Child Development with Hansel & Gretel

The various sets of sequences within childhood is interesting. I've only heard of Freud's theory in the past, but not the others. Between the ones we're currently studying, I think I most enjoy Erikson's and Kohlberg's. Erikson progresses as one might naturally expect and I appreciate how adulthood is also involved here. It's not as though you reach 18 are stop changing after all. Kohlberg is a different beast entirely, seeming to tackle moral levels as opposed to actual age versus behavior. I like to look for morals and lessons in stories aimed at younger readers, so this table caught my interest in that way.

Given these different systems, I'll take the story of Hansel and Gretel to take a stab at showing examples with. We all know Hansel and Gretel by the Grimm brothers. I'll be using the exact version from our textbook considering there are other altered versions of some of these stories. I'll start with Freud. The Phallic stage can apply here in a way. Though there's no overt affection for the daughter for her father, the two are both related. Both are the weaker of the pair they are placed in (Father and Mother, Hansel and Gretel) to the point where the father can't argue against his wife and Gretel is left to entirely depend on her brother for her survival after they're abandoned. Later both characters are champions, as the father welcomes his children happily and Gretel tricks the witch into the oven, saves her brother, and even returns with pearls and jewels to save the family from being tempted to leave the children in the woods again. Hansel obviously has more of a relationship with the witch that wants to eat them than he does with their mother, though both women are portrayed in a wicked light. The witch lusts after him in a way because she wishes to eat him. Hansel doesn't have much visible interest in her though, only her food.

Since the two are similiar, I'll move on to Erikson's 8 stages. His third stage speaks of initiative and guilt. We see Hansel showing this trait, where he thinks ahead after over hearing his parents talking about leaving the children in the forest. Instead of just crying in defeat like Gretel, he fetches white stones that he drops as his parents lead them off to show the children the way home. Of course this only worked the first time.

Now Piaget's is different and easier in a way. The stages are much simpler in concept which makes this exceedingly easy. The Concrete Operational stage works well into this story I feel. We see it from three points of view, the parents', the children's, and the witch's. The problems that everyone encounters are simple though difficult in a moral sense. A child might not agree with the decisions made consider several include murder and attempted murder, so they could think about other possible solutions as well. Though this could be closer to Formal Operational.

Finally the Kohlberg stages. The moral stages are very useful for this particular story. I'd identify much of this with the Preconventional level and the first stage within that. The children obey the parents who they know are taking them out to die. They obey the witch because they think they'll only be further rewarded. The mother has no consideration for anyone besides herself when it comes to the lack of food and honestly I feel if she could get rid of her husband as easily as the children, that she wold do exactly that.

Can you add on to this the child reading the tale (or having the tale read to her or him)?

As for the child's investment in the story, I think they might not take away everything I've mentioned, but I'd think given certain stages of development, they'd at least take away valuable lessons put into print: Don't accept candy from strangers, not everyone in the world has your best interests at heart. For younger children being read to, it might be good to explain to them the unlikelihood of the situation and how mom and dad have no intentions of leaving them out in the woods to starve. I always felt like this and other Grimm brothers' stories were a little too much for younger kids that may think that sort of thing.