The Little Match Girl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Little Match Girl" is a Danish fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a young girl who sells matches during the cold winter. It was first published in 1848 as part of his fifth volume of Nye Eventyr (New Fairy Tales) as "Den Lille Pige Med Svovlstikkerne" ("The Little Girl with the Sulfursticks").
[edit] Plot synopsis
The Little Girl with the Matchsticks
It was New Year’s Eve, and a poor little girl was out on the cold streets selling matchsticks. She was hungry and freezing, with neither hat nor shoes. She was afraid to go home for her father would surely beat her as she had not sold any matchsticks that day.
In a nook between two buildings she tried to warm herself by lighting her matches. In the light of the first match she saw a hot iron stove. She then lit a second match and this time saw a fully laden dinner table with a cooked goose that came right toward her. It too disappeared as the match went out. By the light of the third match she saw a beautiful Christmas tree lit with thousands of candles. The lights of the tree went higher and higher until she saw that they were the stars. One became a shooting star and she remembered her grandmother telling her that a shooting star means that a person has died and a soul gone to heaven.
Upon lighting the next match she saw her grandmother, the only person who ever loved her. Hoping to keep her grandmother as long as possible, she quickly lit the whole bunch of matches. Her grandmother then lifted her in her arms and they flew with joy and glory higher and higher and there was no cold, no hunger, no fear – they were with God.
The next morning her body was found with a smile upon her lips, frozen to death and with a burned out bunch of matches. “She wanted to warm herself!” people said. No one knew what beauty she had seen or with what glory she had gone with her grandmother into a joyous new year.
[edit] Adaptations
The Charles Mintz studio adapted "The Little Match Girl", including its grim ending, into a 1937 Color Rhapsodies animated short, 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 Company released an animated film based on Andersen's works, entitled "Hans Christian Andersen no Sekai" ("The World of Hans Christian Andersen"). The final act of the film includes a faithful version of this story.
In 1974, a contemporarized version set in Cincinnati was aired on WLWT there. It featured a nine-year-old named Sarah Parker in the role of the title character. She is now known today as Sarah Jessica Parker.
In 1985, the film The Little Match Girl was released, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, with Keshia Knight-Pulliam, William Daniels, and John Rhys Davies. Presented as a Christmas story, it tells of a young homeless orphan who brings the gift of love and reconciliation and helps a family reunite. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the original fairy tale, except for sharing the same name.
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. Thirteen-year-old Monica makes her living by selling flowers in the streets of Medellín, Colombia.
In 2002 Moppi Productions released the demo "Halla" which was heavily influenced by "The Little Match Girl".
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 (a DVD that presents various Sanrio characters starring in classic children's stories). This version was faithful to the original ending (causing some minor concern about the death of the popular Hello Kitty character who played the little match girl).
In 2005, 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 "Fantasia 2006", 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. It combines hand-drawn animation, computer techniques, and stylized backgrounds, and retains Andersen's tragic ending. This short was subsequently released as a special feature on the 2006 Platinum Edition DVD of "The Little Mermaid."
The story was also used as a basis for the band GrooveLily's 2004 off-Broadway musical Striking 12
The German avant-garde composer Helmut Lachenmann has written an opera based on the story called Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern.
In 2005, Erasure made a music video of their song "Breathe", based on a modern adaptation of the story.
[edit] External links
- "SurLaLune's The Annotated Little Matchgirl"
- Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Match-Seller. The Little Match-Seller by Hans Christian Andersen (1846). Retrieved on April 21, 2005.
- "The Little Matchgirl" Creative Commons audiobook
- "The Little Match Girl 1902 Adaptation (downloadable)" at The British Film Institute Released as part of the Creative Archive
- An animation on YouTube
