The Original Bambi Is Even Darker Than The Disney Film
Public DomainAn illustration of deer running from a gunshots in a 1928 edition of Bambi.
The 1942 movie Bambi is a dark Disney story in itself, but the Austrian novel it’s based on — Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Felix Salten — is even more heartbreaking.
The book follows Bambi’s life throughout his journey to adulthood as a young deer. Just as in the movie, tragedy strikes in the form of a hunter. Salten writes:
“‘Watch out,’ said Bambi’s mother. ‘Don’t run. But when we have to cross the open place, run as fast as you can. And don’t forget, Bambi, my child, don’t pay any attention to me when we get out there. Even if I fall, don’t pay any attention to me, just keep on running. Do you understand, Bambi?'”
As Bambi runs from the hunter, he comes across a wounded rabbit: “Her hind leg dangled lifelessly in the snow, dyeing it red and melting it with warm, oozing blood. ‘Can you help me a little?’ she repeated… In the middle of her words, she rolled over on her side and died.”
The chapter closes, “Bambi never saw his mother again.”
This isn’t the end of Bambi’s hardship, though. He gets shot himself later in the book, and an older deer teaches him how to walk in circles and sprinkle his blood around to confuse the hunter so he can’t track Bambi down.
To make this dark Disney story even more disturbing, Salten’s book was banned and burned in Nazi Germany — because it was seen as an allegory on the treatment of Jewish people.
