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Thesis - psychological effects 

National College of Art and Design 

Maja Nowicka

Year 3

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Critical Culture Research Project



 

Title: The Grimm Brothers influence on the young minds 



 

Submitted to the School of Critical Culture in Candidacy for the Degree of AD202 Fine Art & Education 2020

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  • Table of Contents 

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      Introduction 

      Chapter one 

      Chapter two 

      Chapter three 

      Conclusion 

      Bibliography 

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Introduction

 

          Fairy Tales are old stories passed down from generation to generation. For most of their history they have survived only as part of the oral tradition until these were codified or written down during the 18th and 19th centuries. Each culture has their own so-called ‘fairy tales’, including the modern secular culture, where they are re-told as ‘urban myths’.The purpose of passing down fairy tales is to pass down wisdom, outlook, origin stories and even religious truth as Fairy tales are being part of a cultural identity. The main purpose is to give a moral in a way the audience will remember it. They exist to teach a clear lesson from a very young age of its listener.  Fairy Tales had first originated in 1697 which was Perrault’s Tales of Olden Times by Charles Perrault. This was then followed by Kinder- und Hausmärchen also known as Children's and Household tales written by the Grimm Brothers in the year 1812. Fairy tales have or had a huge impact on our life growing up. We were all introduced to stories from a very young age exposed to the stories full of magic, wonder and enchantment however this is not the idea that originated from the Grimm Brothers. The Grimm brothers had a rather different approach, the fairy tales were originally intended for adults rather than children. The stories consistently included sex, violence and incest. This is seen in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen  as they contained remarkably dark elements, for example the  original version Rapunzel gets pregnant by the prince after a little casual fling. In Cinderella, the stepsisters were told by their mother to cut off their toes and heels to try to fit into the slipper to marry the prince (Dundon, A. 2019), however The brothers added many scholarly footnotes on the tales' sources and different versions. These sort of scenes as well as many others from the collection were eventually revised once the stories became popular among children. Jacob Ludwig Karl and Wilhelm Carl  were born and lived in Hanau, Germany. Jacob and Wilhelm are known for many professions such as they were both philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together have  collected and published a series of folklore stories during the 19th century. The Grimm Brothers have attended the University of Marburg where they had studied law and medieval German literature, education was very important to them as they came from a very poor family. This is  where they began a persistent dedication to researching the early history of German language and literature which has also included the research of German folktales. In the 18th century Germany had a huge rise of Romanticism had resuscitate interest in traditional folk stories, the Grimm Brothers as well as their colleagues believed that this represented a pure form of literature as well as culture. The Brothers Grimm established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies this occurred in the year 1808. It was believed for a long time that the brothers had gathered all the tales orally from peasants and that the tales were genuinely German, this was achieved by travelling around Germany and collecting these stories. However the Grimm brothers were not the first people in Germany to collect, research nor they are the founders of folklore.(Zipes, 2016) 

 

However their fame had brought the importance of literature and the passing down of stories into the modern life. The Grimms worked on editing existing pieces of other folklore and early literature. Between 1816 and 1818 they published two volumes of Deutsche Sagen also known as  German Legends. At about the same time they published a volume of studies in the history of early literature, Altdeutsche Wälder translated to Old German Forests (ancient-origins.net,2019).

   

 The one story I will focus on will be Snow White, my research will be based on the background behind the story as well as how they have evolved over the editions and even the generations due to how Disney had made the story politically correct and watered down the violent content of the story as well as how the dark and violent stories affect the mind of a young child. I will be focusing on studies of Helen Bee in her novel the developing child as well as applying Piaget's theory of the stages of development.

