"The wheel turns. Blue above, green below, we wander along the way, but love is what the cup of our soul contains when we leave the world and the flesh. This we will drink forever. I know. I am Magda. I am the witch."
With these words, the reader leaves the story behind. But yet, there are the themes from the story that keep the wheel turning--
the power of memory, the importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma, the bitter cost of survival and the coming of age [growing up way too soon].
Take one of these themes, and in your own words and with your own hands, explain how this novel brings new life to an old fairly tale.
42 comments:
The power of memory is great. It is shown in the book a few times. Remembering the good past helps us to deal with our present problems and remembering that when the problems are solved everything ends good and you must not stop. In this book, Gretel and Hansel always believe that they will find their father and in the end they do. Also, remembering warm home, tasty food helps to keep positive attitude. For Gretel the memory of her grandfather helped her to survive her trauma. Maybe she has lost her mind, but she was happy. Otherwise she could be in a very big depression and lose her wish to survive. And that is worse. This is how the power of memory is shown in the book.
Matas
In the book characters had to pay a lot for being able to survive. First the father of Hansel and Gretel must leave them that they wouldn‘t be killed by Germans. Then the children must change their names, the step-mother needs to kill a German and the men who raped Gretel, Magda must recant that she is a Gypsy, father Piotr can‘t admit that Nelka is his daughter and many other times. These events make book more realistic and show that for everything you must pay. And finally, we can understand that even in the fairytale you must sacrifice that you could reach the happy ending.
Asta
Coming of age (way too soon) is it good or bad? In the story of Hansel and Gretel, sister was the one who was the grown one, but only in the beginning. She was the big sister who took care of her little brother when father and stepmother abandoned them in the forest, but when story got bit further, girl got violated and raped, she lost her mind, so little guy, Hansel who was 7 years old had to take care of her, his older sister, who was 11 years old. Hansel was the one in the story who lost his childhood and had to become a grown man, he didn’t experience that much childish games, he didn’t have a chance to be a kid, that’s awful most of us do have some memories when we were children, don’t we? Doing our stuff, being fun and happy, Hansel couldn’t have that, he had to take care of them both, or else both of them would have been dead by the end of the book.
In conclusion I’d like to say that this story is fake, but it reflects some of these days problems, like kids trying to grow up faster and trying to bite more than they can chew.. Adults are adults and kids should be kids too.
Silverijus Maikštėnas
People need love especially when battling extreme trauma. Louise Murphy develops this theme well in her novel The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. At the novel's end, she writes through the spirit of Magda"There is much to love, and love is what we are left with. When the bombs stop dropping..., and we are done killing each other, that is what we must hold." Magda knows that Hansel's love for Gretel will get them back to their father, she knows that Telek's love for Nelka will see them through the war, she knows that the father's love for his children will help him find them, and she now understands of Piotr's love for his grand-daughter Nelka helped him in his last moments to "drink from the cup within his soul" and find peace. Murphy weaves these ideals together to knit her own modern day fairy tale.
David 2012
Memory plays an important part in The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. The novel contains many parts in which past lives of characters are remembered. The power of memory helps Gretel a lot, particularly after she gets raped. In order to forget the raping, she remembers good moments from her past. This way Gretel creates her own world which lets her escape the present, and she comes back to real life after a long period of time. The novel brings new life to an old fairy tale by showing that daydreaming is not a bad thing. It is a mechanism which does not let you think about bad things that happened in your life and gives your mind an opportunity to escape the harsh present.
Justinas Petuchovas 2012
The importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma.. For me this theme in Murphy's book is the most striking. Especially, Father Piotr's event when he killed Sister Rosa and the gurad so tahat Telek wouldn't have to. It was impressive, considering how he spent his entire life, he drank, he was with the woman and had a child and he was priest. His trauma was so great but in some way he managed to forgive himself and even he experienced love from Gretel when she showed him Jewish tradition in the Forest. He felt happy and loved. That scene was one of the most beautiful in the book. Father Piotr wasn't a saint but I couldn't call him a sinner either. Most of us couldn't face and forgive to ourselves but Father Piotr in some way did that and he felt love. I was impressed by his character.
