellar; she resisted being idle while fetching it; and she saw a potential hazard to her
future child with Hans.112 The audience’s perception of her adherence to stereotypical gender
roles is only bolstered by her family’s reassurances. With each new person who goes down to the
cellar to check on Elsie, they continue to say, “‘What a clever Elsie we have!’”113 They could be
reassuring her, Hans, or even themselves to make it as believable as possible that Elsie is wise.
The tale describes this scene of the family crying in the cellar: “When [Hans] got down [to the
cellar], five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting quite piteously, each outdoing the
other.”114 The last bit here suggests that there was an intention behind the family’s crying.
However, Hans does not cry when he hears Elsie’s prediction, so the tears were likely meant to
persuade him or Elsie of her worth rather than help the family reassure themselves of Elsie’s
worth. This domestic encounter with Hans seems to function as a test for Elsie’s ability to be his
wife, and he is convinced to marry her.
110
Ibid. Here, the father’s words offer many interpretations. In one sense, “enough” could literally mean
that Elsie is smart enough to be a good wife, but it could also mean that her father is not a very good
judge of intelligence if he truly thinks she is smart at all.
111
This is a suggestion based on some women throughout history having some say in their marriages, but
it is not a stretch to say that her father probably would not trust her judgement if she is barely smart
enough.
112
113
Ibid., 123-24.
114
Ibid., 124.
33
At this point, the story picks up where the first edition’s tale started; although, there are
still significant changes. The Grimms provide a vague amount of time in between their first
meeting and when Elsie eats and sleeps before doing any work.115 This somewhat helps the
audience believe that Elsie passed her test because if she hadn’t continued to please him for this
length of time, his strong values, instilled in the beginning, would likely push him to get rid of
her. As mentioned before, they fall into the stereotypical roles of the man going out to work and
the woman staying home to tend to things like meals. However, in this last version, Hans makes
it explicitly clear what Elsie is expected to do for her work. He orders her, “‘Go into the field and
cut the corn that we may have some bread.’”116
After this, Elsie follows the same pattern as Trina: eat, sleep, and have Hans belittle you.
This is different from the first version though; Elsie falls asleep in the corn field, which does not
seem to have happened before since Hans had to look to find her.117 Having this be a first-time
mistake may make Hans’s actions appear more severe to the reader, as opposed to Hans knowing
that Trina repeatedly slept on the job. Hans does not cut Elsie’s dress, but he does drape a
hunting net with bells on her.118 This could represent him isolating the very worst version of
Elsie in the same way that cutting the dress displayed the worst version of Trina. In both cases,
the idleness and laziness is apparent and goes against the valued industriousness of the middle
class. Elsie, unsure of her identity like Trina, goes to the house to ask if Elsie is inside, and Hans
responds that she is.119 Where Trina felt delighted and raced to a new society, Elsie was horrified
115
Ibid.
116
Ibid.
117
Ibid., 125.
118
Ibid.
119
Ibid.
34
and ran away from society never to be seen again.120 This ending is a bit more obscure than
Trina’s, but the audience is still left with the same general moral about avoiding laziness.121
Ultimately, both versions of this tale are important for understanding how little autonomy
these female characters have. They are expected to behave in a way that best serves the man and
bourgeois values instead of thinking for themselves. It also communicates a great deal about
identity and how quickly identity changed when a man rejected a woman in this period. As soon
as Hans stops telling them how to be, they are no longer themselves. Similar to the other tales,
their female identity seems to be based on their relationships with the men in their lives.

