The Willful Child: Disobedience knows not death
Grimm tales feature criminally violent or negligent parenting, the tale of the Willful Child demonstrates a new level of poor parenting and the era’s fear of being buried alive. In this very short story, a child is disobedient, refusing to listen to his mother. His disobedience angered God, who made him gravely ill. The child died from this incurable illness. After his burial, the child’s arm comes up from the grave, reaching out for help.
So unloved was the child that his family members shoved it down and buried it again. But the arm kept reappearing. His mother went to his grave herself and beat the pleading arm with a switch to make him stay buried. After that, the arm finally stayed down. Religious themes and morality commonly intermix in the Grimm’s tales. The child’s hubris against his parents and God doomed him to a fate worse than death.
