The Ugly Andersen
“Life itself is the most wonderful fairytale” – Hans Christian Andersen. In the fairytale, “The Ugly Duckling”, the author, Hans Christian Andersen illustrates the character of the ugly duckling as one who struggles with unaccepting characters in his life, even his own family because of his appearance. Just as the duckling, Andersen, an outsider himself, lived a life of unacceptance by his peers. Through his writing, Andersen portrays his own personal life experiences as an outcast.
Hans Christian Andersen acquires a history of inserting himself into his own works. He inputs many of his own life experiences and struggles in several of his fairytales. As a “strong autobiographical element runs through his sadder tales; throughout his life he perceived himself as an outsider and despite the international recognition he received, he never felt completely accepted” (Sampaolo). His fairytale of “The Ugly Duckling” shows true sadness of the main character The life of Hans Christian Andersen and “his travels and love life were not only important to him personally, but were also mirrored considerably in his oeuvre (the works of a writer, painter, or the like, taken as whole)”, (The Life). The author once wrote, “My life will provide the best illumination of all my works”, (The Life). He provides much insight by sharing his experiences through his writing and to recognize the hidden autobiographical element, one must dig and look deeper inside his fairytales.
Andersen depicts the duckling as a hideous and awful looking animal. The second the duckling hatches, Andersen describes the duckling as “large and ugly”. All the animals around the duckling stare at him in disgust and don’t even try to accept him because “he is...
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... the great swans swam round the new-comer, and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome”, (Andersen). Hans Christian Andersen uses the happy ending in his story to symbolize his own experience in “trying to make his way out of his awkwardness and odd appearance”, (Chrisholm).
As Andersen writes from experience, an autobiographical sense plays throughout “The Ugly Duckling”. Readers have the ability to gain knowledge and understanding of Andersen’s life just by reading his fairytale; they “can be read simply as magical adventures, but for the discerning reader they contain much more, bristling with characters drawn from Andersen’s own life and from many worlds he traveled through in his remarkable life’s journey”, ( Windling). As an allusion, Andersen creates the fairytale to symbolize his own life as an outcast through the character of the ugly duckling.
First of all the book teaches you that you can one day learn to accept yourself. the duck in this book is called ugly and he gets teased by all the other ducks. He then decides he should run away to look for another family that would accept him. He then sees a group of swans and goes over to them. they tell him how
Folktales can be used to share morals or a lesson using symbols, and this is true of the classic “Cinderella” story. Madonna Kolbenschlag, a feminist, writes “A Feminist’s View of ‘Cinderella,’” explaining the Cinderella story in a more sexist view. Bruno Bettel-heim, a distinguished psychologist, centers his article, “‘Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts” very specifically on the sibling rivalry exhibited in the classic “Cinderella” story. He also writes about the oedipal period of a child’s life. Both authors agree that “Cinderella” is most likely the best-known and best-liked fairy tale. Although, according to Stith Thompson, folktales have been passed form country to country and through different time periods,
To begin with, Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack has an underlying theme which is about isolationism. In the book, Angus is a very curious dog that wants to learn about the things outside of his home. Furthermore, when the opportunity presented itself Angus ran outside to see what was on the other side of the hedge. Moreover, it is important to realize that the hedge represents the division between the United States and the rest of the world. The author wants the audience to recognize what could potentially happen when a country decides to become involved with the political affairs of other countries. One particular example, is given when Angus cannot control his overwhelming curiosity and decides to go under the hedge to see what is on
Though the evils of the world may discourage us from reaching our full potential, fairytales such as Little Snow-White by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm teach us that good will always triumph over evil. As many tales of its kind, Little Snow-White uses a number of literary devices to attract a younger audience and communicate to them a lesson or moral that will remain with them throughout their lives. Since children have such an abstract stream of thought, it is vital to use language and devices that will appeal to them as to keep them interested in the story.
In one, a specimen-creating brute robs a pelican child’s life and her guardian trying to bring her back to life. In the other, a prince learns the value of his frog-turned-princess and sets out on a quest to find her. Joy Williams’s Baba Iaga and the Pelican Child and Alexander Afanasev’s The Frog Princess are both critical facets of the fairy tale genre. While initially it may seem that Williams preserved no elements from Afanasev’s tale, upon a closer glance, it is evident that the two tales’ similarities outnumber their differences. By incorporating a generous portion of the original story into his, Williams’s version brings forth an innovative arrangement of classic and new. As a result, William’s tale introduces features to the tale that mirror everyday life lessons while simultaneously maintaining qualities that are reflective of the definitional aspects of the fairy tale genre.
In both Hans Christian Andersons “The Little Mermaid,” and Disney’s version of the story, the main character— a young and beautiful mermaid— waits anxiously for her fifteenth birthday to venture from her father’s underwater castle to the world above the water. As the story carries on the mermaids priorities change; her modest and selfless nature is revealed towards the end in Andersen’s version. However, Disney’s version encompasses a rather shallow ending and plot throughout. The theme found in comparing the two versions reveal that Andersen’s substance trumps Disney’s entertainment factor in fairy tales.
It starts with a fairy tale story, where all magical things happen and ends happily. The goodness is rewarded but the evil ones are punish. The closing of the story always ends with “and they live happily ever after,” and the main character becomes unhappy but eventually gains happiness at the end. The traditional Cinderella story figure is from “rags to riches.” It begins with a poor maid girl named Cinderella whose stepmother and stepsisters treated her unkindly, but because of the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella found her Prince Charming. In Anne Sexton’s Cinderella story, the author made changes to the traditional fairy tale by adding her own tale. Throughout the poem, Sexton uses sarcasm to finish the tale initiating the readers’ expectation of happy ending and a traditional fairy tale to vanish. In doing so, she shows the difference between the fairy tale and reality world. Sexton’s poem mocks the traditional happy ending. She is trying to show the reader that happily-ever-after does not even exist in reality. Overall, Sexton’s poem would be considered a dark classic fairy tale including violence and bloody details. By examining literary devices such as the author’s attitude toward the words she says, sensory details denoting specific physical experiences, and tropes to involve some kind of comparison, either explicit or implied, the reader will gain an understanding on what the author is trying to prove a point in her story.
