Crafty Kids: "Hansel and Gretel" and the Survival of the Cleverest

Parental abandonment, starvation, and exposure to predators are well-known motifs in The Brothers Grimm's "Hansel and Gretel" (1812), which belongs to the ATU 327 tale type. ATU 327 tales pit young, vulnerable protagonists against the cruelty of parents and the brutality of strangers. These stories are usually framed as a celebration of children's craftiness and resourceful use of language. With the central theme of the power of language to persuade, various versions of the fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" offer multiple ways to engage students as literary scholars and critical thinkers. This paper compares five classic ATU 327 versions with three contemporary retellings: Emma Donoghue's "The Tale of the Cottage" (1997), Megan Engelhardt "A Mouth to Speak the Coming Home" (2013), and Louise Murphy's novel The True Story of Hansel and Gretel (2003). In analyzing how the absence of home, food, and parental love and protection force Hansel and Gretel to become self-reliant in the classic versions, it is evident that contemporary retellings take a much more critical look at what parental neglect may mean for the child protagonists. Discussion of Bruno Bettelheim's interpretation of "Hansel and Gretel" in conjunction with more recent scholarship on this tale type provides perspectives on how students interpret ATU 327 stories in historical and social contexts.