When my classmates and I were presented with the task of writing our own version of a fairy tale, I knew that my biggest challenge would be doing something original. Adapting fairy tales is an extremely popular trend, with shows like Once Upon a Time and Grimm as well as the new wave of live-action Disney movies, and I wanted to examine a tale in a way that hadn’t been done yet. That is why, upon deciding that I was going to adapt “Rumpelstiltskin,” I decided to focus on the child that the miller’s daughter wagers. The miller’s daughter found out Rumpelstiltskin’s name and won her bet mainly by luck, and it seemed to me that if only a few things had gone differently, the child would have been condemned to a horrible life with the man who stole him. I saw this as a huge risk on the part of the miller’s daughter, but in all of the scholarly articles that I read, the potential consequences of the wager for the child were scarcely touched on, much less the morality of a deal. In this paper, I aimed to give the child a voice and bring to light the irresponsibility of the miller’s daughter’s actions, while giving insight into her character and plight as well. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I hope that I was able to make both the child and the mother complex, interesting, and sympathetic characters.
HANNAH LEVIN is a mechanical engineering major in Boston University’s College of Engineering Class of 2018. She comes from a suburb an hour outside New York City, where she has been doing creative writing ever since she was young. She would like to thank her high school English teachers, whom she credits with making her the writer she is today. She would also like to thank her professor, Theodora Goss, for all her help with this story and for creating such an exciting and enriching class, and her family and friends for all of their support.