Heidi by Johanna Spyri

First published:Heidis Lehr und Wanderjahre, 1880 (English translation, 1884)

Type of work: Moral tale

Themes: Nature, religion, friendship, health and illness, and education

Time of work: The mid-nineteenth century

Recommended Ages: 10-13

Locale: The Alm above Dorfli in the Swiss Alps; Frankfurt, Germany

Principal Characters:

• Heidi, a five-year-old orphan who is sent to live with her reclusive grandfather
• Dete, Heidi’s aunt, who takes her to the grandfather and then sends her away to Frankfurt
• Grandfather, a bitter old man feared by everyone
• Peter, a goatherd on the Alm and friend to Heidi
• Clara Sesemann, a lonely young invalid for whom Heidi is brought as a companion
• Grandmamma Sesemann, Clara’s grandmother, a kindly, religious old woman
• Fraulein Rottenmaier, the Sesemanns’ disapproving housekeeper and nanny
• Doctor Classen, friend of the Sesemann family and of Heidi

The Story

High in the Swiss Alps, Heidi, a five-year-old orphan dressed in every bit of clothing she possesses, is trundled up a mountain by her impatient aunt, Dete, who nervously delivers young Heidi to the child’s grandfather, an ill-tempered man of whom Dete and the other villagers are clearly afraid. Dete, however, feels resolute, if slightly guilty, because she has accepted a position in Frankfurt and can no longer care for her niece. Heidi, however, proves to be a remarkable, unaffected child, who quickly charms her grandfather. She enjoys a genuine enthusiasm for life: for the goats, which she helps Peter to tend; for the spring flowers on the Alm; for the thick slices of bread and cheese that her grandfather prepares for her; and for the simple hay bed that she occupies in the loft of his hut. Heidi grows healthy and strong in the fresh, uncomplicated life on the Alm and with her open, friendly manner makes friends wherever she goes.

One day, after three years have passed, Dete returns with new plans for Heidi: She deliberately angers the grandfather and then drags her unwilling niece to Frankfurt, where Heidi becomes a companion to a young invalid named Clara Sesemann. The Sesemanns are a rich family, and Clara is their only child. Clara’s mother has died, and her father dotes on his daughter. Since he is frequently away on business, however, Clara suffers from loneliness. She immediately takes to Heidi, whose imaginative, mischievous ways amuse her. Yet the Sesemanns’ tyrannous housekeeper, Fraulein Rottenmaier, disapproves of almost everything the newcomer does and makes life thoroughly miserable for Heidi. Still, the child makes friends, including Grandmamma Sesemann, who fortifies Heidi with Christian ideas about God and prayer and her place in the world. Despite the fact that Heidi has everything for which she could wish, she pines for the Alm. Her homesickness manifests itself in bouts of sleepwalking, as a result of which Dr. Classen comes to Heidi’s rescue and recommends sending her home.

Heidi returns joyously to the Alm, and her grandfather, in gratitude, decides to live among people once again. He and Heidi attend church, and, during the winter, they take up residence in Dorfli, where Heidi attends school. On the Alm they entertain visitors from Frankfurt: First Dr. Classen comes and finds himself rejuvenated by the fresh mountain air. Then Clara arrives, and she too becomes hale and hearty. With Heidi’s help, Clara even learns to walk, which makes for an emotional reunion with Herr Sesemann when he joins them on the Alm. The Sesemanns depart eventually but not without declarations of undying friendship. Clearly, the mountains are the place for miracles.

Context

Although Johanna Spyri published other tales about life in her beloved Alps, Heidi was the only one to achieve international acclaim and readership. It was translated into English only four years after its publication in German. Her translator, Charles Tritten, tried to revive the Heidi story by writing sequels, but they remained unpopular. Part of the secret to Spyri’s success was that she made a remote, foreign country such as Switzerland seem so friendly and familiar. She also created a memorable heroine: Heidi may at times seem too good to be true, but she maintains a reader’s sympathy because she is young and defenseless and because of her boundless energy and irrepressible enthusiasm for life.

Heidi is also appealing because she is an underdog. Like other orphaned heroines such as Jane in Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Anne Shirley in Lucy M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables (1908), and Mary Lennox of Frances H. Burnett’s The Secret Garden (1911), Heidi has great difficulties to surmount. Because she is so young, she is powerless to determine her own destiny, having to rely instead upon the whims of adults who believe that they know what is best for her. Yet Heidi, like Jane, Anne, and Mary, also exhibits some spunk and manages to triumph over adversity. The main reason, though, for the novel’s unswerving popularity lies simply in Spyri’s powers of description: The alpine flowers, the wholesome bread and cheese, and the night sky as viewed from a simple hay bed are rendered with such immediacy that the reader yearns to experience them at first hand. For Spyri, nature represents God’s handiwork; nature is God’s way of making people whole in mind and body. There is still a need, however, for the devices of society: Spyri presents both education and religion as desirable pursuits. Spyri may romanticize life in the mountains, but she also provides enough detail to make it seem real and enviable.