Andersen could never reconcile himself to the fact that he was not praised unconditionally by the Danish critics and public. He had an enormous ego and insatiable need for compliments and special treatment. From 1850 until his death in 1875, the more he wrote the more he tended to repeat the plots and styles of his earlier tales, and though some like “Clod Hans” (1855), “What Father Does Is Always Right” (1861), and “The Gardener and the Gentry” (1872) were masterful works of art, most waxed pale in comparison to those that had preceded them. His last two novels, To Be or Not to Be (1857) and Lucky Peter (1870), were poorly conceived and boring to read. His plays were performed but were not very successful. If anything, it was not Andersen’s unusual talents as a storyteller that grew in the latter part of his life, but rather his vanity, and he was often a burden on others. For instance, when he returned to England in 1857 and spent five weeks with Charles Dickens and his family, they could not wait to see him leave because he was too nitpicky and overbearing. Andersen continued to make annual excursions to other countries and cities, and wherever he went he insisted on being coddled and pampered, and he sought close male friendships that were often amorous but never fulfilled in the way he desired. The older he became, the more lonely he felt, and the more he needed some kind of warm family life to replace the Collins, who continued to assist him and manage his affairs but kept their distance. In 1865 Andersen began close friendships with two wealthy Jewish families, the Melchiors and the Henriques, who became his dedicated supporters; though he maintained a residence in Copenhagen, when he visited the World Exposition in Paris in 1867 and such countries as Spain, Germany, and Switzerland, Andersen often stayed at their estates. By 1873 it was clear that he was suffering from cancer of the liver, and though he courageously fought the disease and even made a few trips and attended social functions during the next two years, he finally succumbed to the cancer on August 4, 1875.
Most anthologies of Andersen’s fairy tales and stories tend to present them chronologically, according to the dates they first appeared in Danish. This type of organization enables readers to follow Andersen’s development as a writer and to draw parallels with the events in his life, but that can be a disadvantage if critics and readers go too far in interpreting the tales autobiographically and tracing biographical details in his tales. For example, “The Ugly Duckling” is generally regarded as a representation of the trials and tribulations of the outsider Andersen, who had to overcome obstacles to reveal his aristocratic nature as a swan. “The Little Mermaid” has frequently been interpreted as a reflection of the unrequited love Andersen felt for Edvard Collin. “The Nightingale” mirrors the tenuous relationship between Andersen the artist and his patron the King of Denmark. There is undoubtedly some truth to these interpretations. All writing has psychological and biographical dimensions. But to relentlessly view most of Andersen’s tales as symbolic stories about his own life and experiences can diminish our appreciation of the depth and originality of many of his narratives.
At his best, Andersen was an unusually creative and sensitive writer whose imagination enabled him to transform ordinary occurrences and appearances into extraordinary stories that open new perspectives on life. He was not a profound philosophical thinker, but he had a knack of responding spontaneously and naively to the world around him, and he possessed a talent for conveying his wonder about the miracles of life through short narrative prose that could be awe-inspiring. Moreover, because he always felt oppressed, dominated, and misunderstood, he sought to assess and grasp the causes of suffering, and offered hope to his readers—a hope that he himself needed to pursue his dreams.
It thus makes sense to try to “categorize” Andersen’s tales in a non-traditional-that is, non-chronological-manner in order to try to appreciate some of the common themes that he tried to weave into his narratives time and again from 1835 to 1875. Though it is difficult to typify all his tales, a consideration of their common themes will allow for a broader and more critical appreciation of his works and might make some of his intentions clearer. I have divided the tales into the following categories: the artist and society; folk tales (the adaptation of folklore); original fairy tales; evangelical and religious tales; the anthropomorphizing of animals and nature; the humanization of toys and objects; and legends. There are, of course, overlapping themes and motifs, and a tale that appears in one category might have been included in another. Yet from the vantage point of these categories, Andersen’s tales may assume more relevance in a socio-cultural context. (See “Commentaries on the Tales” for more on each tale in this collection.)
