Unruly Children; S. 608

During the Biedermeier period, children were viewed as pure, innocent and examples for adults to follow. The author Wilhelm Busch had a different view and decided to compose an illustrated book that depicted children as being honest in what they were–“active and selfish”. His book Max und Moritz: Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen is about two boys who go around playing pranks on adults for pure joy and amusement. There are seven pranks the boys perform in the book After each prank, the boys are seen laughing and never learn from their mistakes or from hurting others. After their seventh and final prank, a man decides to play a final prank and has the boys ground up in a mill–all the while he is attempting to hide a smile. Busch wanted to tell the world that as people get older, they cover up their true enjoyments and motivations. Max and Moritz embraced their enjoyments and made no attempt to hide them even in death. The man used violence (killing the boys) to restore the order of peace, but can be seen smiling in the illustration of the boys being thrown into the grinder. Modern society sometimes views children as “beings that lack intellect and reason” who need to be taught to be like adults as quick as possible rather than believing that children are children.

Ich habe ein paar Teile von Max und Moritz von dieser Website gelesen. Diese Geschichte ist genau so, wie das Buch beschrieben ist. Zwei Kinder spielen Streiche und Sie sind sorglos über die Konsequenzen. Sie sind schließlich getötet eines Erwachsenen.