When reading the Original Bambi by Felix Salten, you can easily understand the tone of the book. Disney turned the somewhat tragic story into a kid’s movie (as Disney does with most of its stories; i.e. Pinocchio, Peter Pan, etc.), disrupting the original meaning. This book was not too different from the version I watched many years ago, however its meaning was a U-turn compared to Disney’s. Walt decided to make the movie specifically about Bambi as if Bambi was a real fawn, following his life as he struggles to survive into adulthood with no mother to care for him. While in Felix’s Original Bambi, the story is very similar, the overall meaning of who “Bambi” is, is completely different. I got the impression that Bambi is Felix himself or a rendition of a Jewish child being born already struggling to survive.
Felix didn’t endure the early loss of his mother like Bambi did, however they both endured their own type of struggle. Felix was born into a Jewish family in 1869 and while he wasn’t persecuted directly (not until later in his life around his mid 40s and up until his death) he understood what many Jewish families had to deal with every day, especially living in Austria during the start of the Nazi party The rise of the Nazi Party started a train of antisemitism that existed well before the party erupted, however the Nazi Party flooded the minds of people who once looked at Jewish people as just another person. Just like in the Protocols, it is easy to point at Bambi as being a Jewish child being born in Austria around the time of the Nazi party, after you make that connection, you can spot Bambi’s obstacles as different antisemitic obstructions that were going on around the time of Felix’s writing period.