Monika 2012
Everyone has a need of love, especially during experiencing a trauma. Nelka and Telek, Hansel, Gretel, Magda- they all took care of each other. It helped them survive the war and believe in better tomorrow. This book makes the fairy tale easier to understand (e.g. why did the children agree to stay at Witch's house). It also helps to overcome stereotypes (Magda, the witch, isn't bad, the Stepmother loves and looks after the children, father, Mechanik, abandoned children for their own good.) Murphy teaches us that even if people were killed everyday, as long as love and good are in the human's hearts, we would survive everything.
Martyna
"The bitter cost of survival and the coming of age [growing up way too soon]"
Actually, I can't imagine what's the feeling of life when you're in woods and you're not sure about everything. But the only one thing I know is that in fairy tales it's similar as in real life. If somebody left you in woods, how would you feel? Scared, afraid of disasters. But then, people just adapt and do what they must do. For example, Hansel and Gretel were left in woods alone. They're children. But soon they just try to keep together and take care of each other like their parents did. So, they are growing up soon. Unfortunately, I could say that they lost their childhood. All in all, i can say that life is full of things you can't expect, all you have to do is just keep calm and try to solve all your problems.
Jurgita
The power of Memory
The memory is one of most important thing in people life. Without memory, without past we are not able to create aour future. Gretel and Hansel lost they memory during WWII-they lost their past,their identity-they cannot remember their Jewish names, Jewish life before the war. And the power of memory is very strong.
When Gretel was raped,she just cennot remeber bad things, she just goes crazy.Loosing her memory-like a wall protecting her from hurts things wich happend to her and then she starts to remember only nice past.Gretel does not remember so there are no problems, no worries for her. Only good things coming out that makes her life beautiful again.
Ome more a good example in novel is drinking vodka-it symbolizes the power of memory too, people are drinking to forget what they are doing or did wrong, to forget their pasts. For example Major is drunk allmost every evening just becouse of his job, of his duties wich are unhumanity-he is killing people.
All arguments show that human's memory is wonderfull and unik. Sometimes it just blocked to protect you and sometimes it brings you to bad memories, to bad feelings.
The power of memory- there is a bright trace of memory power in the whole novel. Memories help to forget bad things for Gretel , those times when she remembers her grandfather or the taste of oranges, it makes her feel better and isolates her minds from cruel reality. Memories help Hansel too. He Feels stronger when he remembers what his Father or stepmother had taught him. He also gets back into the time before WWII when everything was all right and there was no need to panic or go and hide somewhere, when the weather was warm and there was no mark of cold. Good memories help children not to loose the hope, because maybe someday everything is going to be good as it was in the past. Those great memories symbolize the hope and it actually helps the children do not flush their hands.
Daiva 2012
The bitter cost of survival and the coming of age [growing up way too soon].
It's very interesting, how Murphy shows us, how fast can the human grow up and change (even young boy, like Hansel), when the life become more difficult. It's surprising, when Hansel admitted the liability of his sister. He wanted to do everything, that helps them to survive. That's pathetic, but unfortunately, both of the kids lost their childhood, because they had to take care of each other. They became their own 'parents'.
EMIL :)
I'm sure that everybody in their childhood red many fair tails, and majority of fair tails was created not just for fun. Each fair tail is an lesson, which people remember all their life. Many fair tails are about love, about different kinds of love: love to a homeland, love to a relatives, friends, or love between prince and princess and so on.
The original fair tail about Hansel and Gretel teachs us to love your relatives. In new book, this lesson is too, bur Murphy developed it. She shows that this love can help people become stronger. Hansel grew up because he had responsibility and he made decisions despite Magda, Nelka and Telek helped them. He started to make decision before meeting with witch, at the beginning, when they hide in the forest.
in my opinion, It is a very useful way, to rewrite old story and add in it something new. For children, it is enough to know that all people must love each other but adults want to know which consequences it could bring.This is the way how this novel brings new life to an old fairly tale.
Nikita Lis.
