Feminist view of Hansel and Gretel?

[Bala Perdida]

I've been asked to analyze a folk tale. I chose, with a group, to do Hansel and Gretel and out of various methods of analysis I was given to choose from, I chose the feminist.
So, all my feminist comrades out there, feel free to give me a helping hand. I think I might have it down, but I would like to see how my interpretation relates to others.
Here is the link to the version I read for this:
http://theliterarylink.com/gretel.html

My viewpoint is that the story is basically sending the message that women are abusive in positions of authority. Also, if Gretel is considered a woman, over a child, she is telling the reader that women are incompetent and lack the courage to get things done fast. Being that she waits four weeks to kill the witch. So overall the story is misogynistic from a feminist perspective.

Thank you all and have a good night.

[consuming negativity]

"His second wife often ill-treated the children and was forever nagging the woodcutter."

The woman is being placed into the gender-role of caretaker for the children, and also the stereotype of women who "nag" their husbands. Basically, she's the stereotypical "bad" woman here in the first paragraph of the story. Moreover, she is being described only in relation to the woodcutter. Not, "a woodcutter and a housemaker", but "a woodcutter and his wife" are being described here.

""Take them miles from home, so far that they can never find their way back! Maybe someone will find them and give them a home." The downcast woodcutter didn't know what to do."

It appears here, along with this line, that the woodcutter man (who is, by the way, defined by his job as breadwinner) is "henpecked" by his wife. Who is, again, the stereotypical "bad" woman. It's worth noting that the woman is never described as a homemaker, as I said she was earlier - it is merely assumed by the absence of mentioning her work that she is a homemaker. Not only is she being typecast into this role, but it isn't even being acknowledged - that's just what she is. It's assumed that she isn't working, but is a homemaker.

"Hansel who, one evening, had overheard his parents' conversation, comforted Gretel. "Don't worry! If they do leave us in the forest, we'll find the way home," he said. And slipping out of the house he filled his pockets with little white pebbles, then went back to bed.All night long, the woodcutter's wife harped on and on at her husband till, at dawn, he led Hansel and Gretel away into the forest."

Here, we see the henpecked man finally give in to his mean old wife. Also, we see Hansel taking on the more assertive, optimistic role by comforting his sister as well as finding a way to fix their problem. A woman is the cause of the problem, in addition to a non-assertive man giving in to the woman's wishes. However, a male is solving the problem and taking charge over the woman (his sister) at the same time. We see this as good. This happens multiple times in the story. Something else worth noting is that both times, the woodcutter is the one who leads the children out into the forest. Even as a dominant woman, she doesn't leave the house - the man leaves the house. Hansel later solidifies this when he says he is going to "look after" Gretel.

"But the old woman had only pretended to be so friendly, really she was a wicked witch who lay in wait for children, and had built the house of bread and sugar just to lure them inside."

This is the second woman the children encounter. She makes a house out of food and intends to cook and eat the children - woman's role. Additionally, witches historically have basically just been a way of talking about how useless and evil women past childbearing age were. There's a reason the only good stereotypical old lady is the nice "grandmother", specifically because she looks after the children and is nice to them.

"Then she seized Hansel with her shriveled hands and shut him up in a little cage with a grating in the lid, and locked it; and scream as he would, it didn't help him any. .....
Oh, how the poor little sister did grieve as she had to get the water, and how the tears ran down her cheeks."

Hansel reacts by being assertive and trying to fight his way out - Gretel reacts by crying. Starting to see a pattern? The two assertive women - the witch and the stepmother - are both seen in a negative light. The submissive female, Gretel, is better, but still typecast as an emotionally weak woman who, despite not being in a cage, has no choice but to do what she's told. At least, until she kills the witch...

"But Gretel saw what she was up to, and said: "I don't know how to. How do I get inside?" "Goose, Goose!" cried the witch angrily, "the oven is big enough--why, look, I can even get in myself," and she scrambled up and stuck her head in the oven. Then Gretel gave her a tremendous push, so that she fell right in, and Gretel shut the door and fastened the bolt. Oh, then she began to howl in the most dreadful way imaginable, but Gretel ran away, and the wicked witch burned to death miserably."

...which is done by tricking her. Not through confrontation like fighting, but through being a trickster character. Of course this could easily be seen as me looking for what I think I'm going to see - it could be argued that this is just a function of Gretel being smart or Gretel being a child and thereby not being able to fight the witch one to one. You'd have to put this in the context of other fairytales in order to make a point about how this is continually the way that "good" women are able to be aggressive... through passive-aggressive using their minds, not their physical strength, to defeat things "honorably" the way the men do.

[Rosa Partizan]

nothing more to add to what communer said, but this is something I've encountered in a ton of fairy tales. Either, women are manipulative, maleficent (and ugly from the outside) or they are docile, soft and beautiful. I really can't remember a tough, smart, kickass heroine. Think about Arielle, a prince falls in love with a girl that can't speak. He values only her looks and she sacrifices her previous life and endures pain with having her legs grown to be with him. Or Cinderella. The only beautiful girl in the family, her sisters and mother are bad (and ugly). Reminds me of some tape I had with this story being told. The speaker said, and I remember this EXACTLY "Cinderella was beautiful and so nice to everyone, while her sisters were treating her very bad. And they were really ugly. Remember that bad people are always ugly". No shit here, this was some official Disney-tape. Then thinking about Snow White, being the victim of a manipulative woman, while she herself was such a good, beautiful girl that could not harm anyone, but also not stand up for herself. In all these stories, your whole well-being depends upon a man that rescues you from the influence of some bad women. And there are many more like these.

[LiaSofia]

I've been asked to analyze a folk tale. I chose, with a group, to do Hansel and Gretel and out of various methods of analysis I was given to choose from, I chose the feminist.
So, all my feminist comrades out there, feel free to give me a helping hand. I think I might have it down, but I would like to see how my interpretation relates to others.

This isn't to do with Hansel and Gretel, but there are some really interesting feminist versions of fairytales. It's strange to think that the word fairytale has a positive connotation, but most of them are very dark and were never really intended for children. Angela Carter's 'The Snow Child' is a very short, very disturbing feminist retelling of Snow White and her whole collection of stories is worth reading if you're interested in that kind of thing.