Christmas Classics: The Little Match Girl

I’ve always loved fairytales, and used to read every Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson story there was, along with many others. Each one was unique: promising castles and balls, or magic and mystery. I was drawn to them for the happy ending; somehow, the hero would overcome an obstacle against all odds.

Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl has always seemed depressing, and never fit the fairytale genre to me. Yet, it holds its own kind of hope (albeit in a depressing way).

The Christmas in the Story

This Christmastime story, which takes place on the eve of the New Year, reminds us of those in need. The author shows the plight of the match girl and how brave she is in the face of death, using her imagination to try to warm herself.

Each time the girl strikes a match, a new cheery vision brings her happiness. Once, she sees a holiday feast. Another time, she catches a glimpse of a marvelous Christmas tree.

The Match Girl

The match girl is not a well-developed character: all we learn about her is that she is slowly freezing to death while others enjoy warmth and food indoors, and that she doesn’t want to go home because her father will beat her for not making money from selling matches.

We immediately sympathize with her: after all, she is a little girl with no way to help herself. Instead, she uses her imagination to escape from her harsh reality (or are the matches really magical?).

The Injustice

This story leaves you with a sense of injustice: how could all those passers-by neglect this poor girl?

Why isn’t society (or some kind soul) taking pity on her and welcoming her inside?

This story can remind us of the need to notice and see the needs of those who are “freezing to death” before our eyes. This could be taking literally, or to mean those who have great needs we could help meet.

I saw this article recently about a French man who designed an “igloo” (it’s an old story that’s going around again), which I think shows ingenuity and compassion.

It’s easy to forget all we take for granted, and not to see others who don’t have the things we do. This story is a sad, poetic illustration of that reality to me.

The Story:

“Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening– the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.

One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.

She crept along trembling with cold and hunger–a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!

The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year’s Eve; yes, of that she thought.

In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.

Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. “Rischt!” how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but–the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.

She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when–the match went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant’s house.

Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them when–the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.

“Someone is just dead!” said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God.

She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression of love.

“Grandmother!” cried the little one. “Oh, take me with you! You go away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!” And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety–they were with God.

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall–frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. “She wanted to warm herself,” people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.”

Story and image from: https://americanliterature.com/author/hans-christian-andersen/short-story/the-little-match-girl