The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1842

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Honesty and Integrity

The core theme of the poem, as summarized for the reader in the final stanza, is the value of keeping one’s word. When the Pied Piper arrives on the scene and offers to rid the town of its rat problem, the mayor and his men hastily agree. There is a sense that they don’t truly believe the Piper can fulfill his promise; the men agree to his very high price quickly, without discussion, because the threat of the rats feels more desperate and immediate than the threat of financial loss. This is why the mayor initially offers “[o]ne? fifty thousand!” (Line 90). When the Piper does keep his word and rids the town of its infestation, the victory comes as a pleasant surprise.

Because the Piper is an honest man, he doesn’t take advantage of the townspeople’s desperation; even though the mayor offered fifty thousand, the Piper only asks for the initial agreed amount: one thousand guilders. This is still a very large sum of money—about three years’ wages for an unskilled laborer. At this point, the poem juxtaposes the two characters: While the Piper did exactly what he promised, the mayor tries to evade the pledge he made, first with charm and humor, and then with anger and judgment. Moreover, the mayor sees his own advantage in the situation: “We saw with our eyes the vermin sink, / And what’s dead can’t come to life, I think” (Lines 159-160).

The mayor and the townspeople quickly learn the cost of going back on their word. While they retain their money and all the luxury it can buy, they lose out on something much more precious: their children, and through them, their hope for the future. In this version of the story, the children aren’t directly punished since they didn’t display the same dishonesty as the adults; rather, they’re led to a new place to start a new life—possibly one in which they do not learn their parents’ greed and self-serving behavior. At the end of the poem, the speaker summarizes this theme: “If we’ve promised them aught, let us keep our promise” (Line 297). This line serves as a call to action for readers to uphold the values of honesty and integrity.

Greed and Social Divide

“The Pied Piper” offers social commentary on the class structures and economic divides present in Browning’s mid-19th century England. In the story, the mayor and his Corporation represent wealth, greed, and snobbishness towards those less fortunate or those outside accepted society. Although the town is in a state of crisis due to the vermin infestation, it is clearly a place of economic stability. The poem uses several images to portray the wealth of this ruling class. For instance, they wear “gowns lined with ermine” (Line 25), and drink wines of many fancy vintages as their “dinners made rare havock / [w]ith Claret, Moselle, Vin-de-Grave, Hock” (Lines 151-152). The speaker makes it clear that this is a place of privilege and comfort.

When the council reneges on its monetary agreement with the Piper, the poem highlights the fact that their hesitation isn’t due to a financial burden (were this the case, the Piper may have been more sympathetic). Instead, they’re worried the agreed fee will cut into their luxurious living: “half the money would replenish / [t]heir cellar’s biggest butt with Rhenish” (Lines 153-154), another type of wine. In other words, they want to keep the money for themselves so they can continue living life to its fullest instead of honoring their promises. This attitude leads to the eventual downfall of the town.

Later, the townspeople reference a biblical passage about the dangers of wealth and greed: “Heaven’s Gate / Opes to the Rich at as easy a rate / As the needle’s eye takes a camel in” (Lines 252-254). The lines paraphrase one of Jesus’ famous aphorisms: that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:25). At the end of the poem, the mayor and his committee may have finally learned their lesson, but too late to save their children—the town’s most valuable resource, which they have lost for good.

Storytelling and Cautionary Tales

“The Pied Piper” is a retelling of a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, which amalgamated several folkloric sources. The poem uses storytelling as a framing device for the overall plot; it opens with a “once upon a time” feel as the speaker introduces the setting, and then reappears at the end to summarize the story’s moral (a common feature of traditional fairy tales). However, there are also a few instances in which storytelling is used internally.

The clearest example of this is when the one surviving rat survives the Piper’s song as a lesson for other rats. The rat eloquently and vividly describes the Piper’s song and its effect on the rats of Hamelin, creating both a beautiful story and a warning. The rat’s story is thus a model of the broader poem itself. Similarly, the child who’s been left behind recounts the story he was told about a magical far-off place—which may be the Piper’s home country, an otherworldly fairyland, or heaven. The promise of this paradisal idyll is a different kind of warning; while the adults mourn the children they will never see again, the boy suffers to imagine the beautiful adventures he won’t get to experience.

Towards the end of the poem, the speaker remarks that in Transylvania there’s a tribe of people who may have been descended from these lost children. However, it’s implied that this is only a rumor—in other words, another kind of story. This becomes the third example of a pattern of marginalized characters recounting the events to keep the memory of this tragedy alive. Thus, the poem becomes a nesting doll of cautionary tales buried one within another, each highlighting the poem’s core messages and themes.