Disability and sense of abandonment in three fables: Tom Thumb, Hänsel and Gretel and Hans my hedgehog
Jean Gaudreau
Three fables about abandonment of those growing up and their different interpretations of this abandonment.
Abandonment can cause a handicap, just as a deficit can cause abandonment. The fables represent disability.
The three fables analysed, fundamental for their themes of abandonment, complement each other. Tom Thumb, like Hänsel and Gretel, is the tale of one of the most frightening dramas that a child might hear: being abandoned by one’s own parents. In the case of Hans my hedgehog, it is the main character who, when he is young, decides to abandon his family. It is not an unmediated, impulsive escape. Instead it is the reaction to his parents’ systematic rejection of him. Today omission is perceived as abandonment. You may feel abandoned whether or not you have been physically abandoned or have an actual deficit. Fables do not invent. They reveal.
Keywords
Fables, children’s fear over time, comparing and narrating, different forms of abandonment and rejection
