God's Food?

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What a fairy tale this is! So it starts off okay... We are told that there are two sisters, one is rich with no children, one is poor with five children. The poor sister with five children did not have enough bread to feed herself or her children. Is this story line beginning to sound familiar at all? (Hansel and Gretel maybe) The poor sister goes to the rich sister to ask for some bread and the rich sister responds by saying "I don't have anything in my house either." The rich sisters husband then comes home and "wanted to cut himself a piece of bread, but when he cut into the loaf, red blood gushed from it." (Grimms, n.p) The wife becomes horrified by what she sees and tells her husband what happened. This results in him going to the poor sister to see that three of her children have died, following them, the last two children and the mother herself dies of a broken heart.


Because of the rich sisters selfishness, she killed her own sister nieces and nephews and this is symbolised through the blood gushing out of the bread. The one item that could have potentially saved them, the absence of it kills them. All the sister wanted was some bread and the rich sister rejected her by lying and saying that she did not have any, but, all along she did. Giving food is an act of love, but, here we see that the rich sister has a cold heart and does not sympathise with her sisters need. This is such a deep story for a children's fairy tale which is what makes it so undeniably interesting and also thought provoking.

References:

[1] www.giphy.com