The bitter cost of survival and the coming of age [growing up way too soon].
Survival is the synonym of the name of the book. Every charter had to sacrifice something to survive and to become the opportunity to go further. Parents of Hansel and Gretel had to leave them alone and, probably, to give their lives for the lives of their children. The kids became a possibility to live, but they are alone in the dark forest, their scared and dont know what to do. To survive further they had to be brave, to be smart. They had no opportunity to be kids further.
Sergey G. 2012 SLI
the power of memory
the memory is very important in these book and in life.The memory helped Gretel.These power is very good and it was shown many times in a book.These power helps us in present.For example The memory about Gretel's grandfather helped her to survive.These memories helped her to forget all bad things.
Of course we need all memories<It is only one way how we can be connected with our past,like Hansel when he thought about his parents,what they gave to him .And all these memories helped children to survive during all book.
Dasha
During the SLI period we were reading the book by Louise Murphy – The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. There was raising different kinds of themes and questions, but in my opinion the most interesting is the power of memory.
Memory plays the leading role in life of those kids, especially Gretel’s. It helps to forget all bad things that happened to them and to people they loved, and to live in the world which is full of sunlight and bright colors. We always trying to forget bad things, don’t we? We are trying to forget bad with memorizing things that are pleasant for us. It’s a trick which our brain doing to simplify our existence. When there was too much bad things around, Gretel was hiding in her memories. She was remembering her grandfather and oranges, christmas food and all those things, that once made her happy. After she was raped, her psychic didn’t bear that. And she began to live only by her memories. She couldn’t understand reality. This is one of abilities of our brain too. It’s kind of protection.
In my opinion, the power of memory in this book is really very, very important. It helps to survive. I think, all people in those times were alive only by their memories, that once they were happy and they new for what they should fight and try to stay alive. The remembered sense of happiness and peace.
Olga
"The importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma"
Everyone needs love. Man without love is disappointed, sad, he doesn‘t know the joy of life. Love can be different- love how mother loves her children, love how children love their mother, love how boy loves girl, love how child loves a pet, love how grandmother loves cooking. There are a lot of different kinds of love. But love is the most necessary when person loses everything and doesn’t know what to do next, when he even doesn’t want to do something. When experiences a great trauma. Then the people who love and support him is all he needs. Gretel was a lucky girl. Not because she experienced the trauma. Because she had Magda, Nelka, Telek and Hansel. They didn’t let her trauma turn into something insurmountable. They took care of her, supported her and loved as much as they never did before. Of course love doesn‘t remove all the pain, bad memories, grief. But it fights with them and after some time there left only a small part of them. Through love Murphy makes this story completed.
URTE, 2012
A power of memory is very important in Louise Murphy book The True Story of Hansel and Gretel. First of all, memorizing allows to forget bad things and brings some happiness and joy in characters lives. For example, during the Christmas Eve Magda and Nelka start to remember some things from the past that were nice and in this way all family fells happier. Kind memories let them dream about the better future. Moreover, after Gretel’s rape, she starts to memorize her lovely grandfather and the smell of oranges which old man gave her every day. These nice memories replace the bad ones and Gretel forgets everything that has happened. Secondly, the power of memory is so strong that it can delete other memories. For example, when the children are left in the forest, their stepmother tells them new names which help them to survive. Hansel and Gretel quickly forget their old Polish names and remember only the new ones. Even how hard they try to recall the old, but they still can’t manage to do that. The children get back their Polish names only in the very ending of the story, when they meet their father. So, this is how a power of memory goes all through the book.
GretaV 2012
The bitter cost of survival. In the true story of Hansel and Gretel this theme is very relevant because of the World War II. The best example to picture this theme is father Piotr’s story. He has to sacrifice his faith and beliefs just to stay alive. Like once he had to help the Nazis with the dead bodies. Even though he didn’t feel good about doing it but if wouldn’t have done it, they would have shot him. Also, instead of conducting worship, he has to drink every Sunday or else he would be shot. Another great example is Hansel and Gretel. In order to survive they have to get separate from their father and stepmother, change their names and as the story goes, they have to pretend to be Christians. Gretel is raped. If she would try to escape or somehow else to save herself, she would be shot. So she has to sacrifice not only her dignity but also her common sense.
