Hansel and Gretel

Section I
Setting: Next to a great forest
Characters: a poor woodcutter with his wife and his two children
Story outset situation: little to eat, and once, when a great famine came to the land, he could
no longer provide even their daily bread.
The woodcutter and his Wife’s conversation: How can we feed our children when we have
nothing for ourselves?" – Woodcutter asks
Wife answers: "Early tomorrow morning we will take the two children out into the thickest
part of the woods, make a fire for them, and give each of them a little piece of bread, then
leave them by themselves and go off to our work. They will not find their way back home,
and we will be rid of them."
Woodcutter: "No, woman," said the man. "I will not do that. How could I bring myself to
abandon my own children alone in the woods? Wild animals would soon come and tear them
to pieces."
Wife: "then all four of us will starve. All you can do is to plane the boards for our coffins."
The children was listening to this. Gretel cried, but Hansel assured her that he knows what to
do and after the parents had gone to sleep he goes out and fills his pockets with white shiny
pebbles, glistening like silver coins in moon light.
Notes
SECTION I: Poverty, Parental Conflict, and Abandonment
 The story begins by depicting a family suffering from severe poverty and famine,
which compels the parents to consider abandoning their children.
 The tale is set against a historically accurate context, with reference to the Great
Famine of 1315–1317, during which millions of Europeans died.
 Bruno Bettelheim (1976), using Freudian psychoanalysis, interprets the famine as
symbolic of the child’s fear of maternal deprivation.
 Hunger in the story serves as a metaphor for longing and emotional emptiness when
parental care is lacking.
 Melanie Klein expands this view by suggesting that children project fear, anger, and
hatred onto caregivers, turning nurturing figures into threatening ones.
 The parents’ duplicity reflects emotional conflict; the mother is resolute in abandoning
the children, while the father is hesitant but ultimately compliant.
 The stepmother figure, who replaced the biological mother in later editions, embodies
both nurturing and threatening maternal qualities.
  Winnicott’s theory of parental ambivalence, especially his essay “Hate in the
Countertransference,” explains why caregivers may resent the demands children place
on them.
 Attachment theory by Main and Weston (1982) explains that rejection by a parent
intensifies a child’s attachment behavior, creating a painful cycle of dependence and
rebuff.
 Hansel and Gretel attempt to return to their parents despite knowing they were
abandoned, reflecting the powerful bond of attachment.
 Children, according to developmental theory, often believe they are responsible for
parental distress or failure.
 Hansel’s decision to collect white pebbles represents a coping strategy and early sign
of autonomy and resilience.
 The forest symbolizes both external danger and the inner psychological landscape of
fear, transformation, and growth, as suggested by Porteous (2002).
Section 2:
The parents are taking the children to the forest. The mother gives Gretel bread, and she puts
it in her pocket. When questioned why Hansel is looking back and stopping he says, he is
looking at his cat. But the mother dismisses this. Both parents are unaware that he was
dropping the stones.
The children were asked to collect twigs. The father makes a fire and ask them to stay there
as the parents go to collect more wood. They thought they heard the sound of axe on the
wood, but “It was a branch that he had tied to a dead tree and that the wind was beating back
and forth. After they had sat there a long time, their eyes grew weary and closed, and they fell
sound sleep.”
Once they got up Gretel began to cry but Hansel leads her to the house following the white
shiny pebbles and reaches their home by morning.
When the woman opened the door and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said, "You
wicked children, why did you sleep so long in the woods? We thought that you did not want
to come back."
But the father was overjoyed when he saw his children once more, for he had not wanted to
leave them alone.
Notes
SECTION II: First Abandonment, Return, and Family Dynamics
 The children are left in the forest near a fire under the pretense that their father will
remain nearby.
  The father deceives them by tying a branch to a tree to simulate the sound of chopping
wood, which illustrates his emotional conflict and weakness.
 Hansel’s act of dropping white pebbles allows them to retrace their steps and return
home safely.
 The white stones symbolize memory, hope, and internalized representations of good
parental figures.
 Upon their return, the stepmother scolds them, asking why they “slept so long,” while
the father is overjoyed to see them.
 This contrasting reaction demonstrates the emotional inconsistency and duplicity of
the parents.
 Research by Judy Dunn in the 1980s underscores the importance of sibling bonds in
emotional development and social learning.
 Brown and Dunn (1996) found that by age four, children interact more with siblings
than with parents, which aligns with Hansel and Gretel’s mutual support.
 Hansel provides guidance and reassurance, while Gretel relies on his judgment and
exhibits trust, reflecting their strong emotional connection.

