The Little Matchstick Girl

“Every man’s life is a fairytale written by God’s fingers” -Hans Christian Anderson.

Imagine that instead of having a party on New Year's with your friends and family, it is 1845, you are wandering the cold streets with no shoes, feet blue and red from the cold and you are trying to sell matches so your father doesn’t beat you when you get home.  That was what life was like for the little girl in the short story The Little Matchstick Girl.

The Little Matchstick Girl  is a story about a dying child’s dreams and hopes.  In this story a little girl is sent out on the cold streets of Denmark by her impoverished parents on the last evening of the year to sell matches.  The cold little girl was not able to sell any matches and begins to despair because she knows that her father will beat her when she arrives home.  

The girl then sits in a corner against a stone wall and strikes a match against it, the warmth she feels is incredible.  Looking to her right she sees a hot stove, the match dies out and the scene fades away.  This happens three more times, beginning with a stunning view of a beautiful new year's feast, then a christmas tree, and when she lights the lasts match the christmas tree reappears this time lit with thousands of candles.  The tree is so tall that it merges with the sky and the girl’s dead grandmother appears in front of her.  

The grandmother was the only person in her life that had ever loved her.  The girl goes to her grandmother and they both leave to a world without hunger nor pain.  In the morning people find the girl frozen to death against the wall and clutching her matches, half burned out.  All they mutter is “She tried to warm herself” but little do they know of the beauty she had witnessed with her grandmother that night.

In Hans Christian Anderson’s time begging was illegal, and child abuse was common.  Not only was the girl cold and hungry but she was also abused at home, increasing the sorrow of the story when she only sees release from her distress in dying.  People on the streets didn’t want to be caught up with the law so they refused to help the little girl who was freezing and begging on the streets.  It makes you wonder, how many times have I turned my face, and not helped someone in need.  It will surprise you to notice that you probably have done that many times.  This story also shows that you shouldn’t take things for granted because some people for example, the girl in the story, found that a match might give her a world of comfort.

I think that the three images she had were like three wishes so when “her soul ascended into heaven” the wishes came true.  Around the time that this story was set, many people were poor because of small salaries so they could only dream of being part of the great scenes the girl had seen.

Some people read this story and think that it has a sad ending, others will think that it has a happy ending.  Personally I think that this story has a both happy and sad ending.  It is happy for the girl because she gets to escape this horrible world and be with the one person who loved her.  It is sad for the other people in the world that were also suffering because instead of being warm and happy they were cold and starving.  I love this story because the little girl was rescued from her parents, the cold, and the life she was having to be warmed and fed on that new year’s night.