120
Ibid. Never being seen again could mean that she perished in the forest, but it could also signify a new
beginning for her away from everything she thought she knew.
121
This is one way to see the ending. It is also likely that this story is not supposed to make sense and is
just supposed to produce laughs more than a moral.
35
When the young woman reached a third woman whose house was shadowed by a grand castle, a
peasant girl showed the confining nature of womanhood.
“The Peasant’s Wise Daughter”

Tale 34
The daughter of a peasant thinks asking the king for land will get them out of poverty. The king
does grant this land, and as soon as the peasants begin to dig it up for crops, they uncover a
mortar made of pure gold. The peasant immediately wants to give the mortar to the gracious
king, and the daughter warns against giving the mortar without the pestle. He takes the mortar
anyway, and the king says that he needs the pestle too. Now imprisoned, the peasant cries and
wishes he listened to his daughter. This catches the king’s attention, and he says that a daughter
so wise needs to come before him. When she gets there, the king gives her a riddle, which she
easily solves. The king marries her, and years go by. Then a merchant comes to the queen asking
for her help with getting the king’s attention. She tells this merchant to do something so clever
that it does attract the king. However, he knows that the merchant didn’t come up with this by
himself. When the merchant tells the king that the queen helped him, the king feels betrayed. He
tells the queen that their relationship is over and that she is allowed to take her favorite and
dearest thing from the castle. She then sneaks the king a magic potion and kidnaps him. He
wakes up, realizing she took him, and promises never to leave her.
For many scholars, this is one of the handful of Grimm tales that actually subverts the
standard patriarchy of the nineteenth century.122 After all, women at the time still had fewer
rights than men.123 They were still expected to maintain the subservient roles society assigned to
them. The standard edition (1857) of “The Peasant’s Wise Daughter” uniquely has one allusion
to time at the very end: “at the present time they are very likely still living.”124 In the first edition,
an almost identical time parameter is set: “I am sure that they are still living together even
today.”125 Unlike the “once upon a time” trope, this tale across editions alludes to this story being
122
Mainly Zipes but also Tatar (2003), “Fairy Tales” (2002), Warner (2014).
123
Richard J. Evans, "German Social Democracy and Women's Suffrage 1891-1918." Journal of
Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (1980): 533-57. Accessed February 24, 2020. Women did not receive the
right to vote in Germany until the very end of the nineteenth century, and a large part of those women
were from middle class families.
124
125
Grimm, The Original, 316.
36
more current than some other tales. Looking at the time, the tidal wave of feminism that was on
the distant horizon, and with the overall rise of the middle class, it makes some sense that this
could be subverting some patriarchal norms. The atypical inclusion of time is not the only
evidence supporting this claim.
The tale’s exposition furthers this idea of female agency. In the first line of the tale, the
peasant and his daughter have nothing but a small house. Change and betterment for them occurs
when she says, “‘We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land.’”
Apparently, the father never thought of this or never said anything. It took his daughter wanting
to better their lives to get anything done. Leading into the next plot detail, the father is trying to
be gracious when he suggests giving the golden mortar that they found to the King; however, the
daughter is the one who knows better and says “‘Father, if we have the mortar without having the
pestle as well, we shall have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it.’”
Here, the father is the overzealous, emotional character that fulfills the stereotypical female role,
while the daughter is the voice of reason. She is proven right when her father is imprisoned for
bringing only the mortar and cries out, “‘Ah! If I had but listened to my daughter!’” Father does
not know best and admits that she was right. Not just to himself, but he admits his daughter was
right to the King. When the King cannot believe a woman is so clever, she proves him wrong as
well by solving his riddle.126
Her agency only continues in the rising action when the quarrelsome merchant comes to
her, not to the King, for advice on how to right the wrong done to him. He trusts her advice
above any other, and she gives him advice that follows through in getting the King’s attention. It
126
The Brothers Grimm, Grimm’s Complete, 342-43.
37
would not be as meaningful for her agency if she gave incorrect advice. The merchant even trusts
and honors her promise, though only initially. When faced with a last decision of taking what
means most to her during the climax of the tale, she directly and without hesitation makes the
choice.127
Not only are her choices and actions throughout representative of her breaking
stereotypes, part of the Grimms’ editing process also supports her strength as a character.
Different from other tales like “Clever Gretel,” the female protagonist is never described
physically for the audience. The brothers could have easily added some description about her age
or physical attributes, but they do not. The only things marking her gender are the pronouns and
titles used to describe her like “daughter” or “queen.” That being said, the writers do not refrain
from making sexual allusions directly tied to her. It is not hard to imagine what a mortar could
represent in relation to an extremely phallic object like a pestle. Nothing is explicit, and this
