Iron Hans Literary Analysis

Will Holmes
Mrs. Willocks
English II Honors
1 April 2015
Appropriate Content for Kids in “Iron Hans” Once upon a time there came a literary genre known as fairy tales. They were mystical and magical with varies of twist and turns but always brought joy to my early childhood. Fairy tales where originally an oral tradition but became a written one in the late 1600’s. The origins that we know today are found in sources varied as mythology and The Bible and was inherited by the Grimm brothers, Jacob and Wilhelm, in the early 1800’s after Jacob was appointed as the court librarian and began reading fairy tales. In the days before DSTV, PlayStation, and computer games fairy tales fulfilled the role of entertainment. The Grimm brother’s fairy tale,
As a parent, I would want my child to make the decisions that would better them in life, not just because someone told them or wanted them to. Gadd states, “Sometimes the stories show that it is necessary to go against those in authority if we are able to find our own identity”. In making this comment, Gadd argues that it is ok to revolt against the more powerful if it can bring the best out of you. In the fairy tale the “boy” releases the “wild man” from his cage which later leads the boy into the woods to find the real him. The boy finds out he is not a well guarder, nor a gardener, nor a waitress, but a worthy, fighting prince. An example from the fairy tale is when the boy was used as a gardener, he picked and brought the king’s daughter a wreath of wild field-flowers just for her to smell the pleasing scent but which eventually lead to her giving him an handful of ducats. Another example from the fairy tale is when the boy lets the wild man out the cage to go free and to guard his well of gold and the wild man rewards him for his actions with an unlimited supply of gold and also his help at any time for any circumstance. Final example is when the boy made the decision to help the king in war because that was his home, he was given the approval to marry the king’s
The Grimm bothers acknowledges to everyone that their fairy tales were really never meant for kids to read, but over time some fairy tales has been edited and changed for all ages. Mentioned previously, the psychologist Elizabeth Danish, thinks that, “Fairy tales can sometimes be far removed from reality and make kids believe in magic and etc. which could lead to dissatisfaction”, (“Influence of Fairy Tales on Children). The expert also thinks that, “We so happily expose our children to the stories, but in some cases they can be scary and can carry absurd and unusual messages”. To further explain her claims, the more children read fairytales the less they are susceptible to this statistical probabilities. Children will grow up and not understand the world and how it works: death, love, loss, and robbery. These are events that take place in the real world, and if children grow up thinking they can magically make something appear, than they will not be prepared for the real world. Another expert, mentioned earlier in the essay, Stephen Evans, thinks that “Behind the safe titles, lies dark stories of sex of sex and violence tales of murder, mutilation, cannibalism, infanticide and incest, as one academic puts it”, (Are Grimm’s Fairy Tales too Twisted for Children). Based on his claim, if little children read fairy tales with the