THE ARTIST AND SOCIETY
One of Andersen’s most insightful and profound fairy tales, one that fully addresses his philosophy of art and the artist, is “The Nightingale”; it deserves to be placed first in any anthology of Andersen’s tales, followed by “The Gardener and the Gentry.” The first is clearly a fairy-tale allegory about the relationship of the artist to his patron; the second is a bitter, ironic story, also about patronage, but more specifically about folklore and the artist’s role in Denmark. While it is difficult to state which category of Andersen’s tales is most important, it is clear that there was an overriding concern in all his tales with the virtue of art and with the genuine storyteller as a cultivator of the social good. Andersen was writing at a time when the status of the professional and independent writer was in the process of being formed; before Andersen’s time, in Denmark and most of Europe it was virtually impossible to earn a living as a professional writer. Therefore, a writer had to have an independent income, trade, and profession, or a wealthy patron to support his work, and as there was no copyright law, a writer’s works were not fully protected. If a writer was dependent on a patron, he would be obliged to respect and pay attention to the expectations of his benefactor.
In “The Nightingale” and “The Gardener and the Gentry,” Andersen depicts the quandary of the artist who must suffer the indignities of serving upper-class patrons who do not appreciate his great accomplishments; in each case, the artist is a commoner or is common-looking but capable of producing uncommon art. For Andersen, uncommon art was “authentic” and “true” and stemmed from nature—that is, the natural talents of the artist. It is also essential and therapeutic, for humankind cannot do without it. In “The Nightingale,” the artist/bird heals the emperor, who realizes that mechanical art is artificial. In “The Gardener and the Gentry,” a more cynical Andersen depicts an arrogant, rich man and his wife who are unable to appreciate the originality of their innovative artist/gardener. Despite their ignorance and closed minds, true art succeeds, an indication of Andersen’s strong belief that the artist who is naturally endowed with talent will somehow shine forth.
One can always distinguish the true art from the false, and all the other tales in this category reflect Andersen’s constant re-examination of the nature of storytelling and the salvation it offered all people. In one of his last tales, “The Cripple” (1872), it is the fairy tale that enables a sick boy to regain his health; the story is a personal wish-fulfillment that transcends the conditions in Andersen’s life to become a universal narrative about art’s wondrous powers.
FOLK TALES (THE ADAPTATION OF FOLKLORE)
Many famous writers of fairy tales have made and continue to make extraordinary use of folk tales that were spread by word of mouth, and Andersen was no exception. In fact, most of Andersen’s early tales—including “The Tinderbox,” “Little Claus and Big Claus (1835),” “The Princess on the Pea,” and “The Traveling Companion” (1835)—are based on Danish folk tales that he had heard or read. He may have also used German and European tales collected by the Brothers Grimm as his sources; for instance, “The Tinderbox” and “Little Claus and Big Claus” are closely related to the Grimms’ “The Blue Light” and “The Little Farmer,” and other of Andersen’s tales show the influence of the Grimms. Knowing the sources enables us to study how Andersen appropriated and enriched these tales to reflect
upon conditions in Danish society and upon the trajectory of his life. A good example is “The Traveling Companion,” an oral tale widespread in the Scandinavian countries and most of Europe. Folklorists refer to it as a tale type about the “grateful dead,” in which a dead man whose corpse is maltreated helps a young man who kindly protects the corpse from abuse. In Andersen’s version, the young man is devout and trusts the Lord and his dead father in Heaven to guide him through life. Andersen combines pagan and Christian motifs to illustrate the rise of a poor, naive man whose goodness enables him to marry a princess.
Andersen colored his tales based on folklore with his personal experience while using the folk perspective to expose the contradictions of the aristocratic class. In “The Swineherd” (1842) he remained close to the folk perspective, which he also developed in some of his original fairy tales, such as “The Emperor’s New Clothes.”