sexual reference does not overtake the tale. However, she being a “she” could not be completely
separated from a standard view of what some might consider the purpose of women.128
More than the mortar and pestle, there are still many aspects of the tale that pigeonhole
the female protagonist to restricted ideas about gender. Unlike the other two tales analyzed in
this paper, the main character is not given a name. Granted, no one in “The Peasant’s Wise
Daughter” is named specifically, but she is only titled by her relationship to the men in her life.
She is the peasant’s daughter, and she is the King’s Queen and wife. 129 The King is never openly
referred to as her husband; the word husband is only uttered whenever she is speaking directly to
127
Ibid., 343-44
128
Ibid., 342-44.
129
Ibid.
38
him. Even if the source that the Grimms got this tale from did not give any characters names,
they could have elected to give them names which would humanize them a bit more.
Although the female protagonist was proved to be right many times, as previously
mentioned, she is still doubted by both men in her life. After she brought up asking for land, her
father still doubts her advice on the mortar.130 After she proved her cleverness to the King by
solving the riddle, he still expected that all she cared about were material possessions.131 The idea
of a man testing his wife is nothing new in European literature, and by comparison, her test was
not as brutal.132 Like some of these other characters, she is also expected to go along with the
men’s wishes. She does not stop her father from going to the King, and she does not fight the
King’s ruling to kick her out of the castle when she gives advice behind his back. He drops her
like a sack of potatoes, without any discussion or reasoning from her on why she did what she
did. Her position as Queen was given to her, and her husband did not respect or value that
position at all, making it easily taken away. Boiling these points down, she was expected to
know what was best for men more than what was best for herself. She could push back on them,
but only so far.
With the tale, some ambiguous ideas prompt further thinking. One of them is
undoubtedly the display of the queen’s power. Initially, her choice of what to take when she
leaves seems like a big power move. On one side, she logically could have chosen something
expensive enough to be able to live comfortably for the rest of her life. On the other side, this
comfortable life would not be nearly as secure or extravagant. Also, the King forced her to
130
Ibid., 342.
131
Ibid., 344.
132
In “Patient Griselda,” a tale from Boccaccio’s 14th century Decameron, the nobleman tests the
patience of his formerly peasant wife by taking away her two children as soon as they are born and letting
her believe they were dead.
39
choose as a punishment; he did not say that she could choose between leaving or staying. It was
a bit of a gamble on her part to take him as her most prized possession, but it clearly worked.
Perhaps it is most significant to the reader that love supposedly won over materialism, which
seems to be rare in any time period. Although a bourgeoisie would likely not have supported
female independence that would truly subvert the binary gender norms; perhaps the female
protagonist would even agree with them that a woman should not live an independent life.
Another interesting, yet unclear aspect of this tale is the fact that the first edition and last
edition’s versions are nearly identical. When the Grimms did so much editing, rewriting,
combining, and deleting of tales, one wonders why this one came out untouched. One possibility
is that their source was unquestionably perfect in their eyes. In the note for this tale in the first
edition, Dorothea Viehmann is credited with the tale. She was idolized by the Grimms, so it is
not a far stretch that they may see her version as the best for their purposes. Another possibility
could be that the brothers liked the rise and prominence of an underdog who proves her worth
time and again and is not satisfied with the lot she was dealt in the beginning of her life. This
underdog mentality is present in many of the tales and alludes to the rising middle class in their
area at the time.133 This could also mean that Dorothea Viehmann wanted a female character to
be the one raising the middle class.
The note for the tale in Zipe’s translation does not mention any of these possibilities or
the gendered issues at all. Besides citing Viehmann, the note connects this tale to another the
Grimms studied from the sixteenth century and a general medieval tale.134 Also mentioned in the
133
Zipes, “Introduction,” xxxv.
134
Schimpf und Ernst (1522) which was a book of jokes likely
Grimm, The Original, 508. Pauli’s
modeled after Boccaccio’s Decameron makes the comparison to Patient Griselda that much more
relevant. The other text referenced is Auslag-Sage, a medieval text.
40
note is that the Grimms’ primary reason for connecting these two older tales with theirs was the
appearance of similar riddles in all of them. Just because they did not mention any class issues
does not mean that they could not have had them at the forefront of their minds while working
with the tales.
“The Peasant’s Wise Daughter” illustrates many things; however, the protagonist may
lead readers to believe that her cleverness got her in the door, but her obedience allowed her to
stay. Would the King still love her if she didn’t choose him? Probably not. Choosing him proves
her cleverness all over again, which is what attracted him in the first place. Because she put him
above all else, she was allowed to be a part of his life. She did not want to live alone, and society
at the time would not find it appropriate for her to live alone. More important than her class or
morals was her gender. This makes it explicitly clear just how deeply the binary norms
permeated all members of the culture.

