Hansel and Gretel
The story of Hansel and Gretel in the city life with them being the street children.
I developed the character of Gretel from Hansel and Gretel in a world of poverty and human trafficking. I have tried to depict the world of street children in a big city trying to look for jobs to feed themselves. They are encountering different problem which include human traffickers who abduct them and transform them into their puppets. Later these traffickers sell the kids off to a puppet master in exchange of money.
Gretel is a small town/ village girl who gets the blunt of poverty from her family and the low economic condition in her house has forced her leave the house and go to cities for money to get the necessity like food and clothes. She is a strong girl who fights against all the challenges that comes her way.
The Gingerbreads also which is like the puppets of the puppet master are unique looking. They are very helpless and are pushed around because of the poverty. They have a very dark childhood and suffer for the basic freedom. They are made of card box and boxes of the streets and given a decorative structure.
The mother belongs to the orthodox and male dominated world where she juggles between a drunken husband and poverty. She takes out all the frustration on the children and finds out that they can go to the big cities to earn money to abolish the generations of poverty prevailing in their house. She is desperate for freedom from the traditional barriers of the society and demand for respect. The cage she wears outside the skirt depicts her being trapped in the old age traditions written down for women. The veil shows her cultural dominance.
The witch in my story is a puppet master who abducts or lures children for food and storytelling.
He hides candies under his huge coat and wears fancy colourful clothes to attract the kids living on the streets. He is a part of economic turmoil and choices a wrong path to get rid of poverty. He abducts the children off the streets and transforms them to puppets only to sell them off to the big theatre companies in exchange of money.
Dew fairy is part of the city crowd who dresses in trash bags or rice or gummy bags. She comes with food packets the children buy of the streets. She tends to scare them and tell them ugly truth.