The Musicians of Bremen, or, the Donkey as Pedagogue

As I write this, J is getting a morning fix of Die furchtlosen Vier, a 1997 remake of the well-known Brothers Grimm fairy tale "Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten" ("The Musicians of Bremen") about the abused animals who band together against the exploitative world of humans. 

This story was the first fairy tale J experienced first in German, and it has remained very close to his heart (and therefore mine) ever since. In addition to the Grimm tale, he has had read and has heard, seen, retold and played numerous versions.*

It was also in connection with this story that I first began working on one of my fundamental concerns, which is to make J aware of the extent to which all narrative is constructed, contingent, and subject to revision and variation, and also to get him to think and talk about the effect different versions of the same story have on him and why. 

I have done this most consistently with fairy tales and bible stories, two groups of narrative for which a large number of versions are available for children in all forms of media. The ultimate goal is both to school the aesthetic sensibility and to develop skills for dealing critically with any and all narratives and narrative traditions that purport to be authoritative, fixed, authentic, originary, and in whatever way not to be questioned. The bible and fairy tales are also prime examples of such traditions (fairy tales less so today, but once upon a time, in the age of romantic nationalism ...). 

Here are the kinds of questions I first began ask (first modeling with the puppets) during each new version:

• Have you noticed how in this version there is this or that new thing or new character/scene, or that this or that character/scene is missing? 
• Have you noticed how this version is set in this new place? 
• You know what I noticed? In the last version the character did this one thing, but in this version he does this other thing. That's interesting!
• You know what I noticed? In in this version this character is nicer/meaner/funnier/sadder etc. than in the other versions.
• You know what I noticed? This version ends this new way. I like/don't like this ending because ...., but I like/don't like that other ending because ... 

After a certain point J began to ask these same sorts of questions himself, and he does so all the time now. 

The story of the Bremen musicians is also critical in spirit and works on two levels: on a literal level it is about the exploitation of animals by humans, and on the allegorical level about the exploitation of workers by profit-seekers. The strangely ambiguous ending (do the animals actually succeed, or do they fail?) is, in my view and experience, a salutary yet gentle provocation for a little mind swamped in a culture of facile, shiny-happy narrative closure. 

Here are links to some of Jamie's favorite visual versions of the Bremen musicians:

1959 film (75 min)
1972 Muppet version (English)(50 min) 
1987 anime version (20 min)
Die furchtlosen Vier (1997)(87 min)
2009 film (60 min)
Puppet theater (ARD/Kleine Bühne, 1980s)(30 min)
storybook version with images (8 min)
animated storytime video (8:21 min)
short storytime video with Axel Prahl (4:15 min)

*It was during one of his reenactments that I first overheard J speaking to himself in L2, in late summer 2012 (Age 2.9, after eight months of L2).