How is the timing of this story important?ġ1. The last day of the year is often a time to reflect on the past and make wishes for the future. If someone were to say this is a story to read for "perspective," what would they mean?ġ0. If she didn't have this belief, how would this story end differently?ĩ.
Describe the role that Isabella's strong belief in the after-life- Heaven- has in this story.
SINOALICE LITTLE MATCH GIRL FULL
Describe your own reaction to the girl's death- did it leave you feeling her emptiness (dying alone), or full with her happy memories (dying contented and going to Heaven to be with her Grandmother).Ĩ. Why do you think the girl chooses to light all of the matches one at a time (that can't keep her warm), rather than try to start a fire (find paper and kindling from the alley)?ħ. How does Andersen evoke the reader's empathy for the lonely girl? What elements of spirituality does he draw upon?Ħ. What do the girl's matchsticks symbolize? (Remember the source for her livelihood was to sell the matchsticks)ĥ. Explain Andersen's simile how the light was "transparent like a veil."Ĥ. What role does light and fire play in the story?ģ. How is the setting in the alley, the cold, and darkness, symbolic of the girl's isolation and sadness?Ģ. "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."ġ. 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." "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. "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." "Where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil." "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." "Most terribly cold it was it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening- the last evening of the year." Life (terribly miserable in her current state) verses death (and the strong belief in Heaven as a place where we reunite with the dead people we love)Įxplain what the following quotes mean and how they relate to the story: Primary Themes: Opposites: Loneliness, darkness, cold, hunger and death are sharply contrasted with: Comfort, light, warmth, roast goose, and the hope of the after-life (Heaven)Ĭomparative Themes: Acceptance (grandmother) versus Rejection (father) The shooting star, memories that appear like "magic" and the concept of Heaven can be thought of as enchantments or beliefs.īased on the criteria cited above, is The Little Match Girl more like a fairy tale than you first thought? (Not all fairy tales have "happily ever after" endings) In the story, Andersen mentions an "urchin" who steals her slipper in the second paragraph.įairy tales also feature magic or enchantments.
Fairy tales typically feature folkloric fantasy characters such as giants, dwarfs or fairies. Genre: While this certainly falls in the short-story genre, it also shares some, but not all, characteristics of the fairy tale genre. Isabella looks to the sky and sees a shooting star, a premonition that someone is dying and going to heaven, according to her dead grandmother. To try to stay warm, she lights the matches and sees comforting visions, first of a stove, then a holiday feast featuring a goose, followed by a Christmas tree. She's afraid to go home because her father will beat her for not selling the matches. Plot Summary: Isabella is a poor, sick Danish girl who has left home and is alone in a dark, cold alley on New Year's Eve. Isabella continues to light the matches to keep her memory alive for as long as she can before she is out of matches, dying with the vision that she and her grandmother are celebrating the New Year in Heaven. Grandmother - The only person who treated Isabella with love and kindness she died.
Isabella - The main character of the story is a poor, young Danish girl who is dying, alone and hypothermic on New Year's Eve, in a dark alley, without shoes or a hat.
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