Rasmus and the tramp
Rasmus und der Landstreicher is a novel by Astrid Lindgren set in Sweden in the 1920s and published in 1956 under the Swedish original title Rasmus på luffen . It is about a nine-year-old orphan boy who, longing for his own parents, breaks out of the orphanage and meets a vagabond who, as it turns out, is a married smallholder and finally adopts the boy.
Table of contents
Rasmus grows up in the orphanage in Västerhaga, always in the hope that one day he will be adopted by loving parents. When the potential adoptive parents come to the home, all children must be freshly washed and with their clothes ironed. But it is precisely on a day like this that Rasmus goes wrong: in the morning he accidentally showered the head of the orphanage with water, and the people who want to adopt a child take a girl with blond curls. "Parents who come to the orphanage always choose girls with curly hair," Rasmus has to agree with his best friend Gunnar. Then the nine-year-old decides to take his fate into his own hands and look for parents himself: people who want a boy with straight hair. He has his own ideas: They should be pretty, rich and friendly. So the next night he runs away from the orphanage.
In the shed in which he stays overnight, he meets the tramp Oskar, who calls himself "God's wren ". He turns out to be a lovable and helpful person, with whom Rasmus experiences exciting and dangerous adventures. So they meet the crooks Lif and Liander, who are disturbed in their criminal machinations by Rasmus and Oskar. Incidentally, Oskar has to reveal to the police that he is only a vagabond in the Swedish summer and otherwise a pretty good trader , and he takes Rasmus home with him, where Oscar's wife is waiting for him. So Rasmus finds wonderful parents quite apart from what he expected. He is given a young cat and finally Gunnar, his best friend from the children's home, is adopted by the neighbors.
interpretation
The novel describes the longing of a family-less child for a whole family that he imagines in his imagination. When the hoped-for event occurs that the young protagonist actually finds a family, it appears much more normal than in his dreams, but more loving and more realistic.
Although there is no lack of frightening, sad or even depressing things in Rasmus' world, it is a world that is shaped by the gaze of a child who first sees the beautiful in all appearances, whether human or nature, and assumes the good. Rasmus includes Oskar in his dreams and although Oskar is not a rich businessman, he is still the kind of person every child wants as a father: He is warm, good-natured, open-hearted and humorous. So Rasmus can finally see him as "pretty".
Oskar appears as a man who has remained a child in his heart. Interpreters attribute this to the fact that the writer herself kept her childhood forever.
"A lot helps a lot, said the farmer, jumped into his bed and broke through."
background
The book is based on a script for a radio play series by Astrid Lindgren, which was broadcast on Sveriges Radio in 1955 . In the same year, the film Rasmus and the Vagabond , based on the script, was released. The script was rewritten in 1956 into a novel, which was published in 1956 under the name Rasmus und der Landstreicher (Rasmus på luffen).
Movies
- Rasmus and the Vagabond : Film by Rolf Husberg (1955)
- Erazem in Potepuh , Slovenia, 1971: TV series by Staš Potočnik
- Rasmus-brodyaga , Soviet Union, 1978: TV series by Mariya Muat
- Rasmus and the vagabond : film adaptation of Olle Hellbom (1981)
expenditure
- Astrid Lindgren: Rasmus and the tramp. Illustrated by Horst Lemke and Katrin Engelking, translated by Thyra Dohrenburg. Oetinger Verlag, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-7891-4165-2 .
- Original: Rasmus på luffen. 1956.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Helena Zamolska: Lindgren, Astrid: Rasmus and the tramp. www.kinderundjugendmedien.de, accessed on July 31, 2015.
- ↑ Film Lexicon , accessed on July 29, 2015.