Grimm to Disney

The Disney and Grimm version of “Snow White” are completely different. They have little similarities. Let’s start off with the differences. In Disney’s version, Snow White is an orphan with both parents dead. In the Grimm’s tale, the young girl’s mother dies and she is left with her father and stepmother. The prince shows up in the beginning of the movie and sings a ballad with Snow White instead of staying in the cottage with the dwarfs and asking to keep her. In the movie, the dwarfs have names and personalities, yet in the tale, they have very little characteristics and have no names. The evil queen comes only once in Disney’s version with the apple. In the tale, she comes three times with a lace, comb, and apple. In the very end, the queen dies from trying to push a boulder onto the dwarfs but in the tale she dances in hot iron shoes until she dies. A few similarities is that the apple kills Snow White in both versions. The coffin that Snow White is placed in is built of gold. And...

Cinderella is considered to be a “rise tale”, rising in social class through magic and marriage. This is not as realistic as many tales make it out to be. Someone can reach success or riches through marriage, not so much magic. Some may consider winning the lottery as magic but it is just luck. We always see people who marry into riches. Movies, TV, and books often show the girl who is poor and falls in love with the rich boy. The family with the money dislike the girl and believe that she is out for their money. The poor family tells their daughter that the boy is just using her. The two don’t listen to the families and fall madly in love. It’s the classic romance that every person wishes for. It happens, sure, but we mostly see people who grew up in the middle class stay in the middle class. Those who grew up in lower income houses tend to stay in the social class. People can change their social standings but if someone grew up with parents who did not go to college and work mi...

As everyone knows, fairy tales have magic in them. Magic wands, fairies, talking animals, a maid turning into a princess for the night. However, no one asks why they are like this, we accept them as they are. For the most part, we read fairy tales as a lesson to children. Don’t take food from strangers, you could die. Don’t talk to strangers, they could eat you and your grandmother. But what are the underlying reasons or meanings behind these fairytales? Sleeping Beauty, for instance, is studied by Frudains and they have a lot to say on the meaning of the tale. Between the ages of ten and fourteen children become involved in only themselves. They hide in their rooms and become cranky and irritable. Freudians believe that Sleeping Beauty sleeping for 100 years symbolizes this period of children's lives. When the prince wakes the princess up with a kiss is to represent the idea of sexual awakening of teenagers. Fairy tales also hold certain character motifs. There is always an e...

In this blog entry I will be comparing the film, “Brothers Grimm” and the real life of the Grimm brothers. There are a lot of differences between the two, most of which are fiction from the movie. However, let me start off with what is true throughout the movie. First off, it is true that Jacob and Wilhelm were brothers. Second, Germany was occupied by the French during the brothers childhood and for part of their adulthood. This is where we start to vear into fiction territory. Although Germany was occupied by the French, the French never went out and captured the Grimm brothers. Even in the movie, the roles of the brothers were switched. Jacob, who in real life was the oldest and took the role as the parent when their father died, was portrayed as the weird brother that Wilhelm had to be in charge of. In the movie, Wilhelm was a playing but both brothers were so focused on their studies that it wasn’t their lifestyle to go out to bars and sleep with girls. The movie showed the ...

Hello all! Welcome to my blog on the Grimm Brothers and the Disney versions of the tales. To start off I would like to explain why I chose this course as my freshman seminar. I was flipping through the packet that came in the beginning of the summer, trying to see if anything stuck out to me. I have to be totally honest, I wasn't completely thrilled to be picking a course, I was in denial that I was leaving for college in a few months. I was finally able to sit down with my parents and sort through the courses that seemed more interesting than others. I narrowed down my decision to two courses that seemed interesting. One was in my field of study, English, and the other was Grimm to Disney. I had heard over and over that your freshmen seminar should be something that you're interested in, something fun, something that could spread your horizons. I knew that Grimm to Disney would probably be the course for me. A course that I could learn something completely new in. In this se...