Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales still have a huge influence on Western children to this day. They inspired numerous plays, popular stories and movie adaptations. Especially noteworthy, as cultural artefacts, are the hugely successful Disney movies based on some of the stories. The following analysis will focus on three of Hans Christian Andersen's stories that have all been adapted as movies by the Disney Corporation, which makes their legacy known to the modern generation. The Little Mermaid (The Little Mermaid), The Emperor's New Suit (The Emperor's New Groove) and The Snow Queen (Frozen) have all been heavily modified to fit the modern zeitgeist.
This analysis will focus on the original stories as fairy tales. Fairy tales are, by definition, stories that share some kind of moral or code of behavior with their audience, often children. The same is true for these stories. Additionally, Hans Christian Andersen was a devout Christian and his believes play an important role in his stories. Interestingly enough, most of the heavily religious undertones have been deleted for the movie adaptations.
The little mermaid tells the story of a young mermaid that falls in love with humankind and the concept of an immortal soul. She pursues a prince after giving up her fishtail and her voice to make him marry her. This marriage is the only way to obtain a soul, according to all characters of wisdom within the story. While mermaids live longer than humans, their death is the final end. The main motivation of the young mermaid in pursuing the prince is the search for a soul, as to enjoy eternal live in paradise and not end up as sea foam with no further live. The story, therefore, uses the otherness of mermaids as a reason that they do not possess souls.
Most mermaids seem fine with this concept, not however the unnamed youngest princess of the mer-kingdom. She loves the human life and wishes to be part of it. She graves this so much that she is fine with feeling the pain of a thousand swords every time her human feet take a step. Throughout the story the listener is reminded of this fact several times. Being human is portrayed as the ultimate goal, and marriage as the only salvation. In marriage a soul is shared and soulless creatures can obtain one this way, without harming the partner. Original listeners of this story must have felt pity with the poor creature, suffering immense pain just to be replaced by a human princess in the end. However, the mermaid, when given the option does not save her own life, as to not kill the man she loved. She rather dies and becomes sea foam with no hope of eternal life than kill him.
This act of compassion does not go unrewarded. Her mind is transformed to a creature of the wind that can obtain a soul through hard work. The clear message that is transferred to the target audience, children, is that being human is a huge gift that should be treasured. Hans Christian Andersen smuggles a little reminder for children to behave at the end of the story. It is revealed that the mermaid who was transformed into a wind creature needs less time to get into heaven each time she finds a well behaved child. The listeners of the story are coerced to behave to help the poor creature, whose fate was less than joyful.
The emperor's new suit is a cautionary tale about pride and trust into one's own senses. The whole kingdom is too afraid of their public image and too narcissistic to reveal that they cannot see the cloth. The tale ends in the emperor realizing through a child’s voice that he was fooled by the swindlers. However, he is still unable to lift the farce and continues in the parade, naked. The emperor's new suit shows the negative effects of societal pressure and strong adherence to irrelevant rules. All of the characters were sure to find the fault in themselves and not the non-existing object.
Very often the moral of the story is interpreted as a critique of monarchic rule or concentrated power, in the sense that the powerful in the story are fooled by their own ambition to stay in their place. However, even the common men cherish and are fooled in the story and only an innocents child voice is the one that lifts the veil. In the end, the main moral of the story is to trust your senses and to keep a child’s innocence as part of one's personality.
The Snow Queen, one of the most famous stories of Hans Christian Andersen, is a fantastic tale of friendship and loyalty through incredible hardship. The story places the evil premise within the hands of a character that is completely irrelevant for the rest of story. The hobgoblin only appears as the facilitator, through the creation of the evil mirror, and his evil deeds are never met with any consequence. The main story only revolves around a couple of young children that are best friends and that are torn apart by chance.
Gerda, the protagonist and embodiment of loyalty towards her friend Kay, even after he has met her with scorn, has to travel through a whole year till she reaches her destination. The individual stations of the journey also can be interpreted as a journey towards adulthood. Although never explicitly named, the four main characters of power she meets on her travels are often seen as the embodiments of the seasons.
The flower garden is spring. Within the lady's garden Gerda experiences true innocence and carelessness, like a young girl. The empire of the young princess resembles summer. The princess searches for love and intellectual excitement and Gerda believes her journey to be finally over. Disappointment compels her to go on, to age, to allow autumn to come. Autumn is represented by the wild bunch of robbers, stealing away innocence and causing fear. The wild girl is a friend and a fearful companion at the same time. She sends Gerda onwards to the north, to the place of winter. There she meets two old women, wisdom their main characteristic. Winter is embodied in the castle of the Snow Queen, which is vast but empty. Loneliness and solemn silence is the only furnishing.
Through her resolve and unwavering loyalty to her friend Kay she saves him and both return to their homeland, but now as grown humans, who still know what it means to be children. This result is what Hans Christian Andersen always wanted to achieve in his readers and listeners. It is important to grow up, but never forget what makes a child happy. This story also contains explicit religious symbolism. Gerda is only saved from freezing through prayer, which literally conjures up an army of angels. This underlines the strong religious sentiment Andersen wanted to create within the children that were told his stories.
