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Karlie Wittkamper

ENG 106

Yoojin Jang

26 April 2020

Hansel and Gretel Character Profiles

Hansel

o Strengths: clever, caring, smart, pays close attention to details, and understanding

o Weaknesses: naïve at times, hunger, obedient

o Character Synopsis: Hansel is one of the heroes of this fairytale. He is just a kid that is

trying to make it by with his family. His faults are obedient because he never objects to

going into the forest, even though he knows Gretel and him will be abandoned. He is

also at fault because he is starving, so when he sees the house made of food, he cannot

resist the pull. However, he is smart enough not to eat the food when the witch wants

him to get fat. He is also clever in the fact that he was leaving a trail for him and sister to

find their way back home.

Gretel

o Strengths: smart, intuitive, trusting, and understanding

o Weaknesses: hunger

o Character Synopsis: Gretel is the second hero of this fairytale. In the beginning, she

seems helpless and just a follower. Her only fault is her hunger, as well. The children are
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too deprived of food to pass up a hot meal and sweets. However, her wit is soon

uncovered when she works with her brother to escape the evil witch. She is brave when

she decides to push the witch into the stove and set her brother free. Along with that,

both the children are understanding of their father, in the end, and forgive him. Not to

mention, sneaking a few golden tokens and jewels to financially stabilize their family.

Father

o Strengths: Loving and hardworking

o Weaknesses: easily manipulated and submissive

o Character Synopsis: The father of Hansel and Gretel is a caring dad. He truly does love

them but with the death of his first wife threw him into a sort of depression. This is why

he finds comfort in his second wife, even if she was not truthful or genuine. He was just

trying to make ends meet for his family. And he should feel very lucky that his children

are forgiving enough to forget that he abandoned them in the woods, under the

command of his wife.

Stepmother

o Strengths: powerful and controlling

o Weaknesses: ingenuine, impatient, and a gold digger

o Character Synopsis: The stepmother comes into the families lives at a very vulnerable

time and takes full advantage of the leverage that gives her. She can easily control the

father, so much so that he agrees to leave them in the forest so that there are less

mouths to feed. And her need to be rich and impatience to wait, ultimately comes back
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to bite her when she leaves the father. Little does she know that the next day, when the

children come back, the family becomes very wealthy.

Witch

o Strengths: sly, cunning, and smart

o Weaknesses: none

o Character Synopsis: The witch is an evil genius. She create a trap that is perfectly

designed to draw in hungry children such as, Hansel and Gretel. She is cunning by acting

as a sweet lady until she gets her victims inside where she can control them. She gives

them food they had only dreamed of and beds that were only in stories. But then she

flips the switch and her evilness can no longer be contained. She has no weaknesses, for

a truly evil person cannot be hurt. Yet, in the end of the fairytale, justice is served, and

she is no longer an antagonist in Hansel and Gretel’s life.

Report:

Throughout this semester, we have written papers about different fairytales and their

dynamic structures. We have learned how to craft the perfect, standardized way to tell the

significance of our stories. This retelling project was creatively different and allowed the writer

to tell the significance through his or her desired medium. This is important to allow artistic

freedom. The medium I chose was to create character profiles. With this, I gave all of the

characters’ strengths, weaknesses, and a whole synopsis of their character development and

motives throughout the story. The story I chose for this project was Hansel and Gretel. In this

report, I will be covering the reason for the story I chose, the process and purpose of creating

the project and the significance of the project.

If someone were to ask me what stories comes to mind when I hear the word fairytale, I

would think of stories like Cinderella or Snow White. So, when I saw the objective of this

project, I wanted to choose a fairytale that is not the most popular, in order to make my project

a little bit more unique. So, I racked my mind of a fairytale that I do not know too well and that I

could learn a bit about while making this project. When I came upon the idea of Hansel and

Gretel, I was eager to read the story and get all the information I needed. While looking for the

story online, I saw that there was an animated video telling the story. I decided that would be a

different and fun way to meet all the character and grasp the purpose and theme of the

fairytale. While watching the video, I created a list of every character as they were introduced

and wrote down qualities and action that stood out to me that would be useful for my project

idea. After finishing the video, I was ready to start on the retelling project.
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While deciding on how I wanted to retell the story of Hansel and Gretel, I decided that

since it was not one of the most popular fairytales, I would make the character profiles so then I

could introduce the characters of the story to my audience. My intentions for making the

profiles is to explain the characters’ personalities and the reasons behind their actions as the

story continues.

As I said before, I found an animated video that was telling the fairytale. I also thought it

would be interesting to use this type of different type medium, rather than the traditional

written story, to learn about the story, because that is the purpose of this project. Whilst

watching the video, I took note of the outstanding personality traits of each character. These

lists were then turned into each characters’ strengths and weaknesses. I thought this idea

would be useful because you could see where the characters mistakes came from and how they

prevailed in times of uncertainty. Once I had the lists for each character, I decided to combine

them in a character synopsis. I figured this would assist in explaining the story a bit more to

anyone who was not familiar with the story at all. I wanted to explain the parts in the story

where the character’s strengths really shined and why they did the things they did. And

opposite of that, I wanted to show the parts in the story where the character’s weaknesses got

the best of them and got them into some trouble. I thought that these three components per

character would give a brief overview of the story and how the all the characters impact each

other’s decisions and actions.

With the project then complete, I wanted to the significance of the retelling project of

my choose. The significance, to me, was to give the audience a character breakdown of a

fairytale maybe some have never heard before. It is easy to hear a story and just pick up the
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basis of the story and not understand the purpose or theme behind it. That was the main

purpose of my project. It was to dissect the characters’ personalities and to recognize why they

did what they did. I also think that these character profiles are a beneficially way to layout the

story though the characters, not just a fairytale with characters. The audience can see it from a

different perspective. The significance of this whole project was to see how else a fairytale

could be told and understood, rather than the usual written story. I think it is important to be

able to appreciate a fairytale told through a new medium. The significance of this retelling

project was to grant creative freedom and use our imaginations to convey a fairytale that has

been told and told over again, in a new and exciting way.