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Chapter One

 

          Snow White is a 19th century German fairy tale which the Grimm brothers have published it in 1812 in the first edition of their collection Grimms' Fairy Tales. It was called Sneewittchen in German and numbered as Tale 53. The Grimms completed their final revision of the story in 1857 which was the 6th edition of  Kinder- und Hausmärchen. The first illustrations that were made for the Grimm fairy tales was not until 1917 by Arthur Rackham (image4) (Grimm, Rackham,2018).  Even though the Grimm Brothers do not actually own Snow White as they did not make up the story however they were the first ones to publish it. In 2013 Disney has officially trademarked Snow White after  seeing the successes of their film production of Snow White back in 1937, and all over America Disney is officially known for Snow White. The changes that had occurred in the versions are drastic. The original is known as for being cruel and very inappropriate for young readers. From what we know the Grimm brothers wrote that Snow White was banished from her own home by her mother at the age of 7, she also got married to the prince she fell in love with at that age. Compared to the Walt Disney version Snow White was 14. This is still a young age however Snow White was based on the 16th century Germany, where young girls usually did get married at such a young age as it was part of the norm. The idea was kept very alike, the biggest changes that were made was to keep the Queen as a stepmother. Disney has also given a character to the 7 dwarfs, each one got a name as well as a character. Disney had greatly sanitized Snow White to leave out the gruesome details that were left by the Grimm brothers (flood. A, 2019). The original Grimm fairy tale tells us about the queen ordering the huntsman to kill Snow White which was also seen in the Disney version however the biggest difference that was seen is that the Disney story ends with Snow White getting married and being happy. The Grimm brothers had actually decided to continue the story and change the fortune of the evil Queen. The Queen was invited to the wedding however she was forced to dance in burning hot iron shoes until she could not dance no more and die. Disney had made the Snow White so successful due to the fact it was the first length feature production animated film created by Disney, it was created using technicolour, English language as well as songs. Snow White was also the first big success for the Walt Disney Company in terms of its assimilation of classic European stories. Walt Disney simplified and colourfully reimagined a Brothers Grimm fairy tale which had then been  exported to over 41 countries. European countries responded in interesting ways to being sold their own stories. In the United Kingdom, film censors feared the impact of the movie’s scary scenes and wicked witch character on children and correctly applied an age 16 rating. It was explained that English children were “more easily upset by fairy tales than the ‘tougher’ American children”. However by 1939, the film had been so absorbed into British culture that a Salford police constable employed drawings of the Seven Dwarfs in his local road safety campaign to alert drivers to be more cautious and slow down.(Encyclopedia.com.,2019)

 

        Allegedly the brothers got the inspiration of Snow White  based on the life of Margaretha von Waldeck, a German countess born to Philip IV in 1533. was forced by her stepmother, Katharina of Hatzfeld, to move away to Brussels. There, Margarete fell in love with a prince who would later become Philip II of Spain. However, her parents had disapproved of the relationship as it was ‘politically inconvenient’. Margarete mysteriously died at the age of 21, apparently having been poisoned (ancient- origins.net,2019). However this is only one theory about the origins of the story. The Grimm story of “Snow White” takes an unusual turn from its other fairy-tale counterparts, it can be interpreted as a story with a lesson centered around desirable qualities for women. The step-mother that has very strong (Grimm, Zipes,2016) characteristic of her being cunning and very intelligent. However Snow White is seen as rather by her beauty and being very naive. Snow White consistently counterpoints the Queen’s jealous striving to kill her regardless, this is not achieved by the queen as many people pity her and do everything to help her because of her childlike innocence and beauty. This is evident for example by the huntsman who was ordered to kill Snow White by the queen personally but the huntsman had describes her as a “pretty child” and lets her go, which then leads us over to when the seven dwarfs decide not to cast her out when they find Snow White in their home. Even the Queen personally attempts to devise the poison apple and kills Snow White, she is saved by the Prince because he finds her to be “the fairest of them all.” The Queen dies at the end of the story while Snow White lives happily ever after with the Prince, implying that the Queen’s cunning was not enough to counter the power of Snow White’s elegance. This suggests that the moral of the story is that the concept of real beauty is another theme discussed in this story (pitt.edu,2019).

