Exploring The Theme Of Greed In Grimm's Fairy Tales

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The Grimm Fairy tales Fairy tales have existed for thousands of years. Some of the most famous fairy tales were German in origin and were collected by the Grimm brothers. Jakob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm were scholars that spent most of their time together. In 1838, they began writing a German dictionary while they were working as librarians. In 1840 king Fredrich Wilhelm IV sent both brothers to the Royal Academy of Sciences. (Gioia) (pp.12-13) Following this the two brothers spent the rest of their lives teaching at the University of Berlin. The two brothers were also known for other projects such as, books about mythology, scholarly works on topics such as, linguistics and medieval studies. They also worked on compiling an ambitious German dictionary. (Myint) The Grimm’s fairy tales, however became their most famous piece of work. The Brothers never intended the stories to be for children, “The Grimm’s thought the stories and their morals emanated naturally from the German people in an oral tradition, and they wanted to preserve them before the tales were lost forever. In gathering the tales, the Grimm’s made a unique contribution to folklore.” (Zipes). The stories routinely included sex, violence, incest, and copious footnotes. …show more content…

The theme of greed is very strong throughout this story, the godson had wealth, power, respect, and fame. This however was not enough for the man when the king was sick, he disobeyed Deaths rules in order to increase his wealth. The godson was lucky enough to be forgiven, however he disobeyed is godfather again in order to marry the king’s daughter and have a surplus of power and fame. Human nature is wired to never be satisfied and because of this many will ignore what is right from wrong even when it can potentially harm others. This story tells of the negative outcomes greed can inflict upon someone’s life.

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