Antisemitism in Grimm's Fairy Tales Anonymous College

The Grimm fairy tale “The Jew in the Brambles,” which is found in the “adult” section of the collection, is much more than a simple fairy tale. It is even more than a folk tale intended for a mature audience. It is a story that evokes the deepest fears and prejudices in German life surrounding Jews, as well as attitudes about money and justice. The story reinforces the image of the Jew as a cunning, crafty individual whose Achilles heel is economically motivated. In fact, the Jew in the story is something of a supernatural creature, whose wits match the simple servants’ luck. The use of narrative, symbolic, theological and archetypical functions of the Jew in the tale, especially contrasted with the servant, reinforces the image of the Jew as a crafty, nefarious individual who is unable to resist certain temptations.

The story begins with a happy-go-lucky servant who works very hard. This value is immediately established as privileged in the story, since the narrator spends a great deal of time emphasizing that he slept very little and retained a positive character (Grimm, Grimm and Tatar 359). The servant seems unperturbed when a gnome panhandles from him and then offers him three wishes in exchange for his “fortune” (a measly...