The Little Match Girl

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The Little Match Girl

Vilhelm Pedersen illustration
Author Hans Christian Andersen
Original title Danish: Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne
Country Flag of Denmark Denmark
Language Danish
Genre(s) Fairy tale
Publication date December 1845
Media type Print

"The Little Match Girl" (Danish: Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne) is a fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen about a girl who dies selling matches on a wintry New Year's Eve. It was first published in 1845. The tale has been adapted to various media including animated film and television musical.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

On a cold New Year’s Eve, a poor girl selling matches on the street takes shelter in a nook and lights the matches to warm herself. In their light, she sees several lovely visions including a Christmas tree and a holiday feast. The girl looks skyward, sees a shooting star, and remembers such stars mean someone is dying. As she lights her last match, she sees a vision of her deceased grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness. The child dies and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find the dead child in the nook.

[edit] Source

Andersen's main source of inspiration for the story was a widely popular woodcut illustration by the Danish artist Johan Thomas Lundbye depicting a poor child selling matches. The illustration was printed in a calendar for 1843. Several illustrations had been sent to Andersen by the editor of an almanac requesting him to write a story around one.[1]

Another known inspiration for the story is the well known fairy tale The Star Money previously recorded by the Brothers Grimm. It is a story of a young poor Girl who gives away everything that she has to the needy and ends up with nothing except her love for God. The Grimms differing variation however ends with the young poor Girl remaining alive and receiving divine gifts(money that falls from the stars) for her charity. [2]

[edit] Publication

"The Little Match Girl" was first published December 1845 in Dansk Folkekalender for 1846. The work was re-published 4 March 1848 as a part of New Fairy Tales. Second Volume. Second Collection. 1848. (Nye Eventyr. Andet Bind. Anden Samling. 1848.), and again 18 December 1849 as a part of Fairy Tales. 1850. (Eventyr. 1850.). The work was also published 30 March 1863 as a part of Fairy Tales and Stories. Second Volume. 1863. (Eventyr og Historier. Andet Bind. 1863.)[3]

[edit] Adaptations

Bayes illustration, 1889
Bayes illustration, 1889
  • In 1928, "La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes" ("The Little Match Girl") by Jean Renoir was released (40-minute silent film).
  • The Charles Mintz studio adapted "The Little Match Girl", including its grim ending, into a 1937 Color Rhapsodies animated short film, considered among the studio's best films. It was nominated for the 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons), losing to Disney's The Old Mill.
  • In 1971, Toei Animation released an animated film based on Andersen's works, entitled "Hans Christian Andersen no Sekai" ("The World of Hans Christian Andersen").
  • In 1974, a contemporarized version set in Cincinnati was aired on WLWT. It featured a nine-year-old named Sarah Parker in the role of the title character.
  • In 1987 British TV released "The Little Match Girl" a musical based on the original story. The cast included Twiggy and Roger Daltrey.
  • In 1996, Hogfather, one of Terry Pratchett's popular Discworld series of novels, gave the story a decidedly less morbid ending, thanks to the intervention of Death himself.
  • In Neil Gaiman's 2004 novella, "A Study in Emerald," the main characters view a set of three plays, one of which is a stage adaptation of the "Little Match Girl".
  • La Vendedora de rosas (lit: "The Rose Seller") was a modern adaptation of Andersen's fairy tale in a very realistic, almost documentary form, a 1998 film directed by Víctor Gaviria, with Leidy Tabares.
  • Suikoden III, a video game for the Playstation 2, contains a highly-abridged play version of "The Little Match Girl". In the game, the player can cast characters in different roles and have them perform a shortened version of the story.
  • In 2001 the Hungarian band Tormentor wrote the song "The Little Match Girl," with lyrics based on the story.
  • In 2002 Moppi Productions released the demo "Halla" which was heavily influenced by "The Little Match Girl".
  • In 2002 GrooveLily released Striking 12, a musical based on "The Little Match Girl".
  • The story was also used as a basis for the band GrooveLily's 2004 off-Broadway musical Striking 12
  • In 2003, "The Little Match Girl" was adapted into a short story manga by Hans Tseng and was featured in the first volume of Tokyopop's Rising Stars of Manga.
  • "Resurrection of the Little Match Girl" is a 2003 Korean movie, by which the L.M.G. abbreviation of Light machine gun is somehow relevant.
  • Also in 2003, "The Little Match Girl" was made into an animated short film by Junho Chung for Fine Cut: KCET's Festival of Student Film. Chung's daughter served as the model for the little match girl.
  • In 2005, an adaptation of "The Little Match Girl" was released by ADV Films in Hello Kitty Animation Theater Vol. 3.
  • In 2006, Walt Disney Feature Animation finished production work on a new adaptation of "The Little Match Girl". The short was originally intended to be a part of a Fantasia film, but this project was canceled. The Little Matchgirl is last of the four shorts from the aborted compilation to be developed as a standalone film. This short was subsequently released as a special feature on the 2006 Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid.
  • The German avant-garde composer Helmut Lachenmann has written an opera based on the story called Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern.
  • In the 2005 anime The Snow Queen, there is an episode entitled "The Little Match Girl" which retells the story in a variation; interestingly enough, both "The Snow Queen" and "The Little Match Girl" were written by Hans Christian Anderson.
  • In 2005, Erasure made a music video of their song "Breathe", based on a modern adaptation of the story.
  • Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish released an album called Wishmaster. The song "Bare Grace Misery", in keeping with the fantasy-oriented lyrics of the album, contains the line "A Little Match Girl freezing in the snow."
  • David Lang composed his The Little Match Girl Passion in 2007, with two sopranos, tenor and bass-baritone. This work earned Lang the Pulitzer Prize for music 2008.
  • Xiong Tian Ping the song 'Match Heaven' was performed by the taiwanese pop artist Xiong Tian Ping in his debut album

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Hans Chrisitian Andesen. W.W. Norton, 2008. ISBN 9780393060812.
  2. ^ Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Brothers Grimm. W.W. Norton, 2004. ISBN 9780393058482 .
  3. ^ Hans Christian Andersen Center: Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Match Girl

[edit] External links