41
Conclusion
Analyzing these brothers, their time, their process, and their works illuminate many
cultural complexities. Jacob and Wilhelm firmly believed that their tales could bring together a
large and diverse group of people swirling around a political tornado. Success most often meant
manipulating the tales by rewriting or adding content. Their process of rewriting the tales
presented a unified world view that many people at the time would have identified with.
The specifics of this world view are embedded in the tales. “Clever Gretel,” a tale that
was collected or written later than the first edition, largely represents religious and class values
of women by showing what not to do in a humorous way. Gretel is set up as a woman motivated
by desires that go against Protestant values of maintaining a moderate life and middle class
values of being hardworking. The humor in the tale is that she actually wins in the end, but the
path leading to that success was not easy.
“Clever Elsie” is a prime example of the brothers adding and taking away aspects to
make the tale more entertaining to read while still reinforcing their gendered values. For them,
Elsie may represent how a woman fails to be the wife she promised she would be: obedient to
her husband, hardworking, and moderate. Wilhelm’s rewriting allowed the audience to know the
exact expectations for their marriage, how Elsie appeared to have them in the beginning, and
how she lost them along with her identity by the end.
An example with zero rewriting, “The Peasant’s Wise Daughter” illustrates a woman
who conforms in the ways she was expected to. Her modesty and obedience are easy to see when
she chooses her husband over any riches, but she still represents the perseverance that the
42
brothers valued in upward social mobility through a demonstration of skills when she solves the
King’s riddle.
The modification or lack thereof makes it clear what rules the brothers thought people
should subscribe to and live by. While the values are apparent in the tales, the brothers do not
rewrite them in a way that there is only one conclusion to be drawn from each of the tales. This
seems to follow the oral culture that they got many of the tales from because an oral storyteller
could change a story from the original tale they heard in the same way that the lesson a reader
gets may not be the same as the one the Grimms had in mind. Even though the tales themselves
may not have represented authentic German culture in the way the brothers hoped, they still
depict an obvious connection people could feel regardless of politics, social class, or religion.
People of the nineteenth century, as well as some today, are linked by binary understandings of
gender, and accepting these ideologies at face-value presents serious consequences.

43
The young maiden was determined... to learn the
truth. She followed the forest path and learned from three women.
After hearing Gretel’s tale about the chickens and the master, Gretel pointed
back to the forest path and told the young maiden to keep going.
After she followed the path and found Elsie sobbing, she too pointed back to
the forest path and told the young maiden to keep going.
After following the path to yet another woman who went from peasant to
Queen, she too pointed back to the forest path and told the young maiden to keep
going.
Sure that she would find yet another woman with a story to tell, the young
maiden was surprised that the forest path led her to a different scene. She came to a
giant stone tower in the middle of a secluded meadow.
A single window was open at the top, and three familiar faces peered down at
her. She circled the tower looking at the shapes the stones made and recognized those
too. Then she understood.
The women in the forest were specters leading the young maiden to their
prison made of immovable stones that took the forms of the master, Hans, the
peasant, the King, and two other men dressed strangely and wielding mighty writing
tools. Their eyes followed the young maiden as she walked, and they whispered, “You
should be imprisoned too.”
This frightened her, but she realized that looking and whispering was all they
could do. It was her choice to listen to them or not, but they were just as stuck as the
women at the window.
✵
The young maiden then realized the point of her quest. It was not to free these
women from these men, because they belonged to a different time than the young
maiden. This quest was about understanding that when someone holds you to a
particular way of being based on your gender, everyone is trapped.
Although she could not free them, the young maiden had some power. She
decided to record all that she had learned to prevent more of these towers from
forming and shared it. ✵

