The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1842

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Color

The Pied Piper is described with particular attention to color. His name contain the word “pied,” which means made up of many colors, and the poem describes why this nickname is fitting: “His queer long coat from heel to head / [w]as half of yellow and half of red,” with “sharp blue eyes, each like a pin” (Lines 51-52, 54), and “[a] scarf of red and yellow stripe, / [t]o match with his coat of the self-same cheque” (Lines 75-76). Later, his eyes are described as “green and blue […] [l]ike a candle-flame where salt is sprinkled” (Lines 98-99). Until this character’s entrance, color has been notably absent in the descriptions of the town and its people. This suggests that the town of Hamelin was relatively monochrome and orderly, so the Piper presents a potentially threatening disruption. The bright colors he brings with him represent energy and uncontrolled chaos.

Later in the poem, this sense that a riot of color represents a richer life reappears in the left-behind child’s description of the place the Piper promised the children: a far-off place where “flowers put forth a fairer hue” (Line 237), and “[t]he sparrows were brighter than peacocks” (Line 239). The solitary boy’s longing for the nirvana the Piper described shows that the town’s children were lacking this outpouring of color in their own home; to them, it symbolizes something exotically appealing. Color thus also represents new possibilities, or the inflated allure of the unknown.

Music

The Piper is so fundamentally characterized by his connection to music that it is part of his name. However, music is central to the story in other ways as well. Early in the poem, before the titular character even appears, we learn that the rats have their own musicality: “By drowning their speaking / With shrieking and squeaking / In fifty different sharps and flats” (Lines 18-20). The rats’ atonal song, the discordance of which is suggested by the “different sharps and flats,” makes a connection between the rats and the Piper. This is why, the story suggests, the Piper can compel the rats to follow him: He exploits the music that they are already attuned to.

In the poem, music is portrayed as a powerful force of darkness and light. Initially, the Piper uses music to purge the town of rats—in other words, to use it as an agent of healing, purification, and renewal. This illustrates the power music has, in the right hands, to do good in the world. Once the Piper’s deal is broken, however, music becomes a tool of punishment, taking the children away from the town’s greedy adults. Here, the children represent not only the entire next generation but the town’s hope for the future. By taking them away, the Piper dooms Hamelin. This shows how music can bring life and wonder to a community or take it away.

At the end of the poem, the speaker explains that music has been forbidden in Hamelin since the children’s disappearance. No one is allowed to play or entertain. While this can be seen as a sign of respect for those lost, it also shows how the experience stripped away pleasure—the people of Hamelin survive, but they can no longer enjoy life.

Art and the Artist

The Pied Piper is portrayed as an outsider. His clothing, style, and mannerisms immediately put him at odds with the more conventional townspeople. He has no influence or political power, but makes a statement and affects real change through his artistic medium. In this way, the Piper can be seen as a metaphor for artists and performers (including poets like Browning himself) as a whole.

When the Piper’s musical talents are of use to the community, the mayor and his committee welcome him. Once the work is done, however, the mayor refuses to pay him for his efforts—a perennial problem for artists. At this point, the Piper takes revenge on the town using his art: his music. Despite the horror of the loss of the town’s children, the speaker of the poem doesn’t praise or condemn the Piper; he’s not portrayed as either a hero or a villain, but simply a neutral chaotic force that punishes someone who broke their word.

While most artists can’t directly use their medium to take retribution on those who have cheated them, they can use their art as a refuge from the injustices of the world. In the story, the Piper represents both the strength and the ostracization of creators and their need to find strength within their art.