 

The evil Queen may be beautiful on the outside, but she is wicked and ugly on the inside and that this vanity that destroys her at the end. Snow White, in contrast, is beautiful both inside and outside.  This break down suggests that the fairy tale is pleasant and suitable for the young readers, the first edition of Snow White is very different than the modern Snow White. The Grimm brothers had kept the Queen as Snow Whites mother or stepmother trying to kill her  -Now the queen was the most beautiful woman in all the land, and very proud of her beauty...Now Snow-White grew up, and when she was seven years old, she was so beautiful that she surpassed even the queen herself ...Mirror, mirror on the wall (Grimm, Rackham, 2016), Who in this land is the fairest of all? The mirror said: You, my queen, are fair; it is true. But Little Snow-White is still A thousand times fairer than you- Since the stories weren't actually written by the Grimm brothers in the first edition it was more of passed down stories, therefore the first edition being kept the aspect of being a mother. However the Grimm brothers 'held motherhood sacred,' which lead to changes created in the later editions also due to the fact there were sociological evidence for the changes. They felt that these traits may offend the readers due to the reasons of many females dying at a young age during childbirth in the 18th and 19th century, there were many occurrence where the father had found a younger female and had remarried. There were many cases where the new wife may be close to the age to the oldest child, which may indicate that the new wife may be jealous of the beauty and childlike innocence.

 

Another way to view Snow Whites mother as being cruel and wanting her only daughter dead may relate to postnatal depression. PND is a type of depression some women may experience after they have had a baby. It is suffered by a mother following childbirth, typically arising from the combination of hormonal changes in her body, psychological adjustment to motherhood, and fatigue. It usually developed in the first four to six weeks  

after child birth, although in some cases it may not develop for several months. There is often no reason for the depression. There are many symptoms of postnatal depression, such as low mood, feeling unable to cope and difficulty sleeping, but many women are not aware that they have the condition. Snow White mother may have been suffering from this illness which may indicate the reasoning for her feeling endangered by her own daughter. There are cases where a mother feels the need of harming herself or the child. Nowadays there is treatment for this mental illness but this was not discovered until the late 19th century. Even in the culture of the 18th century women would have been put into asylums if there was a sign of any mental health disorders. There is however no evidence to know if the Grimm brothers  were portraying the Queen as a mentally ill woman that unfortunately was unable to be treated for PND. The filtration of the fairy tale in the later edition would have a better reasoning for changing the character into a stepmother that would rather be jealous woman that would rather inherit her husband's wealth.

 

 

Chapter Two


       Snow White is a figure of the upper class which was visible in the description “she had a little daughter that was as white as snow”. The upper class in modern societies is the social class composed of people who hold the highest social status, usually are the wealthiest members of society, and possess the greatest political power.  According to this view, the upper class is generally distinguished by immense wealth which is passed on from generation to generation. Prior to the 20th century, the emphasis was on aristocracy which is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, this had greatly emphasized generations of inherited noble status, not just recent wealth. There was also a division between the middle class and the working class. The beauty of the upper class is seen as being pale and well dressed, people that were tan were seen as working class citizens as they were working outdoors. It is rather seen that the story of Snow White rather shows that you are better off being in the working class that you are rather happier it is visible that even Grumpy heads to work with a spring in his step. In Snow White the working class is represented by seven dwarfs, dwarfs have been taken advantage of even since ancient Egypt they were collected, indulged, sometimes abused, and sent by royalty as gifts. In ancient Egypt, dwarfs were associated with Bes and Ptah which were gods of childbirth and creativity this has helped enhance their status. However in the western culture dwarfs were famously present in the courts of ancient Rome, dwarfs gratified royalty's appetite for violence and lasciviousness. 

 

It is seen that the court dwarfs were treated better and a more well off lifestyle than a free dwarf, they would be better clothed offered good food and even got some artists attention for example Diego Velázquez. Velázquez was appointed as a Spanish court painter for the leading figure King Philip IV as well as painting portraits for the Royal family. The reason why Velázquez painted the dwarfs was because he was trying to show his sympathy for court jesters in his paintings after he was surrounded by dwarfs for many years while being employed by the royal court. 

