The dragon with the red eyes
The dragon with the red eyes ( Swedish Draken med de röda ögonen ) is a fairy tale by Astrid Lindgren .
action
A brother and sister come to the pigsty to see the little piglets that were born that night. In the barn you not only see the piglets, but also a little green dragon with red eyes. This was also brought into the world by the sow. Since the dragon always bites his mother while drinking, she doesn't want to give him anything anymore. Therefore, the siblings raise the dragon. In autumn the little dragon says goodbye to the siblings and flies in the middle of the sunset. He sings happily with a clear, bright voice.
History of origin
In December 1953 Astrid Lindgren received a letter from two thirteen-year-old boys. They asked them if they could write a little story about a dragon for their magazine Masquerade draken (German: The masked dragon ). Astrid Lindgren wrote The Dragon with the Red Eyes and sent the story to the two boys. Much later this was published as a picture book with illustrations by Ilon Wikland .
Publications
In 1985 the story was published by Rabén & Sjögren in Sweden under the title Draken med de röda ögonen . In February 1986 the German-language edition was published by Oetinger Verlag. The book was illustrated by Ilon Wikland . Senta Kapoun translated the text from Swedish into German.
The story was also published as an audio book by Deutsche Grammophon Verlag . The story was read by Manfred Steffen .
In Germany, the book was also rewritten as a play. The puppet theater Fadenschein showed the play in 2013 in Berlin.
Three postage stamps featuring Ilon Wikland's illustration of the red-eyed dragon have also been issued in Sweden .
Possibilities of interpretation
Louise D'Arcens and Andrew Lynch say Astrid Lindgren's story deals with the loss of childhood. The story is told from the perspective of an adult. She remembers the time when she was still a child. There is no adult figure in the story of her childhood. One day the dragon said goodbye in tears, the adult remembered that that day she only cried and that evening she could no longer read a story. The adult would remember the end of their childhood with the following quote: “Every year on October 2nd I think of the dragon of my childhood. Because on a second October he disappeared. "
The feeling of loss evoked by the farewell and departure of the dragon puts an end to the joys of fantasy and imagination and leads to a disenchanted world that leaves no room for dragons, so that only memories remain. In history, the loss of childhood is mourned, which is represented by a division between past and future, premodern and modern, child and adult.
Gabriele Cromme thinks that the book addresses, among other things, that “the ability to love, care and empathy can also mean letting go and letting go”.
literature
- Mirjam Zimmermann & Christian Butt: Teaching with picture books: examples for all ages. In: Bilderbuch Stunden , Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016. S. 37 - 40, ISBN 9783647702209 limited preview in the Google book search
Individual evidence
- ↑ Draken med de röda ögonen. .
- ↑ Draken med de röda ögonen. .
- ^ Astrid Lindgren / Ilon Wikland. The dragon with the red eyes. .
- ^ Astrid Lindgren (Deutsche Gramophon). .
- ↑ The dragon with the red eyes - Theater Couturier. .
- ↑ The dragon with the red eyes (3+). .
- ^ Theater Couturier, Berlin: The dragon with the red eyes. .
- ↑ The Dragon with Red Eyes. .
- ^ Louise D'Arcens and Andrew Lynch: International Medievalism and Popular Culture , Cambria Press, 2014, ISBN 9781604978643 limited preview in Google Book Search
- ↑ Gabriele Cromme (1996): Astrid Lindgren and the autarky of femininity: literary representation of women and girls in their complete works , Kovač, p. 76 ISBN 9783860644089