Cannibalism: Would You Rather Be the Predator or the Prey?
Cannibalism is shockingly a staple of fairy tales. In premodern Europe, children were actually very exposed to cannibalism due to the incredibly high rates of poverty and starvation. As a result, fairy tale authors took advantage of this realistic threat and incorporated the theme of extreme hunger and cannibalism into their stories to scare the reader.
In the Brothers Grimm’s classic fairy tale, “Hansel and Gretel (1812),” they depict the haunting story of two siblings that were abandoned in the woods by their stepmother and father due to the ongoing pressures of famine and poverty. While Hansel and Gretel are in the forest, they find a house made out of sweets that is home to a demonic, cannibalistic witch. This old woman purposely tries to fatten the boy up in order to eat him and uses the girl as a servant. Luckily, before the old woman is able to eat Hansel, Gretel tricks her by pushing her into the oven which kills her. After the sister releases her brother, they take as much of the witch’s treasures as they can possibly hold and find their way home. When Hansel and Gretel return home to their father, they lived happily ever after because they were no longer poor and their stepmother died when they were away.
Poverty and cannibalism is not just a facet of premodern Europe. In Tom Davenport’s chilling short film, “Hansel and Gretel (1975),” his retelling of the classic fairy tale is set in Southern Appalachia during the Great Depression. Despite the huge difference in location and time period, the film keeps true to the original story of the brother and sister overcoming the threats of an evil stepmother, poverty, abandonment, and a cannibalistic witch with a house made out of candy in the forest. As a result of these choices, Davenport emphasizes the similarities in the struggles of premodern Europeans and Americans in the 1930s. Since both groups of people faced famine, poverty, and a reliance on nature, the threat of being eaten was a realistic, successful scare tactic.
While cannibalism was surprisingly common in the past, it is almost unheard of in today’s world. As a result, modern authors have had to change the way they use the idea of unrelenting hunger. In Marvel’s dystopian comic book, Thanos #15, the Incredible Hulk is kept against his will in the basement of a future version of Thanos. In order to eliminate all of his enemies, Thanos feeds the Avengers to the Hulk and makes the green giant sleep in a bed of their skeleton as a reminder of what he had to do to his friends. When comparing this story to the versions of “Hansel and Gretel,” the protagonist is the cannibal rather than being the possible meal of the cannibal. As the Incredible Hulk was a wealthy adult man in modern America, he had completely different circumstances than the two, starving siblings. Therefore, he was never at risk of being abandoned and devoured. However, cannibalism is still a useful scare tactic in this story because people today are more terrified of being the predator than the prey.