Bernadeta.
The power of memory is very important in this story and in our life. It shows that we are associated with our past. In this novel the power of memory plays very important role. First of all if children don’t have memory they wouldn’t find their father. But even if it was so hard to them to remember their ghetto in city and find it, they found father because of their memory. The memories are in every step we take. Sometimes they are bad and sometimes good. On Christmas Eve they ate and forgot all these bad things and remembered good times that make them keep together and love each other. After raping Gretel forgets all the bad things which happened in her life and starts living in her own world. She remembers her grandfather, smell of oranges. So these memories isolate her from reality and help her to survive. So I think that memories in this novel help children to survive, to believe in tomorrow that another day will come and one day they will survive and meet their father and stepmother. And to conclude the memory is very powerful. Greta
The theme “Coming of age”. In the story, from the beginning, when stepmother tells the children to hide in the forest, Gretel is the one who has to act like adult. As she is with her younger brother Hansel, she must take care of him, tell where they have to go, what to do and to find a village. Even if she is only 11 (Hansel is 7), she has to forget that she is just a child. Later in the story, when Gretel is raped, she gets crazy, she does not remember anything, and her memory deletes so than Hansel has to come of age. He needs to care not only of himself, but even of Gretel. He has to accept very difficult decisions, he needs to think mature. And that is very hard for him, he wants Gretel to stop being crazy, because he does not want to take care of her, he wants to be Gretel’s younger brother. In the end of a story, when children leave the village and Magda’s house and go to find a city, Gretel comes back from her craziness. From that time, they both: Hansel and Gretel act like an adult. There are no younger brother and older sister, now they are all mature.
Elena Milinauskyte
“the coming of age”
This book describe how Hansel and Gretel had to grow up faster than normal children. They grew up faster than other because they hadn’t other way to survive. They had to be stronger than other children in their age. They learned how to survive in bad times (WWII). Hansel and Gretel even had to change their names. This history shows us how was life during WWII and we should appreciate the world we live in.
Jakub group B 2012
This novel brings new life to an old fairy tale because of its eternal and timeless value - love. The love is the power what keeps life going – wheel turning. Love helps to survive everyone in this story or to die in peace, because someone beloved was saved. Just remeber how Stepmother, Piotr and Magda died. "For the children. Let the wheel keep turning for their sake"(Murphy,2003 p.248) - was Magda's whisper befor she died. This story reminds us again that love makes us stronger and more compassionate than we think we are.
Violeta, 2012
The importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma:
Love is one of the most beautiful things in the world. We can’t live without this feeling, because it is very important in our lives. Also many good things come from love. When we love someone, we can do anything for another person, we want to help for him, we want to protect him. In this book “The true story of Hansel and Gretel” there are many beautiful examples about power of love and about strong love, which helps you to survive everything what is cruel and bad. We live because of love. And when the young girl Gretel was raped Magda, Nelka and everybody takes care of that young, poor girl. They want to help her. Another love example is Telek and Nelka. Telek loves Nelka so much, that he can do everything for her. When she is around him he changes, he can do anything what she have said. There are so many examples of love, because it is so important to show what power love can have. We have to love, we have to believe in something. I think that love is very important in this story, because no matter what, we have to love, we have to believe in something.
Austeja K.
Hansel and Gretel had to grow up very quickly. They survived many terrible situations. For such small kids It should be terrifying, but Hansel and Gretel didn’t give up as they wanted to live. I think that in the fairy tale they didn’t grew up like in the novel.
The true story is a bit different. Children have to make a big effort not to beat the witch but to “beat the war”. When you read the true story you see what was hidden in the fairy tale. Everything starts to make a sense…
Karolina group B 2012
“The bitter cost of survival”
The book tells the story of ordinary people who experienced an extremely difficult situation – they had to face moral dilemmas and physical and mental suffering in order to survive the war. It was the time when moral values collapsed; killing someone was very often the act of mercy. However, memories of the past and hopes for the future in peace gave people strength not to give up.