 

 Velázquez painted dwarfs with the same humanity that he did for the royal family as Velázquez  wanted to show that dwarfs were no less than human beings.There was certain reasoning for the visual effects or role of a court dwarf.  The court dwarfs had their specific placement right next to the king or even the queen in a royal court during public appearances and ceremonies, since the dwarfs were so small, the king appeared much larger and visually enhanced his powerful position, this gave a clear view of who is in charge. Other than court jesters who were professional entertainers and clowns, court dwarfs were also used as "natural fools" to create amusement due to their unusual bodies. Their appearance also created allusions of mythology and magic like kobolds and wights. In the story itself we can see that the dwarfs are hard working men that go to the mines everyday however the Grimm brothers never gave the dwarfs any names they are referred to as “the first one , the second one” this shows the status of the dwarfs as being belittled when compared to the other characters. This told us a lot about the society then as well as now. Even nowadays people with dwarfism also known as achondroplasia experience lots of discrimination due to their condition they would have problems with finding employment as from the employers perspective they believe that people with dwarfism may be impaired physically or mentally which causes many people to think that people with dwarfism are handicapped.

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Chapter Three


         The further develop my understanding I read A Short History of Fairy Tales by Marina Warner. Marina Warner is a British novelist, short story writer, historian and mythographer. She is known for many of her non-fiction books relating to feminism as well as myth. She is a professor in the Department of Literature, Film and Theatre at the University of Essex, and gave the Reith Lectures on the BBC in 1994 on the theme of 'Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time.  Warner has a huge interest in fairy tales over a long writing life, Warner has she explores here a multitude of tales through the different ages, their different manifestations on the page, the stage, and the screen. From the remarkable rise of Victorian and Edwardian literature then to develop to the contemporary children’s stories, Warner unfolds a large amount of examples from a variety of fairy tales such as examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers’ Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realisations including Walt Disney’s Snow White. Warner has opened the book with giving a brief history of fairy tales as well as explaining the purpose of one. She explained the different symbols in a fairytale as well as the purpose of the forest the river and the animals, we were also given the terminology as well as the meaning behind each decision making (Warner, 2014). Warner also gave a brief history of the Grimm brothers themselves as well as other artist that would have created woodcuts for the illustrations as well as other writers themselves. In the book we also found out a lot about the newer Disney movies as well as the changes made by Disney compared to the originals and how they were watered down to make it more suitable to the younger readers. However it is believed by some that such a drastic change in the stories loses its values, the story is not as powerful and does not have as much moral to it as it did before. Warner strongly believes that “Snow White does not record a single, appalling crime, but testifies to a structural and endemic conflict in society that was political and social” the crime were aimed rather more personally than for all. The mothers intention to kill Snow White was not political or to show structure it is rather aimed for her to be more confident, to know that she is the “fairest of them all” and that no one will ever be prettier than her. More psychologically we can see that in the two versions: the original by Grimm brothers as well as in the Disney version, the mother  or even the stepmother is seen to be driven by evil. We can see that both vanity and envy are the twin engines that drive the story. The Queen want Snow Whites youth and beauty, and  in real life, envy provides the catalyst for ruthless behaviour. In the case of Snow White, the envier demands nothing less than the destruction of the envied one for her own personal desire. In the story we can see that the queen embodies traits we associate with evil such as rage, envy, jealousy, greed, self-absorption, cunning cleverness, and eerie powers. Which shows the queens troubled mind. she seems like her ways and tricks are rather from a nightmare which is also noticeable since she had banished her daughter. For the young reader that is exposed to the original story you would believe that it would have a psychological effect. However no matter how many times the Grimm brothers have filtered the story it still had an eerie, horror like effect. On the other hand the children that were exposed to the original story back in 1812 were expected to be more mature at a younger age. This exposure was not seen as extreme or bad, compared to know parents would avoid this type of exposure.