44
Bibliography
Primary Sources:
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The Complete First Edition. Translated by Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2014.
The Brothers Grimm. Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret Hunt. San Diego,
CA: Canterbury Classics, 2011.
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2002. Web. 4 Mar. 2016. <http://www.bitingdogpress.com/zipes/zipes.html>.
Baumgartner, Joseph. “The Grimm Brothers as Collectors and Editors of Fairytales.” Philippine
Quarterly of Culture and Society 7, no. 1/2 (1979): 93.
Bottigheimer, Ruth B. "Sixteenth-Century Tale Collections and Their Use in the "Kinder- Und
Hausmärchen"." Monatshefte 84, no. 4 (1992): 472-90. Accessed March 3, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/30153215.
“Brothers Grimm | Biography & Works.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 11,
2019.
Coy, Jason Philip. A Brief History of Germany. Facts On File. 2011.
Crane, T. F. "The External History of the "Kinder- Und Hausmärchen" of the Brothers Grimm.
II." Modern Philology 15, no. 2 (1917): 65-77. Accessed May 10, 2020.
David, Alfred, and Mary Elizabeth David. "A Literary Approach to the Brothers Grimm."
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Ellis, John M. One Fairy Story Too Many: The Brothers Grimm and Their Tales. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1983.
Ellis, John M. "What Really Is the Value of the "New" Grimm Discovery?" The German
Quarterly 58, no. 1 (1985): 87-90. Accessed May 10, 2020. doi:10.2307/406041.
45
Evans, Richard J. "German Social Democracy and Women's Suffrage 1891-1918." Journal of
Contemporary History 15, no. 3 (1980): 533-57. Accessed May 10, 2020.
“Fairy Tales and the Female Imagination.” Women & Children First: Spanish Women Writers &
the Fairy Tale Tradition, January 2002, 9–47.
Ihms, M. Schmidt. “The Brothers Grimm and Their Collection of ‘Kinder Und Hausmärchen.’”
Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, no. 45 (1975): 41.
Maclean, Marie. "Oppositional Practices in Women's Traditional Narrative." New Literary

History 19, no. 1 (1987): 37-50. Accessed May 10, 2020. doi:10.2307/469300.
Mondschein, Ken. “Introduction.” In Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret

