"The Witch is not such a Bad Egg": Adapting "Hansel and Gretel" for a Contemporary Audience

Hansel and Gretel is a tale concerned essentially with food-related issues: from hunger to gluttony, from deprivation to cannibalism. The essay brings the motif of “children eating” and “eating children” into focus, analysing the way a number of contemporary revisions of this highly problematic fairy tale have tried to revive and update its unsavoury content for a contemporary audience of children and adults. In particular, the operation of “messing about” with the values and the ideology of the canonical versions in a light-hearted way has produced playful tales that parents and educators may deem “more appropriate” for the contemporary child.