| "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Hans Christian Andersen |
| Original title | "Den Standhaftige Tinsoldat" |
| Country | Denmark |
| Language | Danish |
| Genre(s) | Literary fairy tale |
| Published in | Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. First Booklet. 1838. (Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. Ny Samling. Første Hefte. 1838.) |
| Publication type | Fairy tale collection |
| Publisher | C.A. Reitzel |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | 2 October 1838 |
| Preceded by | "The Daisy" |
| Followed by | "The Wild Swans" |
"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" (Danish: Den standhaftige tinsoldat) is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a tin soldier's love for a paper ballerina. After several adventures, the tin soldier perishes in a fire with the ballerina. The tale was first published in Copenhagen by C.A. Reitzel on 2 October 1838 in the first booklet of Fairy Tales Told for Children. New Collection. The booklet consists of Andersen's "The Daisy" and "The Wild Swans". The tale was Andersen’s first not based upon a folk tale or a literary model. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" has been adapted to various media including ballet and animated film.
Contents |
On his birthday, a boy receives a set of 25 toy soldiers and arrays them on a table top. One soldier stands on a single leg, having been the last one cast from an old tin spoon. Nearby, he spies a paper ballerina with a spangle on her sash. She too is standing on one leg and the soldier falls in love. That night, a troll among the toys angrily warns the soldier to take his eyes off the ballerina, but the soldier ignores him. The next day, the soldier falls from a windowsill (presumably the work of the troll) and lands in the street. Two boys find the soldier, place him in a paper boat, and set him sailing in the gutter. The boat and its passenger wash into a storm drain, where a rat demands the soldier pay a toll. Sailing on, the boat is washed into a canal, where the tin soldier is swallowed by a fish. When the fish is caught and cut open, the tin soldier finds himself once again on the table top before the ballerina. Inexplicably, a boy throws the tin soldier into the fire. A wind blows the ballerina into the fire with him; she is consumed at once but her spangle remains. The tin soldier melts into the shape of a heart.
The tale was first published in Copenhagen, Denmark by C. A. Reitzel on 2 October 1838 in Fairy Tales Told to Children. New Collection. First Booklet. 1838. Other tales in the booklet include "The Daisy" and "The Wild Swans". The tale was republished in collected editions of Andersen’s work, first, on 18 December 1849 in Fairy Tales and again on 15 December 1862 in the first volume of Fairy Tales and Stories’’.[1]
"The Steadfast Tin Soldier" is the first tale Andersen wrote that has neither a literary model nor a folk tale source. It marks a new independence in his writing, and is the zenith of his evocation of the nineteenth century nursery world with its toy dancers, castles, and swans.
Joan G. Haahr writes in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales: "The story is unusual among Andersen's early tales, both in its emphasis on sensual desire and in its ambiguities. Blind fate, not intention, determines all events. Moreover, the narrative questions the very decorum it praises. The tin soldier's passive acceptance of whatever happens to him, while exemplifying pietistic ideals of self-denial, also contributes to his doom. Were he to speak and act, the soldier might gain both life and love. Restrained, however, by inhibition and convention, he finds only tragedy and death. The tale is often read autobiographically, with the soldier viewed as symbolizing Andersen's feelings of inadequacy with women, his passive acceptance of bourgeois class attitudes, or his sense of alienation as an artist and an outsider, from full participation in everyday life."[2]
Ub Iwerks did a 1934 Cinecolor cartoon The Brave Tin Soldier that features an evil jack in the box.
Paul Grimault (with Jacques Prévert) did a 1947 colour French cartoon Le Petit Soldat that had the title character being a toy acrobat who is called to war and returns crippled but determined to rescue his ballerina.
In 1976, Soyuzmultfilm , a Soviet Union animation studios made Stoikiy Olovyannyy Soldatik, this adaptation differs because the Ballerina and the Soldier fall in love, the Goblin causes the Soldier's death, and the Ballerina willingly jumps into the fire...into the arms of the Soldier, as they burn together.
In Disney's film Fantasia 2000, an adaptation of the tale is set to the first movement of the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Major by Dmitri Shostakovich. The segment differs slightly from Andersen's tale: the ballerina appears to be made of porcelain; the soldier is disappointed to discover the ballerina has two legs, but the ballerina still accepts him; at the end, the Jack-in-the-Box villain is the one that perishes in the fire instead of the soldier and ballerina.[3] Other animated films for children have been produced on the tale, and, in 1975, a science fiction fantasy feature film, The Tin Soldier.[2]
Andersen‘s contemporary Auguste Bournonville choreographed the tale for his ballet A Fairy Tale in Pictures, and George Balanchine choreographed the tale in 1975, allowing the soldier and the ballerina to express their love before the ballerina is blown into the fire.[3] George Bizet set the tale to music in Jeux d'Enfants.[3]
Mike Mignola's graphic novel Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire fuses the poignancy of "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" with supernatural Dracula myths, set in a post-World War I environment.[4] Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (2006) makes use of the tale's themes.[3]
In Stieg Larsson's thriller "The Girl Who Played with Fire", the fiercely indepedndent protagonist Lisbeth Salander compares the journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who had stayed loyal to her despite her repeated blatant rejection of him, with Andersen's steadfast tin soldier (implicitly comparing herself with Andersen's ballerina)[5].
|
|||||||||||||||||