Grimm and the Brothers Grimm
In 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published their first edition of Children’s and Household Tales, featuring eighty-six fairy tales collected from throughout Germany. By the time the final edition was released in 1857, the tally of what is now more commonly known as Grimm’s Fairy Tales had risen to 211 and contained the majority of the most widely read stories in western culture. Popular legend holds that the Brothers Grimm traveled the various municipalities of modern day Germany collecting these works from the oral recitals of the kinsfolk in order to preserve the stories for prosperity, but the NBC drama Grimm hints that their effort was more sinister in nature. According to the mythology of the series, the fairy tales are real and Children’s and Household Tales is a resource for future Grimms to combat the supernatural evils that are contained within.
While Grimm is obviously a fictional interpretation of the work conducted by the Brothers Grimm in the Nineteenth Century, academic author Jack Zipes contends that Jacob and Wilhelm had ulterior motives in regards to their published volumes nonetheless. “What fascinated or compelled the Grimms to concentrate on old German literature was a belief that the most natural and pure forms of culture—those which held the community together—were linguistic and were to be located in the past,” Zipes explains in The Brothers Grimm: From Enchanted Forests to the Modern World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). “They were intent on using the tales to document basic truths about the customs and practices of the German people and on preserving their authentic ties to the oral tradition.”
Germany was not a single nation during the years in which the Brothers Grimm operated but a series of individual municipalities under various jurisdictions. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were thus “nationalists” in that they believed in a united Germany, especially after the Napoleonic Wars of the early part of the Nineteenth Century. The time period also witnessed unrest in the ancient feudal system that governed the region, as well as the rise of the German bourgeois. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were initially born into the upper class of society but were reduced to poverty after the death of their father in 1796, only to later ascend the cultural ladder by means of their own academic achievements.
The political viewpoints of the Grimms are thus reflected within the fairy tales that they collected. Despite popular legend that the two brothers traveled the region for first-hand accounts from peasants, in actuality the majority of the stories were told to them by friends and other members of academia. Grimm’s Fairy Tales are also not exclusively German, as many of the narratives are French in nature. Still, Jacob and especially Wilhelm edited and re-wrote the popular myths to reflect their own beliefs in regards to both the German people and society in general.
“Through socially symbolic acts of compensation, they enabled readers to gain pleasure from different depictions of powerful transformation,” Jack Zipes writes in regards to the Brothers Grimm. “The tales celebrated the rise of seemingly ineffectual, disadvantaged individuals who were associated with such bourgeois and religious virtues as industry, diligence, cleverness, loyalty, and honesty. Moreover, the critique of unjust social and political conditions in most of the Grimms’ fairy tales was realized metaphorically by magical means that reconciled the readers of their tales to their helplessness and impotence in society. Paradoxically, the result was a rationalization of unjust conditions through magic, which also provided hope that alternative ways of living were possible.”
As previously mentioned, the stories of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm likewise have ulterior meanings on the NBC drama Grimm—the tales are real and the brothers recorded them in order to assist future decedents defeat the supernatural entities at the heart of the narratives. Portland police detective Nick Burkhardt is one such descendent, and his ability to “see” the beasts that lie beneath human exteriors is a key component in his newly-ordained mission in life. Ironically, it is Burkhardt’s Aunt Marie who explains the role of a “Grimm” before she succumbs to cancer despite the stereotypical nature that women play within the actual Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
“For the most part these heroines indicate that a woman’s best place is in the house as a diligent, obedient, self-sacrificing wife,” Jack Zipes observes in regards to such iconic female characters as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. “In the majority of these tales and their imitations, the male is her reward, and it is apparent that, even though he is an incidental character, he arrives on the scene to take over, to govern, and control her future.”
Marie Kessler, meanwhile, is depicted as a legendary slayer of the Grimms’ monsters. “Oh yeah, I heard of her,” a Wieder Blutbad—or “Big Bad Wolf”—tells Nick Burkhardt upon mention of the name during the pilot episode of Grimm. Whereas the introduction of Aunt Marie may appear as a deviation from the original text, however, the Blutbad who goes by the human name of Monroe is a continuation of another Grimm tradition. It turns out that Monroe is “reformed” and enters an alliance with Burkhardt as the newly baptized Grimm makes his way into the supernatural world in which he suddenly finds himself.
“If a Grimm protagonist does not communicate with helpers, whether they be beasts, fairies, devils, giants, or hags, he or she is lost,” Jack Zipes explains in The Brothers Grimm. “It is interesting that the Grimm protagonist is nothing alone, by him or herself, but becomes omnipotent when assisted by small creatures or outsiders—those figures who are marginal and live on the border between wilderness and civilization, between village and woods, between the earthly world and the other sacred world.” The same holds true for Nick Burkhardt and Monroe on Grimm.
It is also fitting that Portland, Oregon, was chosen as the locale for Grimm both within its storyline as well as the site for the production of the series. The picturesque region is filled with the types of forests, mountains and landscape that dominated Nineteenth Century Germany and in which the fairy tales themselves took place. Many episodes of Grimm likewise originate in the forest, whether in the case of a modern day Little Red Riding Hood’s abduction or the contemporary equivalent of Goldilocks finding a cabin inhabited by a family of Jägerbars.
“Inevitably they found their way into the forest,” Jack Zipes observes about the Grimms’ fairy tales, but he could just as easily be writing about Grimm itself. “It is there that they lose and find themselves. It is there that they gain a sense of what is to be done. The forest is always large, immense, great, and mysterious. No one ever gains power over the forest, but the forest possesses the power to change lives and alter destinies. In many ways it is the supreme authority on earth and often the great provider. It is not only Hansel and Gretel who get lost in the forest and then return wiser and fulfilled.”
Nick Burkhardt likewise finds himself lost in the forest of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and emerges wiser because of it. He appears intent on being a different kind of “Grimm” than mere slayer of the supernatural as he balances his new role with that of police detective, and even offers a contemporary form of understanding in regards to the creatures he encounters. Not only does he befriend the Wieder Blutbad known as Monroe but he later allows a Jägerbar Papa Bear to assist in finding the young couple taken hostage for an ancient coming-of-age ritual to be performed by his son.
While the original intent of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm was to preserve the traditions of the Old World through the fairy tales which they collected, the stories likewise offered a path to a new and better society. “The Grimms’ tales reflect the concern and contradictions of different civilizing processes, and despite the atavistic aspects and patriarchal discourse, their tales still read like innovative strategies for survival,” Jack Zipes writes. “Most of all, they provide hope that there is more to life than mastering the art of survival. Their ‘once upon a time’ keeps alive our longing for a better modern world that can be created out of our dreams and actions.”
In the NBC drama Grimm, the hope for a “better modern world” rests on the shoulders of Nick Burkhardt as he attempts to balance the “once upon a time” nature of his calling with the contemporary times of the Twenty First Century. In this sense, Grimm not only offers a fantasized interpretation of Grimm’s Fairy Tales but contains strains from the original intent of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm themselves—the possibility of a brighter future through the lessons of the past.
Anthony Letizia (December 28, 2011)
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