In Andersen’s early adaptations of folklore we see him in an “apprentice” phase as a writer of short prose. Taking the structure and contents of these tales as a basis, he developed his own style and tone, which was characterized by the simple folk mode of storytelling. Andersen’s style overall is really not so much “childlike” as it is “folksy,” and it was this blend of intimate, down-to-earth storytelling with folk motifs and literary themes that gave rise to some of his most significant fairy tales.
ORIGINAL FAIRY TALES
It is perhaps an exaggeration to assert that Andersen’s fairy tales are “original” because all his narratives reveal how much he borrowed from literature and from the folklore tradition. Nevertheless, he endowed them with his own original touch and personal experiences, and that makes them somewhat unique narratives. The major feature of Andersen’s original literary fairy tales is that he turned known literary motifs into provocative and uncanny stories that challenge conventional expectations and explore modes of magic realism he learned from the German Romantics, especially E. T. A. Hoffmann. Two of his greatest fairy tales—“The Shadow” and “The Little Mermaid”—demonstrate his talent for transforming known folk and literary motifs into highly complex narratives about identity formation. “The Shadow,” clearly based on German writer Adelbert Chamisso’s novella Peter Schlemihl (1813), in which a man sells his shadow to the devil, can also be traced to E. T. A. Hoffman’s tale “The New Year’s Adventure” (1819), in which a man gives up his reflection for love. For Andersen, this loss of a shadow or reflection is transformed into a psychological conflict in which unconscious forces debilitate and eventually destroy a strong ego. The learned man’s identity is literally effaced by his shadow. In “The Little Mermaid,” based on his poem Agnete and the Merman and Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué’s fairy-tale novella Undine (1811), Andersen depicts the quest for identity in a more positive light. There are strong religious overtones in this narrative, in which a young girl learns that becoming human involves self-sacrifice, humility, and devotion. Christian redemption is promised if the mermaid will fulfill her destiny. Other tales, including “The Bronze Pig” (1842) and “Ib and Little Christine” (1855), feature this motif. Many others reflect Andersen’s desire to uncover social contradictions.
What often makes Andersen’s original tales original is their irony—a key element in “The Shadow” but one that is even more pronounced in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” (1837) and “The Naughty Boy” (1835). Andersen used the metaphorical mode of the fairy tale to expose social hypocrisy, and in the best of his original fairy tales, he left his readers not with happy endings, but with startling ones aimed at making them reflect upon ethical and moral behavior.
EVANGELICAL AND RELIGIOUS TALES
Andersen is not commonly thought of a religious writer; yet religious motifs and themes run through a majority of his tales. This religious dimension is one reason Andersen became so popular in the nineteenth century: He “tamed” the pagan or secular aspects of the folk-tale and fairy-tale traditions and made them acceptable to the nineteenth-century European and American reading publics. To a certain extent, some of his tales fit the standards of evangelical literature, which was very strong and popular throughout Europe and North America. “The Snow Queen” (1845) and “The Red Shoes” (1845) are good examples; both depict young girls who place their lives in the hands of God and are saved because they trust in the Lord’s powers of redemption. The beginning of “The Snow Queen” establishes the connection between the devil and the snow queen, and the narrative develops into a Christian conflict between good and evil; it becomes clear by the end of the tale that Gerda will need the assistance of angels and the Lord to save Kai. In “The Red Shoes,” the unfortunate Karen is mercilessly punished for her pride, and she must have her feet cut off and learn Christian humility before she can be accepted into heaven.
Andersen tended to chastise girls or use them as examples in Christian allegorical fairy tales that celebrate the intelligent design of God. Whether the girl is reprimanded, as in “The Girl Who Stepped on Bread” (1859), or elevated to the level of a saint, as in “The Little Match Girl” (1845), Andersen insisted that she become self-sacrificial and pious. It was not much different for the male characters in Andersen’s tales, but interestingly, he did not treat males as harshly as he did females. Overall, almost all of Andersen’s religious tales and many others indicate that the only way to fulfill one’s destiny is to place one’s trust in the Lord.
