The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
Nutcracker and the Mouse King is a story by ETA Hoffmann, published in 1816 in Berlin.
In this fairy tale art from the collection of The Serapion Brothers, the author portrayed in the fairy tales children Marie and Fritz the children Frederick and Clara his friend Hitzig. Even Hitzig older daughter Eugenie occurs as older sister Louise in fairy tales. At a later treatments of this topic by Alexandre Dumas the Elder. based Tchaikovsky's world famous ballet The Nutcracker.
Content
Marie, daughter of Medizinalrats steel tree, discovered on Christmas Eve on the gift table a nutcracker. The brother Fritz crack with the new Nuremberg wooden doll so hard nuts that the doll loses her teeth. Marie takes the lesioned Nutcracker in their custody and placed him next to Fritz's hussars army. The recruited from loud toy soldiers and is in the display case.
The siblings were not only blessed by the parents, but also from the godfather Drosselmeier, a Drosselmeier, who also runs the watchmaking next to the jurisprudence and manufactured all kinds of mechanical toys. On Christmas night, when all are in bed long ago, Marie has begged from the mother for a few minutes up late in the gifts. Since it is the imaginative child at a time as if movement came in Fritz's hussars army under the command of the Nutcracker. The opposite side, an army of mice under the command of Mausekönigs, a seven-headed monster, penetrates out of their hiding holes in the living room floor. The commanders of the army hussar is not short of cutting and tactical skill. At Marie's horror show the hussars cowardice before the enemy. The girl prevent the impending defeat of the Nutcracker by throwing his " slipper at the right time " targeted by the invading mice Pack.
The hostility of the Nutcracker against the Mouse King goes back to the mother of the royal rodent. How Drosselmeier Marie told on their insistence, devoured woman Mouserinks, in his lifetime queen in the kingdom Mausolien, once the king of the human kingdom the bacon away. As punishment, the king, the expulsion of the woman Mouserinks decided from his palace. With the action, he commissioned his nephew Drosselmeier, a " like, gentle young man ." Woman Mouserinks but this old witch, and remained " verhäßlichte " the " angel beautiful " Princess Pirlipat in the cradle in a " misshapen, rigid -sighted " child. As the nephew had after fifteen years of searching found the means by which he could disenchant Pirlipat successful, he killed - more by accident - woman Mouserinks. Before her death Mouserinks woman had brought her seven -headed son, the Mouse King. The dying mouse had the nephew Drosselmeier, like this probably make youth more quickly turned into a nasty little Nutcracker, precisely that dental sick Christmas gift that would feed up Marie again. Marie brings no understanding of the ingratitude Pirlipats against the nutcracker on, but should the young man, who had disenchanted Pirlipat, as a reward to get the princess to wife. Instead Pirlipat had let the Nutcracker thrown out of the palace.
The back transformation of the " monstrosity " of the Nutcracker in its original shapeliness is subject to two conditions: The Mouse King must fall by the hand of The Nutcracker and a lady needs to grow fond of whether its ugly shape the Nutcracker. Marie, gifted with the power of love, doing their part: they armed the nutcracker new and follows afterwards the conqueror of Mausekönigs a puppet kingdom. There, at the lemonade current, which flows into the Mandelmilchsee, they learn to love each other. Thus, both conditions are true: The nephew gets its " not unpleasant shape again," returns after some time and makes the fortunate Marie an application, it adopts, making it to the Queen of dolls Empire.
Form
The addressees of the tale be addressed directly: " Hearken, children! " First "experienced" Marie the battle of the Nutcracker against the Mouse King. Then secondly tells the godfather Drosselmeier the two spellbound children Marie and Fritz prehistory. This recognizes Marie, the Nutcracker bewitched nephew is Godfather. And in the third and final section follows the Nutcracker Marie a puppet kingdom in the firm conviction of the Haunted will again be a handsome young man she could marry. So it will actually be.
Reception
- Hardenberg and Gneisenau praise E.T.A. 1816 Hoffmann's " commander talent," if this " the great battle " and " Nutcracker losing" describes.
- In the fairy tale operates E.T.A. Hoffmann in the " still closed fantasy world of childhood."
- E.T.A. Hoffmann -displacing and processed in the story of the complex from its outer ugliness.
- Under the heading " Initiationsspuk " is a short home psychoanalysis, which " gender identity formation " Maries concerning.