Spring break is the best time of the year to go skiing for many people with children. And whoever descends the snowy slopes of the Alps, will probably think of the cartoon movie Heidi more than once. The literary character of the same name lives all sorts of adventures at her grandfather´s in the mountains together with her friend Peter, and she is originally a 19th century creation.
When I first had a look at the farm-themed chess set, Heidi came to mind. The chess pieces remind me of Alpine figures -even though the Milka cow is missing- and shepherd boy Peter, with his little Tyrol hat and flock of sheep (goats, actually).
But where does this -almost automatic- association with a 19th-century literary character come from? In my case, this has everything to do with Japanese animation. Japanese animated film producers liked to look for inspiration in Western literature. In 1974, the cartoon series Heidi, the Alpine girl aired for the first time. Director Isao Takahata made a total of 52 episodes.
The story, which has been made into a movie on several occasions, revolves around orphan girl Adelheid. She lives with her aunt Dete, but due to circumstances, Heidi has to go and live with her old grandfather in the Swiss Alps. Here, she befriends young goatherd Peter.
Later on, she has to move to Frankfurt where she lives with a well-off family and becomes disabled Clara´s playmate. Heidi gets very homesick though, and returns to her grandfather. When Clara visits her, the Alpine air seems to do her exceptionally well and she stays on. All´s well that ends well. The series was extremely popular in Japan, because of the Cinderella-like traits of the story. Outside of Japan the series was a hit as well and as of 1980 Heidi aired on Dutch television.
Johanna Spyri (1827-1901)
Being a kid
Whereas Heidi and Peter lived lots of exciting adventures in the animated series, the book was a little less than delightful. The creator of the novel about Heidi is Johanna Spyri. Her father was a physician and as a little girl Johanna came into contact with psychiatric patients who were treated in the family´s living room. Johanna´s mother was also a writer, but her creations were mostly devout poems. As was appropriate in the 19th century, Johanna got married and became a stay-at-home wife. She couldn´t stand not being in control of her own life though, and along with her pregnancy came a depression that would last for years. Johanna only recovered her zest for life when she started writing at the age of 44. Her work was received well and she was soon a successful and well-known writer.
In the seventies, Heidi may have been a television series for children; the book, however, published in 1881, was written for adults. It’s about the development of children and Johanna Spyri was inspired by Goethe´s psychological novels. The full title of the book is therefore Heidi’s learning and wandering years. A story for children and those who love children. The moral of the novel is that the characters´ problems will only disappear when they let go of the oppressive standards of the bourgeoisie and start leading a simpler life. Back to basics and nature: an extremely topical issue.
Harsh conditions
The novel is a lot less cheery than the always smiling cartoon characters lead us to believe. It is not a coincidence, for example, that Heidi´s grandfather lives in the mountains; he has isolated himself for a reason. He has turned bitter after the loss of his son and he avoids contact with other people. Peter doesn´t have an easy life, either. He is from a poor family and has to work after school to complement the family´s meagre income. In her book, Spyri denounces the extreme poverty in which so many families lived in her day and age and the effect of this poverty on children´s development.
The way children were seen had started to change during the 19th century. The man of the household became the main bread winner and children were no longer considered mini-adults but separate human beings. They shouldn´t have to work but go to school to grow up to be better adults instead. For the first time ever, authors began writing separate children’s literature, too. These were not only moralistic books to learn life lessons from, but also exciting tales which the writers had written from a child´s point of view. A woman was the binding factor between a child and its working father. For this reason, female writers were thought to be more capable of understanding children than men. On the other hand, women held a mirror up to adults: the unspoiled soul of a child had not yet lost its divine spirit.
This image of the innocence of a pure child can be found in the Japanese cartoon series and also slightly in the Alpine chess game. There is obviously nothing evil about the adorable plaster chess pieces, whichever side of the board they are on.
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