When it comes to similarities and differences between the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tale and the novel, I really admire the way the author put the first one into the world of WWII. I’ve found lots of very surprising and imaginative parallels (especially about the witch burnt in the oven). This fact proves the unbelievable versatility of the Grimm Brothers’ tales.
Michal 2012
Such as in the fairy tale this novel also ends with ‘happy ending’. But is this happiness full? How many lies had to be made, how many people had to die and how many ugly things they had to do to become free again? Louise Murphy shows the bitter cost of survival in very terrifying way – but doesn’t lose connection with the fairy tale. Personally, I think that the end isn’t happy, but for sure extremely moving. Gives hope. And maybe it was an author’s purpose…
Patrycja
The bitter cost of survival
In war there is no mercy. The cost is high; you have to do the worst things to keep on living. At first you will feel sick of your self, however eventually it will become as a habit to survive so it won’t be so bitter. For example, we would feel terrible if we see dead people just lying on the road with their heads off and the massive corpse mountains of concentration camp victims, but then, back in the years of war, people were used to it and they carried these rotten bodies as a sack of potatoes. If you don’t do something that Nazis, Russians or other armed man ask you will receive hot metal trough your head in a second and no one would care. You can run away from them but every day you will live in a great fear of getting caught and living like that gives no pleasure and true freedom because you can’t go near these man to avoid them and the danger of getting killed. So the cost is incredibly bitter but it is the basic animal, human instinct to survive, and if survival means doing what the mans in charge you have to do it or else you will lie on the ground like a bloody brunch who is determined to get burned or buried.
Arturs
The power of memory...
From The True Story of Hansel and Gretel, we can see that the power of memory is very important. they celebrated Christmas that symbolizes the the wanting of peace during the war. They tried to be happy during the celebration. they remember the peace. They want peace. Also, the children needed to get new names because the Nazis wanted to kill all the Jews. It isn't right. The Jews needed to hide during the war. An example of the power of memory in that time is at least celebrating for the nationals parties. It keeps the traditions from the ancient times. So, memory is the same as the traditions. Keep your traditions alive...
Vlad
The most this novel brings new life to an old fairly tale with its story about Gretel. Gretel was the one who always remembered about old good times. She had something to get her feel better and it really worked. It’s the same now. If people are sad, they try to think good things, which are their memories. Everybody can loose some thing, but memories will always stay. And will they be good or bad memories, depends on the person. But never it will be like the person has only bad memories. There will always stay childhood which mostly is the brightest and happiest. Even if people are depressed or got crazy, they always have their memories, just like it was with Gretel.
The power of memory
The power of memory in “Hansel and Gretel” is the most important thing. Because it starts from the first pages, where Hansel and Gretel needs to forget their names in case for not being killed and in the whole story, this memory is not losing them. Another prove of memory is that in chapter Christmas Eve, 1943, the whole “family”: Nelka, Telek, Magda, Hansel and Gretel remembers everything how the real food should look like, how everything should look like. Thinking about that they were living during World War II, in that day they didn’t be upset, they were happy that everybody are safe and together.
In my opinion, the power of memory in “Hansel and Gretel” is helping to keep everybody together and also not to forget what they really are.
Povilas B.
The bitter cost of survival and the coming of age [growing up way too soon]
This book reveals complete situation of surviving in harsh conditions particularly the bloody war. There probably aren’t any more desperate situations than the war, especially that World War II which was the most terrible disaster in the history of humankind. Jews were one of these nations being despised the most. Adult or kid, there was no matter, they got themselves shot anyway. Hansel and Gretel were Jewish children who had to experience this horror in the forest when their parents left them alone just to try saving them. The children encountered lots of dangers that cost them their new friends’ lives. In one section of the story Hansel was told to be older than his elder sister in order to protect her from upcoming dangers. Anyway, the children had no choice but to take care of themselves because only the strongest survive in war, no matter how many people died you need somehow to go further, forget the losses and also forget about your age because in war no one actually care about that.
