The Brothers Grimm: A Literary Analysis

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm heard "Hansel and Gretel" from Wilhelm's friend Dortchen Wild (who later became his wife) and published it in Kinder - und Hausmärchen in 1812. For the Brothers Grimm, collecting tales of distinctly Germanic origin was a way of preserving their own cultural identity. Although the brothers gained a posthumous reputation for collecting their tales from peasants, many of the stories actually have origins in middle-class or aristocratic acquaintances.In the early 1800’s, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected stories that depicted the unpredictable and often unforgiving life experienced by central Europeans. These brothers, determined to preserve the Germanic oral storytelling that was vanishing, poured over the folklore of the region. …show more content…
However, they had to provide lighter interpretations of these factual incidents in order to sell books. Consequently, they paid attention to previously printed fairy tales.In the Grimm tale, the woodcutter and his wife are the children's biological parents and share the blame for abandoning them. In later editions, some slight revisions were made: the wife was the children's stepmother, the woodcutter opposed his wife's scheme to abandon the children and religious references were made. The sequence where the swan helped them across the river is also an addition to later editions. In addition,due to the violent nature of some stories, changes were often made to the original publications, as children began reading them. The grimm brothers never set out to entertain kids;as children became their main audience,did they take out some of the adult content as it was

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