Most works of literature derive the basis of their meaning from a moment of time of the respective author that directly relates to situations that influence him as a person. Because Hans Christian Andersen encountered first-hand the struggles of an impoverished lifestyle in infancy, he expresses the problems associated with life in his short fairytale The Stead Fast Tin Soldier. In order to elicit to a posterity that would not understand otherwise the perseverance and struggles that accompany success, he uses the fairytale as a mechanism for persuasion. When composing a piece of literature for the purpose of elucidating an emotion, making analysis, or, as in the case of The Steadfast Tin Soldier, to persuade, an author uses many tools of his arsenal, known in its generic collective as rhetoric. In order to achieve what he desires in this piece of work, a story that encourages personal individuality, drive, and the pursuit of self-actualization, Andersen uses many measures of rhetoric such as juxtaposition, symbolism, irony, motifs, and emotional manipulation.
As many of us know, our world today is not short of sarcasm. Many times sarcasm can be funny but other times it can cause harm. But in Anne Sexton’s poem, she uses sarcasm to throw her audience back to actuality, even a midst a fairytale element. In Anne Sexton’s poem, Cinderella she uses sarcasm and a basis of the true tale to make what many would call a “mockery” of the original Grimm Tale. Sexton does not refer to the Grimm brothers in her poem, for she considers this re-telling her own creation, uniquely by using irony to her advantage. As an audience we can relate to how and why Sexton takes much from the original versions, but we find that her interpretation brings a different approach. Sexton felt the original versions held no light to reality, so she changed the shallow premise of the original Cinderella bringing all the unrealistic morals in the story to the surface. The author's style, tone, and language helps to convey her sarcastic approach and differentiate between gritty reality and the ideal of fairy tale endings.
For their second edition of fairy tales, the Grimms and their publisher deemed their original version of “Rapunzel” to be inappropriate for children for “what proper mother or nanny could tell the fairy tale about Rapunzel to an innocent daughter without blushing?” (Tatar 18). The Grimms, in fact, changed details of “Rapunzel,” ridding the story of even t...
Fairy tales have been a big part of learning and childhood for many of us. They may seem childish to us, but they are full of life lessons and intelligent turnings. Components of fairy tales may even include violence, but always with the aim to provide a moral to the story. Hansel and Gretel is in itself a very interesting story to analyze. It demonstrates the way that children should not stray too far from their benchmarks and rely on appearances. In 2013, a film adaptation was produced. This film is produced for an older public and has picked up the story to turn it into a more mature and violent version. Hansel and Gretel is a German fairy tale written by the Grimm Brothers which has undergone several changes over the years and across the cultures which it touched, but for the purposes of this essay, I will stick to the original story. In the development of this essay, I will analyze the components of this tale by the Brothers Grimm based on the factors listed in the course syllabus (violence, interpersonal relationships, the function of magic and the ending), and I will then do a summary and comparison between the story and the film which was released in theaters recently.
Fairy tales read to young children not only served as a form of entertainment for the child, but they also taught children the difference between what is good and what is bad. The Three Little Pigs is a prime example of the morals and lessons that children were taught while reading a fairy tale. The fact that the tale is equipped with adventure and the ability for animals to talk causes children to immerse in the text while acknowledging the consequences of laziness of the first two little pigs and the result of evil for the sneakiness of the big bad wolf. The tale does however teach children the benefits of hard-work when at the end the third pig lives happily ever after in his sturdy house made of bricks. Comparing three different versions of The Three Little Pigs succeeds in showing the reader issues surrounding that time in regards to social class and gender. The illustrations of the three versions add to the excitement of the tale.
Growing up, Andersen had a very rough childhood – he had to deal with poverty, never knowing where his next meal would be coming from, and his troubled love life. Since he had a rough childhood, Andersen was able to pull from his personal experiences to shape his stories, “He never quite got over those early traumas, or the later scars. But they later became the fuel of his fantasies and the substance of his stories” (Cech 1). Since many of his readers had been in the same situations he had been in, they were drawn to his writings and could almost instantly bond with them. He was able to, “touch those chords of sympathy within his readers because, on some fundamental level that they, too, have shared [those] feelings and have hoped for the same optimistic resolution” (Cech 6). Since Andersen was able to create such an intimate connection with his readers, he was able to create, “and immediate bond of identification and sympathy between [himself] and his readers” (Cech 2). Children loved his stories because they gave them hope for a better future or just made their day a little bit better. Unlike the Grimm brothers, children were not frightened by all of Andersen’s stories’ endings. Even though Andersen did write a lot of child friendly stories, he did explore, “those other, darker reaches of the psych that we do not like to
Bettelheim, Bruno. "The Struggle for Meaning." The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. New York: Knopf, 1976. Print.
“The Fisherman and His Wife” is a tale that teaches us about moderation, greed, and that the magnitude of material objects one accumulates does not measure happiness. In this tale, the wife is never satisfied and constantly wants more. The Brothers Grimm identified “Fisherman and His Wife” as an ideal fairy tale because it utilizes magic along with juxtaposing character development as well as religious and progressively more violent symbolism in order to convey a battle between the sexes.