Fairy Tale and Film

Grimms’ Tales
grow out of the straightforward wish for 
improving one’s own situation’ (1987: 127). Tales often side with an 
underdog who is low down the economic ladder and often exploited 
in some way. Soldiers are dispensed with after years of service, masters 
cheat apprentices and servants of their just wages, and even kings fail 
to behave fairly, setting a wager (generally with their daughter and king-
dom at stake) and then trying to welch on the deal when a lowly figure 
manages to win.
3
These scenarios typify the Grimm collection: creating 
sympathetic figures, unfairly taken advantage of, who understandably 
seek to better their situation – and legitimating a corresponding degree 
of craftiness on their part. 
Tempting as it may be to ascribe socialist sympathies to such tales, 
protagonists don’t have to experience any injustice, necessarily, to be 
acquisitive, and can often behave ruthlessly towards members of the 
same class. Although Zipes perceives progressive examples in the 
Grimm 
Tales
, particularly where a coalition of outcasts are formed in such tales 
as ‘The Bremen Town Musicians’ and ‘How Six Made their Way in the 
World’,
4
for the most part, as he acknowledges, a ‘might makes right’ 
dictum is adhered to, in which ‘he who has power can exercise his will, 
right wrongs, become ennobled, amass money and land, with women 
as prizes – and it is generally a man who accumulates the most power 
and wealth’ (2002a: 35). Good conduct may be rewarded in certain 
tales, especially ‘youngest son’ narratives where kindness helps the 
hero attain a princess and a fortune, yet in a number of contrasting 
examples such virtues fail to feature, with cunning and callous self-
interest advanced as the route to success. In ‘The Knapsack, the Hat and 
the Horn’ the youngest son eschews material gain yet is nonetheless 

---

74 
Fairy Tale and Film
an opportunistic swindler. Rejecting the mountains of silver and gold 
claimed by his brothers, he tricks honest men of magical objects and 
seizes the power at his disposal to summon a vast army and claim a 
kingdom. Far from finding ensuing happiness with his princess, he kills 
her for betraying the source of his powers and finally reigns alone and 
unopposed. In similar fashion, in ‘The Little Peasant’, the hero’s ruth-
lessness is matched only by the gullibility of those he takes advantage 
of, resulting in a shockingly mercenary message in which the triumph 
of the underdog is aligned with wholesale massacre. If there is a cau-
tionary note to such tales it simply warns against meeting equal treach-
ery in others. In ‘The Golden Bird’ the youngest son prospers through 
following a fox’s advice, outwitting various kings to gain riches and a 
beautiful maiden. Proving avarice can easily break family bonds, his 
brothers try to kill their sibling, yet are discovered and put to death. 
It seems cunning is easily a match for a kind heart in these tales of 
unlikely heroes prospering – affirming a necessary degree of stealth to 
triumph in an unfair world. 
Far from siding with the downtrodden, we are invited to admire the 
most determined and duplicitous individuals, even if their actions seem 
heartless in the extreme, creating a distinct ambivalence in distinguish-
ing between right and wrong. Why labour honestly if cunning and luck 
can provide a quick-fix solution to problems? And why bother to treat 
others with consideration when apparent ‘heroes’ are shown to capi-
talise on perceived weaknesses such as a trusting nature? The appeal of 
such tales lies partly in the fact that characters can defy prescribed rules 
of behaviour and get away with it. After all, these stories were princi-
pally designed to entertain rather than instruct – even if this led to their 
disapproval. An interesting discrepancy may consequently result in how 
a character is presented and how we come to regard them. The hero of 
‘Aladdin’ (ATU 561), for example, is harshly described by Andrew Lang 
as ‘a careless idle boy who would do nothing but play all day long in 
the streets with little idle boys like himself. This so grieved the father 
that he died, yet in spite of his mother’s tears and prayers he would not 
mend his ways’ (Lang, 1993: 295). Far from pitying Aladdin’s lack of a 
father, he is directly blamed for the loss! Alongside other