The Nutcracker and the Mouse King

"The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (German: Nussknacker und Mausekönig), also simply known as "The Nutcracker", is a literary fairy tale from 1816 by the German author E. T. A. Hoffmann, in which a young girl'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"), while being written in a novel-styled format. 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.

Summary On Christmas Eve, at the Stahlbaum house, Marie and her siblings receive several gifts. Their godfather, Drosselmeier (Droßelmeier), a supreme court justice, clockmaker and inventor, gifts them a clockwork castle with mechanical people moving around inside. However, they quickly tire of it. Marie notices a nutcracker, and asks who he belongs to. Her father says that he belongs to all of them, but since she is so fond of him, she will be his special caretaker. The siblings pass him amongst themselves, cracking nuts, until Marie's brother, Fritz, tries to crack one that is too big and hard, and the nutcracker's jaw breaks. Marie, upset, bandages him with a ribbon from her dress. When it is time for bed, the children put their Christmas gifts away in the cabinet where they keep their toys. Marie begs to stay up with the nutcracker a while longer and is allowed to do so. She tells him that Drosselmeier will fix his jaw. At this, his face seems to scowl and his eyes flash. She is frightened, but decides it was her imagination. The grandfather clock begins to chime, and Marie believes that she sees Drosselmeier sitting on top of it, preventing it from striking. Mice begin to come out from beneath the floorboards, including the seven-headed Mouse King. The dolls in the toy cabinet come alive, the nutcracker taking command and leading them into battle after putting Marie's ribbon on. They are overwhelmed by the mice. Marie, seeing the nutcracker about to be taken prisoner, throws her slipper 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 what happened the previous night, but they do not believe her. Days later, Drosselmeier arrives with the nutcracker, whose jaw has been fixed, and tells Marie the story of Princess Pirlipat and Madam Mouserinks, known as the Queen of the Mice, which explains how nutcrackers came to be and why they look the way they do.

Madam Mouserinks 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. The King, enraged at Madam Mouserinks for spoiling his supper and upsetting his wife, had his court inventor, Drosselmeier, create traps for the Mouse Queen and her children. Madam Mouserinks, 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. The nurses who did so fell asleep, however, and Madam Mouserinks magically turned Pirlipat ugly, giving her a huge head, a wide grinning mouth, and a cottony beard like a nutcracker. The King blamed Drosselmeier and gave him four weeks to find a cure. He went to his friend, the court astrologer. They read Pirlipat's horoscope and told the King 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. He must, without opening his eyes, hand her the kernel and take seven steps backwards without stumbling. The King sent Drosselmeier and the astrologer out to look for both. The two men journeyed for years without finding either the nut or the man. They then returned home to Nuremberg and found the nut with Drosselmeier's cousin, a puppet-maker. His son turned out to be the young man needed to crack the Crackatook. The King promised Pirlipat's hand to whoever could crack the nut. Many men broke their teeth on it before Drosselmeier's nephew cracked it easily and handed it to Pirlipat, who swallowed it and became beautiful again. But Drosselmeier's nephew, on his seventh backward step, stepped on Madam Mouserinks and stumbled. The curse fell on him, making him a nutcracker. The spoiled and ungrateful Pirlipat, seeing how ugly he had become, refused to marry him and banished him from the castle.

Marie, while she recuperates from her wound, hears the Mouse King, son of the deceased Madam Mouserinks, whispering in the middle of the night, threatening to bite the nutcracker to pieces unless she gives him her sweets and dolls. She sacrifices them, but he wants more and more. Finally, the nutcracker says that if she gets him a sword, he will kill the Mouse King. Fritz gives her the one from his toy hussars. The next night, the nutcracker visits Marie's room bearing the Mouse King's seven crowns, and takes her to the doll kingdom by way of the sleeve of her father's coat. After viewing the magical scenes there, she seems to rise higher and higher; but then suddenly falls and finds herself back in bed. She tries to tell her mother what happened, but again she is not believed, even when she shows her parents the seven crowns, and is forbidden to speak of her "dreams" anymore. Marie sits in front of the cabinet one day while Drosselmeier is repairing one of her father's clocks. She swears to the Nutcracker that if he were ever really real, she would never behave as Pirlipat did, and would love him whatever he looked like. Then, there is a bang and she faints, falling off her chair. Her mother comes in to announce that Drosselmeier's nephew has arrived from Nuremberg. By swearing that she would love him in spite of his looks, Marie broke the curse and made him human again. He asks her to marry him. She accepts, and in a year and a day, he takes her away to the doll kingdom, where she is crowned queen.

Publication history

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