#GRIMMread2019- Week 2

http://shonnaslayton.com/grimmread2019-week-2-challenge-and-linky-party/

Of this week's stories: "The Wolf and the Seven Little Kids", "Faithful John", "The Good Bargain", and " The Wonderful Musician",  I think the first is the darkest, even though it may not seem to be on the surface. It is also timely. Yeah, sure the kids get their happy ending, but this happy ending is also very disturbing. The Little Kids go through great trauma, and as a result they lose their innocence, and they can't get it back. Who was to blame? The adults in the situation, possibly excepting Mother Goat. She had to go to the forest and couldn't take all seven of her kids with her, so she left them very clear instructions to protect them. Mother Goat did her best, but couldn't protect the kids. The Kids follow her instructions, but are outsmarted by the deceptive Wolf, who greedily swallows six of them whole. The youngest kid outsmarts the Wolf by hiding in the clock. The Miller is also to blame. He sees evil happening, and does nothing about it, and even helps evil along, by helping the Wolf in his disguise. He does this because of fear of the Wolf, who threatens his life if he won't help him. Mother Goat and the youngest kid find the Wolf sleeping, with the other kids moving inside his belly. Mother Goat then cuts him open, freeing the kids, but she fills him with stones before sewing him back up. When he wakes, he goes to the well for a drink and falls in, which kills him. Then all the Kids and Mother Goat dance for joy! What's most disturbing about this story isn't that the Kids are eaten by the Wolf, it that they have lost their innocence and become desensitized to violence. They've seen things. They have literally been swallowed by evil, and have been in the belly of the beast. They've been let down by the adults around them. Through the maliciousness of the Wolf, the cowardice of the Miller, and even inability of their Mother to shield them, they have suffered a horrible trauma, and it has not left them unscathed.