A Fairy Tale About A Boy Who Left Home To Learn About Fear
Who wrote it?
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
Where can it be found?
in The Annotated Brothers Grimm
Edited by Maria Tatar
Edited by Maria Tatar
Adaptation?
Recorded by the Grimms
My thoughts in exactly 10 words:
No fear, no sense, and an overworked sense of compassion.
Extended thoughts:
I had never heard this tale before, and it strikes me as one that would work more as “tell around the fireplace” one rather than something that has been reworked in modern retellings. However, I think I have seen similar concepts in American slap-stick comedy movies, but more in the sense of a boy who is too stupid to know what love is, rather than fear; so less ‘trying to warm dead bodies by the fire’ and more awkward humour and spilling drinks down girls’ tops. One thing that did jump out was how loyal this boy was. Even as his father was effectively disowning him, all he wants to do is please.
Favourite Quote:
“Learn whatever you want,” his father said. “It’s all the same to me. Here are fifty talers. Go off and do whatever you want out in the world, but don’t tell anyone where you’re from or who your father is. I’m ashamed of you.”
“Yes, Father, as you wish,” he said. “If that’s what you want, you can count on me.”
“Yes, Father, as you wish,” he said. “If that’s what you want, you can count on me.”
Is it annotated?
Yes
Most interesting thing I learned from the annotations:
Two things: that the story is an allegory for fear of sexuality (according to some scholars) as it is the wife, in the bed, that finally introduces him to fear – And that another way of looking at it is that it is the female who brings out the humanity in the male. “Because to feel fear is human; not being able to feel it is inhuman.”
Moral of the story in my own words:
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