Hunt. San Diego, CA: Canterbury Classics, 2011. xiii-xxiii.
Neile, Caren Schnur. "Deconstructing the Magic Spell: The Recent Fairy Tale Scholarship of
Jack Zipes." Storytelling, Self, Society 11, no. 2 (2015): 314-21. Accessed May 10, 2020.
doi:10.13110/storselfsoci.11.2.0314.
“Proverbs 23:20 - 23:21.” King James Bible Online. Accessed March 20, 2020.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Proverbs-23-20_23-21/.
Rölleke, Heinz. "The “Utterly Hessian” Fairy Tales by “Old Marie”: The End of a Myth." In
Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion, Allusion, and Paradigm, edited by Bottigheimer Ruth
B., 287-300. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. Accessed May 10, 2020.
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Schwabe, Claudia. "Grimms’ Fairy Tales in a Political Context: Teaching East German
Fairy-Tale Films." In New Approaches to Teaching Folk and Fairy Tales, edited by
Schwabe Claudia and Jones Christa C., 79-98. Boulder, Colorado: University Press of
Colorado, 2016. Accessed May 10, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1f2qr02.9.
Stanlaw, James. “Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.” Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia. Salem
Press, 2018.
Stone, Kay. “And She Lived Happily Ever After?” Women & Language 19, no. 1 (Spring 1996):
14–18.
46
Tatar, Maria. “Spinning Tales: The Distaff Side." In The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales:
Expanded Edition, 106-34. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Accessed May 10, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctv36zr2z.11.
“Timeline: The Holy Roman Empire.” History Today, March 15, 2016.
https://www.historytoday.com/interactive/timeline-holy-roman-empire.
Von Franz, Marie-Louise. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Dallas, TX:
Spring Publications, 1982.
Ward, Donald. “The German Connection: The Brothers Grimm and the Study of ‘oral’
Literature.” With Appendices 53 (January 1994): 1–26.
Warner, Marina. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. Oxford, United Kingdom:
Oxford University Press, 2014.
Zipes, Jack. "Critical Observations on Recent Psychoanalytical Approaches to the Tales of the
Brothers Grimm." Merveilles & Contes 1, no. 1 (1987): 19-30. Accessed May 10, 2020.
Zipes, Jack. "German Popular Stories as Revolutionary Book." In Grimm Legacies: The Magic
Spell of the Grimms' Folk and Fairy Tales, 33-57. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton
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Zipes, Jack. “Introduction: Rediscovering the Original Tales of the Brothers Grimm.” In The
Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm: The Complete First Edition.
Translated by Jack Zipes. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014. xix-xliii.
Zipes, Jack. The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World. New York:
Routledge, 1988.
Zipes, Jack. "The Contamination of the Fairy Tale, or The Changing Nature of the Grimms'
Fairy Tales." Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 11, no. 1 (41) (2000): 77-93. Accessed
May 10, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43308420.
Zipes, Jack. "The Grimmness of Contemporary Fairy Tales: Exploring the Legacy of the
Brothers Grimm in the Twenty-First Century." In Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of
the Grimms' Folk and Fairy Tales, 152-86. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University
Press, 2015. Accessed May 10, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1g0b8zd.11.
47
Zipes, Jack. "The Grimms and the German Obsession with Fairy Tales." In Fairy Tales and
Society: Illusion, Allusion, and Paradigm, edited by BOTTIGHEIMER RUTH B.,
271-86. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. Accessed May 10, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x1nhz.22.
Zipes, Jack. "Two Hundred Years after Once Upon a Time: The Legacy of the Brothers Grimm
and Their Tales in Germany." In Grimm Legacies: The Magic Spell of the Grimms' Folk
and Fairy Tales, 109-30. Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015. Accessed
May 10, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctt1g0b8zd.9.

48
Index
Figures
Cover Image:
“Portrait of the Brothers Grimm.” The British Library. The British Library, February 6, 2014.
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/portrait-of-the-brothers-grimm.
Figure 1:
Map of Europe in 1800 by CENTENNIA, Accessed Feb. 12, 2020.
Timeline of Events
1785 and 1786: Hanau (town in Hesse) Brothers were born, Jacob then Wilhelm
1789 French Revolution began
1796 Father died
1798 Brothers began education in Kassel
1804 Napoleon became French Emperor
1805 Treaty of Pressburg, where principalities

withdrew from HRE
Brothers struggled with money
1806 Napoleon invaded German states and

dissolved HRE
Brothers found jobs as librarian (Wilhelm)
and Hessian War Commission (Jacob)
1807 Jacob lost his job but got one as librarian for
new king of Westphalia, Napoleon’s brother
Jerome
1808 Grimms’ mother died, brothers became

responsible for five younger siblings at ages
23 and 22
1809 Grimms had amassed about fifty-four tales for

first edition, manuscript sent to Ölenberg
49
1812 French occupation began to substantially

aggravate German subjects
First volume of first edition of KHM
1813 Armies of Europe defeated Napoleon and

