This semester, I have once again signed myself up for a Saturday class. Though there are few things that sound worse than waking up at 6:30 in the morning on a Saturday to make it to school by 8 a.m, it ensures that you start a productive day- that is, if you don't come back home and fall into deep hibernation afterwards. Not only is it tough waking up so early on a Saturday morning, but it is also exhausting having to keep yourself up for three hours, which is the usual time span of a Saturday class.
While it is my second time taking a Saturday class, and surely not my last, I embarked upon a ship of a very unique form of enlightenment this semester: the course of German Fairytales. This class knocks away any predetermined views you have had of prior tales, and any pre-existing knowledge you thought that you obtained through the spectacles of Walt Disney. It immerses you into the arms of the Brothers Grimm.
I remember entering this class on the very first day feeling superior to all due to my experiences in watching every Disney movie. "This class should be a piece of cake considering I am already familiarized with the plot of whatever tale she might throw at us," I thought. Boy, was I glad to be wrong.
The first tale that we have read in that class was one filled with vigor, disgust, and everything spicy. I couldn't believe my eyes nor my ears at the tale that we had been reading along to. I remember envisioning worms coming out of the eyelids of a little girl, and blood. There was definitely blood. Who knew how raw these tales truly were, and the fact that they all circled around an oral tradition made it even harder for me to understand.
They were, however, just as compelling as they were gruesome. They spur symbolism, irony, metaphor and simile within your head like no other literary works have in school before.
While on the first day of class, we responded with a common selection of Disney films when asked what our favorite fairytales were, the day our class commenced, we transmogrified our answers to diverse tales from the heavenly book of the Brothers Grimm.
