Turning Fairytales Into Reality: Hans In Luck

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 18:50:02 GMT

By Alexis Branson

Every little girl, and sometimes even a little boy, grows up to the sounds of fairytales. Whether it is their parents reading them a story before bed, or watching a movie, we all grow up with the idea of a fairytale. It’s everywhere. Even at 17, I am still surrounded by fairytales. I go to the movies and they consist of a love story with a happily ever after and a crazy unrealistic lifestyle. I listen to the radio and every other song talks about finding that perfect someone, of having that perfect life. But that’s all it is: a fairytale. The unrealistic expectations we have stem from these stories. We all want our own fairytale. The perfect life, the happily ever after, the prince and the princess: we spend our whole lives trying to make our life like the ones in the tales. But here is the thing: It is called a fairytale for reason. It’s just a tale. I believe life can have fairytale aspects; you can have a happy ending. The idea of everything being perfect though, is unachievable. I think that most people read the surface and say “she had a happy ending and a perfect prince. Why can’t I?” and forget there is a bad part. There is always a villain, whether it is an evil witch or the character’s conscience. After looking through my books I found an old copy of Grimms’ Fairy Tales by Brothers Grimm. If you have never read these stories, I suggest you do. You can learn from these tales, for there are the fairytales that have nothing at all to do with princes and princesses, but of life and what you should take from it. For instance, the story “Hans In Luck” can teach us to always be positive, no matter what the circumstance because everything happens for a reason. If you read the story, you will learn that it is about a young servant who has worked seven hard years of labor. At the end of the seven years he asks his master for his pay, a large silver coin, and heads back toward his mother. On the way he runs into many a character where he makes exchanges. At points he has a horse, a cow, a pig, a goose, and then at the end a large stone. Throughout the story I kept thinking, why is this story called Hans In Luc k? For when he got the horse, he fell off. When he received the cow, it would not give him milk. When he received the pig, he later learns it was stolen. But after a little while of thinking, I finally realized it. He stayed optimistic. These material things meant nothing to him, he was just happy that he was going home. Hans believed these things happened for a reason. On the surface it is a very simplistic story. In fact I felt that the character was not complex at all, but I guess that is what makes the moral of the story. By having a simple mind, he was able to live life like he should. Material items didn’t make his life, returning home did. This story kind of hit home, since I am a senior and will be moving away next year. Whenever I think of college, I don’t think of how I will be away from my family, I think of how I am going to be able to afford it, and what friends I will make, and what I will spend my time doing. And that’s where I am wrong in my thinking. I should be thinking about how I am going to return home. I should be thinking about how it will be living away from my family. *** Throughout this blog I will re-read the book of fairy tales. I think there are very important lessons to be learned from these stories, but they aren’t the ones we see on the surface. Because life isn’t a fairytale, but we can all learn to live as though it is one.