Section 3
Famine and poverty has hit the family afgain and the mother asks the father to get rid of the
children. The man was very disheartened, and he thought, "It would be better to share the last
bit with the children."
“But the woman would not listen to him, scolded him, and criticized him. He who says A
must also say B, and because he had given in the first time, he had to do so the second time as
well.”
Like last time Hansel got up to collect the stones, but the mother had locked the door. In the
morning they were given bread, Hansel crumbles the bread and puts it in his pocket. This
time as he stops to drop the brewad crumbs he lies that he is just checking his pigeon.
The fire was made and the parents leave like last time, the children sleep and wake up to find
that again nobody came for them. So at night they try to find the crumbs, but to their dismay
birds have eaten all the crumbs
Notes
SECTION III: Second Betrayal and Psychological Breakdown
 Famine returns, and the mother insists once again that the children must be
abandoned, showing her increasing coldness.
  The father is emotionally broken but acquiesces, reinforcing the theme of moral
weakness.
 Hansel tries to repeat his earlier plan but is unable to collect pebbles because the door
is locked, symbolizing increasing helplessness.
 Instead, he drops breadcrumbs, which are consumed by birds, eliminating their path
back home.
 The loss of the breadcrumb trail reflects a breakdown in the children’s internal coping
mechanisms.
 This failure signifies a deepening of psychological trauma and disorientation.
 Freud and Klein interpret such repetitions in dreams or stories as unconscious
attempts to master unresolved trauma.
 The children’s repeated abandonment and longing to return home represent their
desire to repair broken attachments and overcome betrayal.

Section 4
Three days have passed, the children were hungry and tired and they saw a snow white bird
sitting on a branch and they followed the bird and reached a little house which was built
entirely from bread with a roof made of cake and the windows made of clear sugar.
"Let's help ourselves to a good meal," said Hansel. "I'll eat a piece of the roof, and Gretel,
you eat from the window. That will be sweet."
Hansel reached up and broke off a little of the roof to see how it tasted, while Gretel stood
next to the windowpanes and was nibbling at them. Then a gentle voice called out from
inside:

Nibble, nibble, little mouse,

The children answered:

The wind, the wind,

Hansel, who very much like the taste of the roof, tore down another large piece, and Gretel
poked out an entire round windowpane. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman, as old as
the hills and leaning on a crutch, came creeping out.She assured them that no harm will come
to them and lead them into the house, served a good meal, made nice beds for them.
The witch had built such a house only to lure children, and if she ever catches one she would
eat them. Witches have red eyes and cannot see very far, but they have a sense of smell like
animals, and know when humans are approaching.
She puts Hansel in a cage and asks Gretel to carry water and cook something for her brother.
He is to be fattened up.
Hansel was given the best things to eat every day while Gretel was only given Crayfish
shells.
Every morning she would ask Hansel to stick his finger out to check if he has fattened. But
Hansel will stick out only a bone of a chicken. After four weeks, she decides to eat him
anyway and asks Gretel to fetch some water to boil Hansel.
The next day the witch had made the fire in the ovenand asks Gretel to climb the oven ladder
to check if it is hot enough to bake the bread. But she says that she doesn’t know how to do
that, understanding that the witch intends to push Gretel into the oven once she climbs it. The
witch climbs the oven for showing Gretel. Gretel Pushes the Witch into the oven, killing her.
She helps Hansel out of the cage, they search the witch’s house and gathers pearls and
precious stones. They walk and reaches a water body, unable to cross. They ask a white duck
to carry them and it carries them to the other bank one at a time. They reach their home and
hugs their fther. The mother had died. Seeing the childrena dn the pearls and stones the father
is happy. The tale ends like this:
Now all their cares were at an end, and they lived happily together.