Dovydas
The power of memory in ‘Hansel and Gretel’ is really important. It keeps the wheel turning. After Gretel was raped, she lost her mind and all of her memories, so it was good for her to forget the bad thing, because if she remembered it later, it wouldn’t be so hard for her I think than to live all of it through her childhood. It’s also important, because they forgot their Jewish names, and that I think was good too, because they kind of forgot their past, they couldn’t talk about it, so that kept them from being caught and killed by the Germans. The power of memory also seems very important when all the ‘family’: Nelka, Telek, Hansel, Gretel and Magda, gathers by the table on Christmas Eve. They remember what was Christmas like before the war, and they imagine Christmas after the war. So that keeps all of them not thinking about the present: the war, the ‘ovens’, where the Jewish people were killed, and the shortage of food. The memories of all the food that they had before the war, kind of makes the food that they had at that day delicious. Also, power of memory is important because neither Hansel, nor Gretel, remembered where they lived before the forest. But the important thing is that they never forgot that they had to find their father, the Mechanic. So when in the very end of the book Gretel gets all of her memory back for a while, except the rape, Gretel know where to go, although the city is very different, thanks to help of the Russians, they find their father. Even though the author doesn’t tell us their Jewish names, Hansel and Gretel get to know it. So, the power of memory is a very important thing in this book, and it is shown a lot of times.
Milda
‘the importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma’.
Everyone needs to be love because love is our life wheel which helps us in various situations. For instance when we have some serious problems or when we feel very disappointed about our life and other people’s behavior and etc., we remember our family members, friends who help us ‘reborn’ again and continue our life. This is a very similar situation in the Louise Murphy story ‘Hansel and Gretel’. The children’s parents leave them in the woods and go away. It is very cruel because Hansel and Gretel are very young and they don’t know how to survive in new place. But they find Magda, who is like a bright star in their black life and helps them to start their life from the beginning. Despite that Magda is a part of their family, she takes care of Hansel and Gretel and tries to save them from Nazis. She acts like their mother. Murphy uses Magda to be the ‘cup of love’ for these children.
Giedre, group C. 2012
The power of memory.. Do you understand this sentence? Sometimes we forget important things in our life, but sometimes we can remember during all our life.
Gretel forget that she was raped and that helps her not to lose her mind at all, she remember sweet traditions of Christmas, such as oranges, dishes and firs. Moreover, been not in her mind, she could remind Piotr his destination as a priest and his sins that made him repent before God and cry.This is power of memory which influences on life and safety. I think that memory helps Gretel to cope with difficulties during the novel.
Unfortunately, the power of memory has a negative sides,for instance, when Gretel forget her name, her past, her history.Yes, it safes her from Germans, but how can you go ahead if you don't know your backward?
Daria, 2012
I chose write about power of memory.
I think the memory is very important, because everything what you want to remember you could keep that in your mind. Nobody can steal those memories from you. The power of memory is very strong, because all events, celebrates or people can help you to feel better in the saddest day. Also we can learn from memories to don’t do something that could make a problems to us.
In the story for kids and their parents memories helps to stay alive, because all the time they was thinking about each other.
ONUTE
The power of memory
I think that memory is one of the most important and vital thing in people life. We remember our thoughts, keep in mind we have encountered the idea. Memory allows us to use these concepts for our future actions and behavior. Without the memory of the past will not be present.
The power of memory is very strong. Gretel and Hansel during World War II lost their past, they cannot remember their Jewish names. They forget their “Jewishness”. And it helps them.
The memory of their past life, good life before war, helps them survive and get over horrors of war. They remember their Christmas, their family traditions, odor of oranges… it makes children feel better and isolates their mind from terrible reality. After Gretel was raped she lost her memory and she starts to remember only nice past.
Memory is a unique phenomenon. It helps to forget the bad, but it retains all the best moments of life. The story of Hansel and Gretel confirms it.