Kingdom of Westphalia under Jerome fell
1814 Napoleon exiled

Congress of Vienna began
1815 Second volume of first edition of KHM

Congress of Vienna formed German
Confederation
1819 Second edition of KHM
1837 Third Edition of KHM
1840 Fourth Edition of KHM
1843 Fifth Edition of KHM
1848 German Revolution

Jacob was member of National Assembly in
Frankfurt to write new liberal constitution for
Germany
1849 Revolution crumbled
1850 Sixth Edition of KHM
1857 Final, seventh edition of KHM 4.12
1859 and 1863: Berlin Brothers died, Wilhelm then Jacob
1871 Germany unified

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“Oh, Brother...

T​here was once...​ ​a land which housed many stories.

forgetting these tales across the entire world.

Consequently, it is necessary to examine how these tales were constructed to begin to

connected the nineteenth century German-speaking people and transcended generations

regardless of individual identities.

made it nearly impossible to achieve this goal for everyone.

The State of Europe

reorganize the places specifically impacted by his megalomania.8

they compromised in 1871.

Grimms’ Personal History

siblings had left in the world.

perspective given to readers on the purpose of the ​KHM.​ They wrote,

They belonged to a subgroup of the bourgeoisie called ​Bildungsbürgertum,​ which consisted of

that sadly accomplished nothing.29

much to stay true to their ​Naturpoesie​.

being too emotionally attached to the subject.35

of capturing the German ​Volk​.

does not necessarily mean more connected to the past.

how valid or invalid their contributions were to the collection.38

one to manipulate his audience.39

Source-Collecting and Writing

Exposure to the ​Volk​ and Rationale for Recording Tales

as well as individual writers.43

and sharing them with Brentano and Arnim.44

academics, began incorporating ​Volk​ traditions into their daily lives.45

ground “uncontaminated by book learning, wild as the forests and mountains.”48

Ideal vs. Actual Story-telling Sources

In Marburg...they visited the hospital where an old woman was

​ omen in the ​middle-class ​Wild and

of the first edition.

that they made Dorothea Viehmann, but they did not.69

piece more than a writer may intend.75

Rewriting the Tales

Rewriting was inevitable.

tower, but the first edition is fairly explicit when it reads,

rewriting. That version says,

At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man such as her

His rewriting served many purposes beyond comprehension, censorship, and

though her openness allows for more comedy in the tale.

the Protestants would not have valued.

tired of her laziness.103

not her husband.

wife, and he is convinced to marry her.

cut the corn that we may have some bread.’”116

“The Peasant’s Wise Daughter”

evidence supporting this claim.

well by solving his riddle.126

but only so far.

be the one raising the middle class.

with the tales.

permeated all members of the culture.

path leading to that success was not easy.

gender, and accepting these ideologies at face-value presents serious consequences.

T​he young maiden was determined...​ ​ to learn the

forming and shared it. ✵

Coy, Jason Philip. ​A Brief History of Germany​. Facts On File. 2011.

There was once... a land which housed many stories.

perspective given to readers on the purpose of the KHM. They wrote,

They belonged to a subgroup of the bourgeoisie called Bildungsbürgertum, which consisted of

much to stay true to their Naturpoesie.

of capturing the German Volk.

Exposure to the Volk and Rationale for Recording Tales

academics, began incorporating Volk traditions into their daily lives.45

omen in the middle-class Wild and

The young maiden was determined... to learn the

Coy, Jason Philip. A Brief History of Germany. Facts On File. 2011.

Maclean, Marie. "Oppositional Practices in Women's Traditional Narrative." New Literary

Mondschein, Ken. “Introduction.” In Grimm’s Complete Fairy Tales. Translated by Margaret

1815 Second volume of first edition of KHM

1819 Second edition of KHM

1837 Third Edition of KHM

1840 Fourth Edition of KHM

1843 Fifth Edition of KHM

1850 Sixth Edition of KHM

1857 Final, seventh edition of KHM 4.12