THE ANTHROPOMORPHIZING OF ANIMALS AND NATURE
In his traditional tales in which animals, insects, and plants speak and come to life, Andersen often didactically conveys moral values. Placing one’s faith in God is an undercurrent in his most famous fairy tale, “The Ugly Duckling.” There are no Christian references in this narrative; instead Andersen uses the tradition of animal tales to demonstrate that there is such a thing as “intelligent design.” The duckling must have faith in order to overcome all the obstacles in his life and triumph in the end.
Andersen’s anthropomorphizing tales are not always religious. In many, he pokes fun at human foibles—for example, pomposity is his target in “The Spruce Tree” (1845) and “The Dung Beetle” (1861). His short tales, pungent and often bitterly ironic, stand in the tradition of Aesop’s fables and reflect Andersen’s notions of “survival of the fittest.” Though in fact he rejected Darwin’s ideas, many of Andersen’s tales that deal with anthropomorphized animals and plants are concerned with intense social and natural conflict. He understood the fierce battles waged in the European societies of his day, such as the revolutions of 1848 and the uprisings of peasants and workers, but instead of recounting these conflicts in realistic stories, Andersen anthropomorphized animals and nature to comment critically on more than one of the delicate issues and taboo subjects of his time.
THE HUMANIZATION OF TOYS AND OBJECTS
Much in the same way that he used animals and nature, Andersen “humanized” toys and inanimate objects to comment on social issues and human weaknesses. Here his model was E. T. A. Hoffmann, who had experimented with this narrative mode in such tales as “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (1816). Another obvious example is “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” (1838). Perhaps more important is “The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep” (1845), in which he uses porcelain figures to meditate philosophically on the fear of freedom. What is intriguing in Andersen’s tales about toys and objects is the way he realistically describes them; he had a great eye for detail and depicted toys, objects, and their settings so carefully and precisely that it almost seems natural they would come to life. Andersen often took tiny incidental or neglected objects, such as a darning needle or rags, as the subject matter for a consideration of serious philosophical and social concerns or even survival and immortality.
LEGENDS
Andersen was also concerned about traditions, and though he became very cosmopolitan and developed a hate-love relationship with Denmark, he sought to mine the Danish soil, so to speak, to celebrate its richness. Throughout his tales he relied on references to Danish lege
nds and proverbs to add local color to his narratives. Often on his trips in Denmark, he would hear a local legend or see something legendary that would inspire his imagination; two good examples are “Holger the Dane” (1845) and “Everything in Its Proper Place” (1853). While the legend about a king who rises from the dead to save his country can be found in many cultures, Andersen bases “Holger the Dane” on Danish lore; he wrote at a time when Denmark was engaged in a conflict with Prussia, and the story is clearly patriotic in spirit, something unusual for Andersen, who was a loyal Danish citizen but never really patriotic.
More typical of Andersen is “Everything in Its Proper Place,” in which he invents his own local legend about a family’s history and its house to comment on class conflict. Houses and mansions abound in Andersen’s stories, and though he knew some of their legendary histories, he was at his best when he invented legends; his inventions were always bound up with his real experiences and his realistic appraisal of Danish society.
Andersen’s range as a short-story writer was great. Not only did he experiment with a variety of genres; he also dealt with diverse social and psychological problems in unusual narrative modes. A master of self-irony, he often employed the first-person narrative to poke fun simultaneously at himself and at conceited people who tell stories that reveal their pretentiousness. Some of his more imaginative fairy tales are told in a vivacious, colloquial style that appears to be flippant, until he suddenly introduces serious issues that transform the tale into a complex narrative of survival and salvation. Though he could over-emphasize sentimentality, religiosity, and pathos, Andersen was deeply invested in the issues he raised in his tales. It was almost as if life and death were at risk in his short prose, and he needed to capture the intensity of the moment. This is perhaps why he kept trying to write from different vantage points, used different genres, experimented with forms and ideas borrowed from other writers, and inserted his own life experiences into the narratives.
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