Alexandra
The power of memory is one of the main themes of the True story of Hansel and Gretel which helps people who are sufferingtot from the War forget about this hard time and gives hope to survive. Memories put them into another World and for the moment they can think that there is no War. Memories of oranges and grandfather helped Gretel to forget about her trauma and not to lose hope.The other theme is love.We can see the real love of Telek to Nelka, of Magda to children , of brother and sister and even the love of stepmother to her step children, the most impressive moment, when she killed two strangers who hurt her child. This big love of each other gives them again a hope that they should live despite difficulties.
Karina
During SLII we were reading the book by Louise Murphy “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel”. In this novel one of the theme is the power of memory. First of all, memorizing all the good things in your life helps to forget all bad things happened in the past. That source of power is important in the novel too. Gretel who is the oldest kid in the family uses this power to get rid off back emotions and experience. You can say that she was hiding from the reality in his memories. For example, in the Christmas Eve Magda and Nelka started to think about their traditions before the war. It really helped them all to celebrate Christmas in peace and with lots of emotions. Furthermore, then Gretel is raped she needs to forget all that. The only thing that helped her was thinking about her grandfather and the smell of oranges which he gave her every day. By memorizing these memories she survived with Hansel until the very end of the story. They get back to Polish and found their father. Rimvydas
The importance and the need for love when experiencing great trauma
When experiencing great traumas, people start feeling the huge importance and need for love. In the whole Louise Murphy novel “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel” we are facing with traumas and with the way people deal with it. We see how love helps to treat trauma, to forget about it and to continue life. In the novel, Gretel, Hansel, Magda, Telek and Nelka always cared about each other; support each other in every situation. For instance, when Gretel was rapped, Telek, Magda, Nelka and Hansel took care of her, showed her their love and supported her. Physical pain had healed over, but pain in her soul and memories will always hunt her. Now she has to live with it entire life and only time will help her to heal and to cope with grief. No matter that the plot of the book is full of violence, murders, pain, we see how love helped protagonists to survive.
Evelina
The power of memory
Memory is a very big and important part of our life. As almost all things it has two sides : the good one and the bad one. Remembering moments can support or destroy you. The same is about forgetting. During the hard life hours good memories can keep you alive and recall the feeling of happiness. As the example we can take the part of “The True Story of Hansel and Gretel” where Gretel remembers mandarins. That kind and simple memory of joyful life moment gave her positive feelings that were very useful at that time. Also there was a place where they remembered the Christmas Eve traditions. This memory also brought to their life some gentle seconds. On the one hand, it seems that remembering is better than forgetting. But if there were some horrible moments in your life and you can’t forget them, you can just go crazy. Because they are always in your head, remind you your past and don’t let to look at your future. They just keep you standing in the same place. While talking about forgetting we can find also two different results of that. Forgetting good things can make you upset and disappointed with life because you will start thinking that there were no good things you could put in your biography. But there is a very big advantage of forgetting bad events. For example, losing memory and forgetting about rape saved Gretel. In conclusion, I would like to say that memory is one of the most powerful thing. It can save you or kill you.
Marija
The poverty of memory
I think that memory it’s something like another world in our head. We can remember the most important and pleasant memories and we can feel it again, our past may again be present when we want it, for a short time. If we lose someone or something important in our lives, it will always live in our memories. The is also have a bad thing cause we are remember both good things and bad. And sometimes the worse think what can be is a memory.
In this story one the one hand the memory is help everyone. For example when, they remember last Christmas and dreaming about the following. They even remember the smells and tastes of dishes with closed eye. And it’s helped them and gives them straight and hopes. So throughout the novel, memory helps and leads children. But it’s happened during the war and children had to look at the bad thing. And they will always remember that.
Palina
Love is one of the most important thing in our life, especially when we are experiencing great trauma. After all negative experiences we should find people who could support us. Due to this reason Hansel and Gretel are really lucky children, because they found good- natured, lovely and careful people like Magda, Nelka and Telek. They helped them to survive. There was very nice episode when Magda took care of Gretel when the girl was sick and felt badly. Moreover we could find a lot of similar incidents when Telek or Nelka helped the children. But the most beautiful episode in the book was when stepmother sacrificed herself for Gretel and gave her heart to the girl. It shows us how great love could be.
Ligita
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