Mirza Jahic
Professor Deck
EWRT 1B:62z
11/09/2003
My purpose for the
examination and analysis of the fairy tale Frau Trude and my re-write of that
particular fairy tale, is to explain my obsession with it and second, to inform
and maybe even educate readers by using my knowledge and experience as a “young
person” to relate this particular story to people all ages, who need help or
just want to be inspired just as much as I was. Pretty much every fairy tale
ever written is intended for a lesson or simply a tool to help parents or any
individual who is continuously trying to become oriented and find his/her way
or simply deal with the kids who just won’t listen. Now if you are a parent or
a confused, misguided individual (not pointing fingers here) I think that I
might be able to help you out by…well, read on and I might tell you.
The name of the fairy tale Frau
Trude is by itself, somewhat frightening. Fairy tales, legends or stories in
general, in my opinion, are more exciting and an individual tends to focus more
IF the story is somewhat frightening or has a twist to it. It imprints itself
in the memory of the reader and clings on forever, not on a conscious level but
on a deep subliminally unconscious level that acts sort of as a guide
throughout the life of an individual. This particular fairy tale has both, it’s
scary and it has a twist – a very education twist (in my eyes at least). We
deal with the girl (the main character) her parents (which we assume are two
people), Frau Trude, 3 men and of course, the devil.
This fairy tale is
definitely educational but the beauty of it is that the moral of the story or
the education part that I’ve mentioned above, is in fact in the eyes of the
reader him/her self.
The story begins with a struggle
between the girl and her parents. Keep in mind that this story is packed with
metaphors and subliminal messages but not to worry, as I will in detail
describe every one of them. The writer specifies this and wants the reader to
know this for a fact by making it obvious by including hints such as “…she did
not obey them (parents)…obstinate…,…inquisitive…” (Hunt 1) and of course making
the reader aware that the girl is stubborn and curious, such as any
kid…especially a problematic one (not always but we will assume for the sake of
this fairy tale). She does not listen to the parents, similar to most of the
kids these days and continues to visit Frau Trude, like she intended. After
arriving she mentions that she saw “a black man on your steps. That was a
collier. Then I saw a green man. That was a huntsman. After that I saw a
blood-red man. That was a butcher” (Hunt 1). She is judging on her own, without
experience or advice from her parents and as she approaches Frau Trude she
says”…saw not you, but, as I verily believe, the devil himself” (Hunt 1), at
this point she realized what she had done. She had thought and wanted to find
out for herself, she judged wrong and as any child, inappropriately causing her
this troubling situation. Frau Trude, the mean woman that she truly was,
changed the little girl into “a block of wood” (Hunt 1), with it meaning
usually stupid or intellectually challenged, and threw the girl (or the piece
of wood) into the fire. The fairy tale ends perfect in my opinion. We see that
Frau Trude is cold, cold as in cold hearted, evil, and we get this from the
statement “warmed herself by it” (Hunt 1). The line that bought it all home was
when Frau Trude said “that shines bright for once” (Hunt 1) and this basically
means that the girl finally did what she was expected or supposed to do and
that is…shine bright.
That story honestly did strike a
sensitive spot with me, which is unusual because I am not usually affected by
fairy tales. The following is my “edited” story of the fairy tale above.
There was once a young boy
inexperienced in the game of life who thought that he could take on the whole
world by himself, without the aid or support from anybody but himself. The boy
was brought up with the usual aspects of loneliness, conquering, achieving and
implanted statements into his head, never to give up regardless of the
situation. Young and stupid, was he called by his family because of his quick
ways of getting into trouble, never listening to advice of the elderly that
have been trough the same as he is going trough right now. His parents told him
not to hang out on the east side of San Jose, his parents told him not to hang
around the gangs that roam that area, but his obstinacy and his stupidity were
his weaknesses. One day he went to a party hosted by those gangs, curious of
what will go on and ignoring his parents’ advice, he declined into a point of
no return. He saw a girl that was sixteen and pregnant, smoking and drinking.
He saw a boy, thirteen years old, holding a gun from his older brother and
cursing like a sailor. He saw a gun, pointed…but at what…next thing he saw was
smoke and blood, the next thing…darkness. Maybe it was for the better; maybe it
was for worse…18 years old, boy your life in front of you, now gone. You should
have listened…
Works
Cited
- Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, Household Tales, trans. Margaret Hunt (London: George Bell, 1884), 1:11-20.
- Trans. Hunt, Margaret, 22 March 2002, <http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~wbarker/fairies/grimm/043.html >
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