My tale is done,
A mouse has run.

And whoever catches it can make for himself from it a large, large fur cap.

SECTION IV: The Witch, the Gingerbread House, and Reversal of Power
 After wandering for days, the children follow a white bird, which leads them to a
gingerbread house, a magical structure made entirely of sweets.
 The gingerbread house initially appears to fulfill their dreams of nourishment and
comfort.
 However, the house is a trap set by a witch who lures children with promises of food
and safety.
 The white bird may represent a good internal object, possibly linked to the deceased
mother, leading the children into danger as part of their growth journey.
 The act of eating the house symbolizes the children’s oral aggression and deep
hunger, as interpreted by Bettelheim.
 Klein views the witch as initially embodying an idealized mother figure who quickly
turns into a persecutory figure.
 This transformation illustrates how caregivers can shift from nurturing to threatening
in the minds of children, particularly during times of fear and separation.
 The witch's plan to fatten Hansel and eat him represents maternal over-control and the
threat of engulfment.
 Hansel’s use of a chicken bone to trick the witch shows his regained agency and
psychological resilience.
 Gretel’s act of pushing the witch into the oven marks a decisive reversal of power and
an assertion of independence.
 This action can be seen as symbolic revenge against the destructive maternal figure.
 After defeating the witch, the children gather pearls and jewels from her house,
symbolizing the psychological rewards of overcoming fear and trauma.
 Tatar (2002) connects these themes to similar tales such as Vasilisa the Beautiful,
where hunger, abandonment, and cannibalism are also central.
 The children encounter a river they cannot cross together, and a white duck helps
them cross one at a time.
 This moment symbolizes individuation, as the siblings are now capable of facing
challenges independently.
 The duck may represent another internalized good object that helps in their final
transition toward maturity.
 The children return home with treasures to find that their stepmother has died, and
their father is overjoyed to see them.
 The father offers no acknowledgment or apology for his role in their abandonment.
 The story ends with a so-called happy ending, but this conclusion overlooks the deep
emotional trauma the children endured.
 Their resilience and independence are often celebrated, but these traits may also
conceal unresolved psychological wounds.
 Their violent triumph over the witch and acquisition of treasure may reflect envy and
omnipotent phantasy, not just heroism.
 In Humperdinck’s 1893 opera adaptation, the witch and the stepmother are portrayed
by the same performer, reinforcing the duality of maternal figures.
 The opera romanticizes the ending by reviving all the children the witch had captured,
which avoids the darker psychological implications of the tale.
 Both the parents and the witch in the story exhibit duplicity; they present as caregivers
but act with harm.
 This betrayal of trust mirrors real-life experiences of children in neglectful or abusive
homes, who often still seek attachment to their caregivers.
 Hunter (2001) notes that maltreated children frequently blame themselves for their
parents’ failure to love them, compounding their emotional distress.
 Fairy tales function as symbolic containers, as described by Bion (1962), helping
children process unconscious fears and anxieties.
 The night, a recurring setting in the tale, symbolizes the internal world where parental
figures shift from loving to frightening.
 The restoration of internal good objects is depicted symbolically—from the use of
white pebbles to the triumph over the witch.
 The tale illustrates how children struggle to maintain loving feelings in the face of
repeated frustrations and betrayals.
 A lingering question concerns why the white bird leads the children to the witch’s
house.
 The answer lies in the psychological truth that growth and maturity require facing
danger and mastering anxiety.
 Ultimately, the story acts as a container for primitive anxieties and destructive
impulses within the parent-child dynamic.
 It portrays a journey through emotional desolation, betrayal, and fear, ultimately
leading to psychological integration and resilience.