Talk:The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

Age
The Wiki article says that Marie is twelve and her brother Fritz is eight. That's wrong. I've just started reading the story and it says in the first lines that Marie just turned seven and that her brother is older than her (maybe a precise age is given later in the text?). In einem Winkel des Hinterstübchens zusammengekauert, saßen Fritz und Marie [...] Fritz entdeckte ganz insgeheim wispernd der jüngern Schwester (sie war eben erst sieben Jahr alt geworden) wie er schon seit frühmorgens es habe in den verschlossenen Stuben rauschen und rasseln, und leise pochen hören.

http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/?id=5&xid=601&kapitel=1#gb_found

Somebody should change that. I would, but I am not a native speaker and I don't know anything about Wiki editing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.142.182.215 (talk) 20:34, 16 December 2010 (UTC)


 * So she's eight when they get married?--Mrcolj (talk) 01:33, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
 * okay, read the original. It basically gives a "but she never forgot those adventures... until one day she met Drosselmeier's nephew... And when a year had passed for their engagement..."  So seven years old plus indeterminate time plus one means she was still a teenager, but probably not 8!--Mrcolj (talk) 02:28, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

I rented a movie with same name on DVD.
I rented it as an animation, just thought it might be notable addition. And according to the opening credits it is based on the story by E. T. A. Hoffmann.

I can't prove this in any way, but thought it would be notable to mention it. TheBlazikenMaster (talk) 17:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

The ballet version
The article says the ballet was based on Hoffmann's original tale from 1816, but other sources says it was based on Alexandre Dumas' version from 1844. Which one is correct? 80.202.40.85 (talk) 05:47, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Historical context
Is the story an allegory for any historical events? If so a history section would be nice.--OMCV (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Hoffmann presented it as a story for children, so he made no pretense about it being allegorical. Any allegorical interpretation is simply that, an interpretation.

Name of female character
Is the character Marie or Clara? The plot summary of the English Wikipedia article is using both names, though I assume in the original German version of the story the character is named Marie while in perhaps an English adaption she was renamed to Clara. If so please clarify which name is to be used in the 'plot summary' to avoid confusing people by using both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.217.158.203 (talk) 22:21, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Her name is Marie in the original versions by Hoffmann and Dumas. The ballet was the first version to rename her Clara.

Incorrect Order of Events
Hello! I was reading the Plot Synopsis after reading the original E.T.A story on Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=UD30AAAAMAAJ) and I noticed a mistake in the article. The article states that Marie falls and cuts her arm after she throws her shoe at the Mouse King, but in the original story it states that she had fainted, and cut her arm before the battle had even started.

Heres a copy and paste from the original story:

"But there began a strange whistling and ringing all around; and a mouse-heads, with bright, gleaming crowns on them; and behind them wriggled a mouse's body, on which the seven heads had all grown; and thereupon the whole army of mice shouted in full chorus. They went trot, trot, right up on Marie, who was still standing close by the glass door of the cupboard. Half fainting, she sank back; and, with a crash, there fell in shivers to the ground the pane, which she had broken through with her elbow."

I've never edited an artical before so I'll leave it to the pros!

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.65.123.1 (talk) 05:45, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

A
The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German: Nussknacker und Mausekönig) is a story written in 1816 by Prussian author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which young Marie Stahlbaum's favorite Christmas toy, the Nutcracker, comes alive and, after defeating the evil Mouse King in battle, whisks her away to a magical kingdom populated by dolls. The story was originally published in Berlin in German as part of the collection Kinder-Mährchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. In 1892, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographers Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov turned Alexandre Dumas's adaptation of the story into the ballet The Nutcracker.

Original publication in 1816 in Berlin in the collection Kinder-Mährchen, Children's Stories, by In der Realschulbuchhandlung. Summary	Edit The story begins on Christmas Eve, at the Stahlbaum house. Marie, seven, and her brother, Fritz, sit outside the parlour speculating about what kind of present their godfather, Drosselmeyer, who is a clockmaker and inventor, has made for them. They are at last allowed in, where they receive many splendid gifts, including Drosselmeyer's, which turns out to be a clockwork castle with mechanical people moving about inside it. However, as they can only do the same thing over and over without variation, the children quickly tire of it. At this point, Marie notices a nutcracker, and asks to whom he belongs. Her father tells her that he belongs to all of them, but that since she is so fond of him she will be his special caretaker. She, Fritz, and their sister, Louise, pass him amongst themselves, cracking nuts, until Fritz tries to crack one that is too big and hard, and his jaw breaks. Marie, upset, takes him away and bandages him with a ribbon from her dress.

When it is time for bed, the children put their Christmas gifts away in the special cabinet where they keep their toys. Fritz and Louise go up to bed, but Marie begs to be allowed to stay with the nutcracker a while longer, and she is allowed to do so. She puts him to bed and tells him that Drosselmeyer will fix his jaw as good as new. At this, his face seems momentarily to come alive, and Marie is frightened, but she then decides it was only her imagination.

