This story takes place in a monastery orphanage in the late 1600's. The church takes in Hansels and Gretels from all over whose parents cannot afford to take care of all their children, so the weaklings who cannot pull their weight are given up to the church. But the head friar cannot take care of all the children who have been previously left at the monastery. The boys who have made oaths and those who help with the chores are able to stay in the monastery. But a small select group must leave, and are taken by the father and abandoned many miles away. The children come to a small secluded town and some adapt to new society, while some fall by the wayside and become confused wanderers in the forest forever.
(this is lame, but really, I think H&G as said by a few of the essays written, is firmly based in what happened, parents had to abandon kids when they just could not take care of them... people have been doing this forever, practically... all the way back to Moses).
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Having the children be sent to a monastery and being abandoned by the father is a really interesting way to tell the story. So, is the small town like the witches house and the children who adapt the ones who were able to overcome the witch?
ReplyDeleteMonastary...I like it. Gives a whole new impression on the idea of an "evil father," doesn't it? Perhaps they got caught eating communion wafers? Banishment from the Catholic church happened for reasons less severe than that...Banished to the forest on the orders of a priest. How dark!
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