Hansel and Gretel

Week 11: November 1- 10

Hansel and Gretel

The Grimm’s fairy tale of “Hansel and Gretel” and the MGM version had many similarities but also differences. Overall the moral and lesson of the fairy tale remained the same as well as all the characters and their names. The witch still captures the children and Gretel is the one that saves them from her eating them. Also, both versions had a famine within them which is the reason for most of the family’s issues.

Some differences within the story is the stepmother within the Grimm’s version convinces her husband to take Hansel and Gretel to woods and attempts to leave them two different times. The second attempt worked, and the children were then captured by the witch. Within the MGM version the stepmother is their mother and she send the children to the woods to collect berries for dinner since they had let the donkey in the house and he then ate their dinner. From being sent into the woods they accidentally get lost in the woods. Another major difference is the ending while somethings are the same most has been changed. Gretel takes the witches staff and does a spell to switch the places of Hansel and the witch, he was about to be crushed by a machine so then the witch died. Once, she died the gingerbread people outside the house turn into children and the father finds them and returns them all to safety. Within the Grimm’s version Gretel does kill the witch but she pushes her into the oven and shuts the door, from then the children ride a duck across a river and after a month since they first were left they make it back home.

I believe the director of the movie made these changes to make the movie longer and more interesting. The donkey adds a lot of humor to the movie which is completely unnecessary but keeps the audience engaged in the movie. I also think he left the “mom” figure as Hansel and Gretel’s mother to make her not look so evil since it really focused more on the evil witch instead of a evil stepmother role.