 

The Disney  version would be chosen rather than the Grimm brothers original as the details would not be so gruesome. For example the obvious change is that the queen is a stepmother rather than a mother. This may ensure that the child would not have a bad impression of a mother and would rather cherish her (Bee, 1996). In the Grimm fairy tale we can see that the mother tried to kill Snow White three times for example a corset, poisoned comb and a poisoned apple rather than once in the Disney edition which was by a poisoned apple. Many parents would believe that choosing the watered down version to not expose the young mind to the harsh and violent behaviours, this is similar to the Bobo doll experiments by Albert Bandura between 1961 and 1963. Bandura had studied children's behaviour after they watched a human adult model act aggressively towards the Bobo doll. There are different variations of the experiments. The most notable experiment measured the children's behaviour after seeing the human model get rewarded, get punished, or experience no consequence for physically abusing the Bobo doll. The experiments are empirical methods to test Bandura's social learning theory. The social learning theory claims that people mostly learn by observing, imitating, and modelling . It demonstrates that people learn not only by being rewarded or punished however they can also learn from watching somebody else being rewarded or punished which will lead them to copy the actions. These experiments are important because they resulted in many more studies concerning the effects of observational learning. The new data from the studies has practical implications, for example by providing evidence of how children can be influenced by watching violent media.Following my research from reading Helen Bees textbook “the developing child”. This text book was created to understand the development of a child's mind as well as their growth and factors that create the child as a whole. Bee explained the stages to Piaget's theory which break down the idea that the child has already started to learn and adapt since being in the womb of the mother the child starts to develop and learn ever since he or she is born. The child also starts to develop play time which include sensorimotor play, constructive play and the first pretend play. Looking at the pretend play the child starts to pretend to feed themselves or a toy, pretending to be the parent this shows the link to the Bobo doll experiment as the child would “copy” what they see. Parents decide to read fairy tales and stories for their children to develop their language skills as well as understanding skills. This language development also opens opportunities on broadening the child's mind imagination and deepen their creativity (Bee, 1996) (Blewitt, 1986). Since our minds had changed over the years  and centuries we try and protect our children, we do everything we can to keep them safe and try and not expose them to any form of trauma, we try and keep their mind pure to help them develop over the years and different stages of the development. Looking at the two versions it is understandable why over the years people believe that the Grimm story was seen so grim. The queen was portrayed as very cruel, very ill minded and it is hard for young people to actually see what's real and what’s not. By growing up with the original story I believe the child may have problems with associating to the fact that the mother is good, because of such descriptions the child may have problems linking that the story is a fairy tale and that the real mother is good and nothing is bad about her and she is not an evil witch.

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Conclusion

 

        From the research I have carried out from the origins of fairy tales to the development of a child's mind as well as different theories and experiments about the growth of a child's behaviour, it is clearly stated why fairy tales may be watered down and tried to be made more safe. Since the development and research had reached its peak over the years, it makes a clear mark that our minds develop differently than it did in the 19th century and we do not expect children to be mature and adult like at the age of 8. We try to keep the child innocence pure and safe for as long as possible, we do not  want to cause any trauma by scary events in such stories but we would much rather broaden their imagination and vocabulary by reading them such books. The story of Snow White touches on theories such as unknown or even undiagnosed mental illnesses, discrimination as well as family feuds es. Disney had played a safe card by changing its character of the evil queen to be a stepmother as it will justify her actions as it may be due to greed for the kings wealth or even jealousy that she is not the only royal female. However if it was to be kept to the Grimm version, many questions may fall such as was the mother depressed or was she purely cruel after having her child. I personally believe that the Grimm Brothers story is very beautiful and well written compared to  the Disney version however I would rather a child to be shown the safe Disney version to keep the child behaviour in place rather than violent.

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Bibliography

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Books:

 

  • Bee, H. (1996). The Developing Child. 6th ed. New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

  • Grimm, J., Grimm, W. and Rackham, A. (2018). Grimm's complete fairy tales. San Diego, CA, United States: Advantage Publishers Group.

  • Grimm, J., Grimm, W., Zipes, J. and Dezsö, A. (2016). The original folk and fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. New Jersey, United States: Princeton University Press.

  • Warner, M. (2014). Once upon a time. Oxford University Press.

 

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Journal: 

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