The Little girl with the matches

the Little girl with the matches (" Den Lille Measuring rod Med Svovlstikkerne " in Danish) is a Conte written by Hans Christian Andersen and published the first time in 1848 in the fifth volume as of its " Contes" (" Nye Eventyr "). He tells the history of a girl who sells in full winter of the matches with the passers by and seeks to be heated.

Complete summary

The history proceeds the New Year's Day day before; commercial of Allumette S in rag wanders in the snow-covered streets (often placed at Copenhagen) without finding any purchaser. This girl is exploited by her father who will beat it if it did not sell any match. She stops one moment to be heated by cracking a match. The small one is filled with wonder by the flame which makes him think of a gleam of a stove. Unfortunately, the match was consumed and it decided to crack with a its package so that it can continue to dream with a more cordial life.

She then sees her grandmother died with its dimensioned and lit the remainder of the matches so that she remains with her. The two people flew away in this radiation by forgetting their evils. The following day, one found the dead little girl but with a great smile.

Analyzes

The tale evokes the misery of the 19th century in a rather hard way. Indeed, the tale puts in opposition two universes:

initially, the world of the richness and opulence: the history occurs at the time of the Réveillon of New Year's Eve and one evokes the lights with the windows, the heat of a decorated stove, the delicious meal (“roast goose, stuffed with prunes and apples”) and the Christmas tree.
of the other with dimensions, that of the misery personified by a little girl alone, lost, who is hungry and cold, maltreated by his/her father and wearing only worn clothing.

This misery appears to the reader as unjust because all overpowers this figure of little child to the fair loops who personifies the innocence. However, she thinks a whole fairy-like world while being dazzled by the flame of a match.

Opposed to the figure of the rigid father, one finds in the end of the tale the memory moved by the old grandmother attentive with his grandchildren, the person who comforts. One then sees appearing the register of dead in the form of an appeasing with the starry sky (“When a star falls, it is that a heart goes up to God. ”). The two brought together people go up to the sky in a kind of gleam which is not without pointing out the white light that a person is supposed to see before her death.

Whereas the reader is rocked by this carefree history, the narrative tone changes abruptly by beginning the last paragraph with the conjunction “But”. The sentences are intersected by circumstantial enumerations or complements which slices with the style of narrative description. The term of death is highlighted by a brutal appearance after Points of suspension and its repetition. The tale finishes while insisting on the ignorance of the people at the last happy time which she lived.

With final, one can underline the use by Andersen of the Métaphore of the match who also evokes the life, his brittleness (opposed to the flame of a candle or a stove) and his magic.

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