An illustration from the 1853 U.S. edition by D. Appleton, New York. The grandfather clock begins to chime, and Marie believes she sees Drosselmeyer sitting on top of it, preventing it from striking. Mice begin to come out from beneath the floor boards, including the seven-headed Mouse King. The dolls in the toy cabinet come alive and begin to move, the nutcracker taking command and leading them into battle after putting Marie's ribbon on as a token. The battle goes to the dolls at first, but they are eventually overwhelmed by the mice. Marie, seeing the nutcracker about to be taken prisoner, takes off her slipper and throws it at the Mouse King. She then faints into the toy cabinet's glass door, cutting her arm badly.

Marie wakes up in her bed the next morning with her arm bandaged and tries to tell her parents about the battle between the mice and the dolls, but they do not believe her, thinking that she has had a fever dream caused by the wound she sustained from the broken glass. Several days later, Drosselmeyer arrives with the nutcracker, whose jaw has been fixed, and tells Marie the story of Princess Pirlipat and Madam Mouserinks, who is also known as the Queen of the Mice, which explains how nutcrackers came to be and why they look the way they do.

The Mouse Queen tricked Pirlipat's mother into allowing her and her children to gobble up the lard that was supposed to go into the sausage that the King was to eat at dinner that evening. The King, enraged at the Mouse Queen for spoiling his supper and upsetting his wife, had his court inventor, whose name happens to be Drosselmeyer, create traps for the Mouse Queen and her children.

The Mouse Queen, angered at the death of her children, swore that she would take revenge on Pirlipat. Pirlipat's mother surrounded her with cats which were supposed to be kept awake by being constantly stroked, however inevitably the nurses who did so fell asleep and the Mouse Queen magically turned Pirlipat ugly, giving her a huge head, a wide grinning mouth, and a cottony beard like a nutcracker. The King blamed Drosselmeyer and gave him four weeks to find a cure. At the end, he had no cure but went to his friend, the court astrologer.

They read Pirlipat's horoscope and told the King that the only way to cure her was to have her eat the nut Crackatook (Krakatuk), which must be cracked and handed to her by a man who had never been shaved nor worn boots since birth, and who must, without opening his eyes hand her the kernel and take seven steps backwards without stumbling. The King sent Drosselmeyer and the astrologer out to look for both, charging them on pain of death not to return until they had found them.

The two men journeyed for many years without finding either the nut or the man, until finally they returned home to Nuremberg and found the nut in the possession of Drosselmeyer's cousin, a puppet-maker. His son turned out to be the young man needed to crack the nut Crackatook. The King, once the nut had been found, promised Pirlipat's hand to whoever could crack it. Many men broke their teeth on it before Drosselmeyer's nephew finally appeared. He cracked it easily and handed it to Pirlipat, who swallowed it and immediately became beautiful again, but Drosselmeyer's nephew, on his seventh backward step, stepped on the Mouse Queen and stumbled, and the curse fell on him, giving him a large head, wide grinning mouth, and cottony beard; in short, making him a nutcracker. The ungrateful and unsympathetic Pirlipat, seeing how ugly he had become, refused to marry him and banished him from the castle.

A variety of traditional nutcracker figures Marie, while she recuperates from her wound, hears the Mouse King, son of the deceased Madam Mouserinks, whispering to her in the middle of the night, threatening to bite the nutcracker to pieces unless she gives him her sweets and dolls. For the nutcracker's sake, she sacrifices them, but then he wants more and more. Finally, the nutcracker tells her that if she will just get him a sword, he will finish off the Mouse King. She asks Fritz for one, and he gives her the one from one of his toy hussars. The next night, the nutcracker comes into Marie's room bearing the Mouse King's seven crowns, and takes her away with him to the doll kingdom, where she sees many wonderful things. She eventually falls asleep in the nutcracker's palace and is brought back home. She tries to tell her mother what happened, but again she is not believed, even when she shows her parents the seven crowns, and she is forbidden to speak of her "dreams" anymore.

Marie sits in front of the toy cabinet one day while Drosselmeyer is repairing one of her father's clocks. While looking at the nutcracker and thinking about all the wondrous things that happened, she can't keep silent anymore and swears to him that if he were ever really real she would never behave as Pirlipat did, and would love him whatever he looked like. At this, there is a bang and she faints and falls off the chair. Her mother comes in to tell her that Drosselmeyer's nephew has arrived from Nuremberg. He takes her aside and tells her that by swearing that she would love him in spite of his looks, she broke the curse on him and made him human again. He asks her to marry him. She accepts, and in a year and a day he comes for her and takes her away to the doll kingdom, where she marries him and is crowned queen. 212.237.134.32 (talk) 17:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Anime Adaptation of The Nutcracker Prince
While I do like certain animated adaptions of The Nutcracker, I'd like to see what the animators in Japan can do to make an Anime Adaptation of The Nutcracker story. DukeyDukeyToo (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2022 (UTC)