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"Godfather Death" (German: Der Gevatter Tod) is one of the many German fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm as tale number 44, along with other tales like Snow White and The Juniper Tree. It is Aarne-Thompson type 332.
Contents
Synopsis
A poor man has twelve children, and works just hard enough to feed each of them every day. When his thirteenth and last child is born, the man decides to find a godfather for this child. He runs out into the highway, and finds God walking on the highway. God asks to be the godfather, promising the child health and happiness. The man, after finding out that the man is God, declines, saying that God condones poverty. Then the man meets the Devil on the highway. The Devil asks to be the godfather, offering the child gold and the world's joys. The man, after finding out that the man is the Devil, declines, saying that the Devil deceives mankind.
The man, still walking down the highway, meets Death. The man decides to make Death the child's godfather saying that Death takes away the rich and the poor, without discrimination. The next Sunday, Death becomes the child's godfather.
When the boy comes of age, Death appears to him and leads him into the woods, where special herbs grow. There, the boy is promised that Death will make him a famous physician. It is explained that, whenever the boy visits an ill person, Death will appear next to the sick person. If Death stands at the person's head, that person is to be given the special herb found in the forest, and cured. But, if Death appears at the person's feet, any treatment on them would be useless as they would soon die.
The boy soon becomes famous, just as Death has foreseen and receives plenty of gold for his amazing ability to see whether a person would live or die. Soon, the king of all the lands becomes ill and sends for the famous physician.
When the physician goes to see the king, he notices immediately that Death is standing at the foot of the bed. The physician feels pity for the king, and decides to trick Death. The physician then turns the king in his bed so that Death stands over the head. He then gives the king the herb to eat. This heals the king and speeds his recovery.
Soon after, Death approaches the physician, expressing his anger for tricking him and disobeying Death's rules. But because the physician is Death's godchild, he does not punish him. Death then warns the physician that if he was to ever trick Death again, he will take the physician's life.
Not much later, the king's daughter becomes ill and the physician goes to see her as well. The king promises his daughter's hand in marriage and the inheritance of the crown if the physician cures her. When the physician visits the princess, he sees Death at her feet. Ignoring this, he is captivated by the princess's beauty and thoughts of being her husband. The physician then turns the princess so that Death is at her head. He then feeds her the herb.
Just as the princess is coming around, Death grasps the physician by the arm and drags him to an underground cavern. In this cave are thousands upon thousands of candles, each burned down to different lengths. Death explains that the length of each candle shows how much longer a person has to live. When Death shows the physician his candle, the latter notices that it is very short, showing that the physician doesn't have much longer to live.
The physician pleads with his godfather to light a new candle for him, so that he may live a happy life as king and husband to the beautiful princess. Death reconsiders and gathers a new candle to relight the flame of his godchild.
Just as he is about to light the new candle, Death takes his revenge on the physician by letting the flame of the first candle fall. As soon as the candle is extinguished, the physician falls dead to the ground.
Other versions
This story was included in the first edition of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, but the first edition version included a different ending. The first edition version ended at the part of Death showing the physician the candles. The second edition version of Kinder- und Hausmärchen included the part of Death pretending to light the candle and failing on purpose, killing the physician.
Free will vs. fate
This argument is one of the most hotly debated between philosophers. Within this tale, the reader sees the physician struggling with his patients' fates. He can see whether Death is standing at the patients' heads or feet and knows immediately if they are going to live. Once he treats patients that mean something to him, he is tempted to trick Death to get the result that he wants. This definitely gives the reader a sense that this man has free will. Eventually, this loophole backfires when Death brings him into the cave to see how own candle. This gives the reader a sense of fate. Do they coexist?
Free will is a force governed by the idea of cause and effect. If an individual were to cause something on their own accord, an effect would take place; this is the basis for free will. Free will gives the individual a choice of what to do and how to do it with no other force acting upon it. Within this text, the physician believes he has free will because he can either listen to Death or he can disobey him, "and so he lifted the sick man and laid him the other way around so that Death was standing at his head." This trickery and deceit only leads to more consequences for the physician.
Fate, or fatalism, is "the idea that what happens (or has happened) in some sense has to (or had to) happen." For example, if one decides to change their mind at the last minute about something, that would've been their fate. Within the text, near the end, Death shows the physician this cave filled with candles, each pertaining to someone and when it burns out, they die. This is a clear portrayal of fate and there is a very clear distinction within this text pertaining to the argument of free will vs. fate. This then brings in the question of can one be free from fate? First, one has to definite freedom for themselves. One can speculate that they are free, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of the real world.
Greed
Throughout this tale, the physician is defying Death when he switches the bed around. This is due to his own greed. Whether it be for his prestige or to become "[the princess's] husband and inherit the crown." Greed leads people to do very irrational things, such as disobey Death because they think they have free will. This portrayal of greed could teach us about life; with so much focus on greed, one forgets about the important things in life.
Revenge
Revenge, like most texts, is a very big role in this text. After the physician deceives Death time and time again, Death gets very angry and decides to take revenge. When he is about to light a new candle for his godson, he instead snuffs out his current one, causing the physician to die instantly. This is a unique kind of revenge though. Death doesn't just kill his Godson; he first deceives the physician by making him think he is going to get more life. This is possibly a form of payback on top of killing him because the physician deceived Death.