The Little Match Girl

"The Little Match Girl"
Author	Hans Christian Andersen
Original title	"Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne"
Country	Denmark
Language	Danish
Genre(s)	Short story
Published in	Dansk Folkekalender for 1846
Media type	Print
Publication date	December 1845

The Little Match Girl (Danish: Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne, meaning "The little girl with the matchsticks") is a short story by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story is about a dying child's dreams and hope, and was first published in 1845. It has been adapted to various media including animated film, and a television musical.

Plot summary

A. J. Bayes illustration, 1889

On a cold New Year’s Eve, a poor girl tries to sell matches in the street. She is freezing badly, but she is afraid to go home because her father will beat her for not selling any matches. She takes shelter in a nook and lights the matches to warm herself. In their glow, she sees several lovely visions including a Christmas tree and a holiday feast. The girl looks skyward, sees a shooting star, and remembers her deceased grandmother saying that such a falling star means someone died and is going into Heaven. As she lights her next match, she sees a vision of her grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness. She strikes one match after another to keep the vision of her grandmother nearby for as long as she can. The child dies and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find the dead child in the nook.

Source

The source for the story was a widely popular woodcut illustration by the Danish artist Johan Thomas Lundbye depicting a poor child selling matches printed in a calendar for 1843; several illustrations had been sent to Andersen by the editor of an almanac requesting him to write a story around one.^[1]

Another known inspiration for the story is the well known fairy tale The Star Money previously recorded by the Brothers Grimm. It is a story of a poor young girl who gives away everything that she has to the needy and ends up with nothing except her love for God. The Grimms' variation differs, ending with the girl remaining alive and receiving divine gifts (money that falls from the stars) for her charity.

Another source of inspiration could be his trip to Bratislava (Pressburg) in 1841 where he was witnessing how the town of Devin burnt down and how women were searching for their lost children.^[2]

Publication

"The Little Match Girl" was first published December 1845 in Dansk Folkekalender for 1846. The work was re-published 4 March 1848 as a part of New Fairy Tales. Second Volume. Second Collection. 1848. (Nye Eventyr. Andet Bind. Anden Samling. 1848.), and again 18 December 1849 as a part of Fairy Tales. 1850. (Eventyr. 1850.). The work was also published 30 March 1863 as a part of Fairy Tales and Stories. Second Volume. 1863. (Eventyr og Historier. Andet Bind. 1863.)^[3]

Adaptations

Live-action film

• In 1928, "La Petite Marchande d'Allumettes" ("The Little Match Girl"), a forty-minute silent film by Jean Renoir, was released.
• "La Vendedora de Rosas" directed by Victor Gaviria, was partially based on the story. The film earned a nomination to the Palm D'Ore in Cannes.

Animated

• The Charles Mintz studio adapted "The Little Match Girl", including its grim ending, into a 1937 Color Rhapsodies animated short film, 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 released an animated film based on Andersen's works, entitled "Hans Christian Andersen no Sekai" ("The World of Hans Christian Andersen").
• 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.
• In 2005, an adaptation of "The Little Match Girl" was released by ADV Films in Hello Kitty Animation Theater Vol. 3.
• In 2006, 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 a Fantasia film, but this project was canceled. The Little Matchgirl is last of the four shorts from the aborted compilation to be developed as a stand alone film. This short was subsequently released as a special feature on the 2006 Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid.
• In the 2005 anime series The Snow Queen, based on another H.C. Andersen story, there is an episode entitled "The Little Match Girl".

Music

• In 2006, the English band The Tiger Lillies and a string trio released the album "The Little Match Girl" based on the story.
• David Lang composed his The Little Match Girl Passion in 2007, with two sopranos, tenor and bass-baritone. This work earned Lang the Pulitzer Prize for music 2008. Recorded by Theatre of Voices and Paul Hillier for Harmonia Mundi USA.
• The German avant-garde composer Helmut Lachenmann has written an opera based on the story called Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern.
• In 1973, The American Opera composer William Byron Webster,wrote a tragic opera for minimal orchestration. The opera was recorded in 1990.
• In 1995, German singer Meret Becker included the song "Das Mädchen mit den Schwefelhölzern" in her album Noctambule.
• In 2001, guitarist Loren Mazzacane Connors released the album The Little Match Girl based on the story.
• In 2001 the Hungarian band Tormentor wrote the song "The Little Match Girl," with lyrics based on the story.
• In 2002 GrooveLily released Striking 12, a musical based on "The Little Match Girl".
• The story was also used as a basis for the band GrooveLily's 2004 off-Broadway musical Striking 12.
• Xiong Tian Ping the song 'Match Heaven' (Chinese: 火柴天堂) was performed by the Taiwanese pop artist Xiong Tian Ping in his debut album.
• Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish released an album called Wishmaster. The song "Bare Grace Misery" contains the line "A Little Match Girl freezing in the snow."
• In 2005, Erasure made a music video of their song "Breathe", based on a modern adaptation of the story.
• As described by art director Rob O'Connor, the artwork for the album A Winter Symphony by Sarah Brightman has the artist portraying an "exotic, beautiful...grown-up version of the little match girl."
• In 2002 Moppi Productions released the demo "Halla" which was heavily influenced by "The Little Match Girl".
• In 2007, the Japanese pop group AKB48 released the song 'Tear-Seller Girl' (Namida uri no shoujo, 涙売りの少女), the theme of which references the Little Match Girl.
• In 2011, the Japanese video game The Idolmaster 2 included a song entitled "Little Match Girl" as downloadable content for those who pre-ordered the game; the song's lyrics are loosely based on the story.

16mm short subject

• In 1954, Castle Films released a 16 mm English language version of a 1952 b&w French short live-action film. Instead of her grandmother, the Virgin Mary, whom the match girl believes is her own long-lost mother, takes the girl to heaven. No mention is made of the father beating the child. Music from The Nutcracker is used in one of the dream sequences.

Television

• In 1974, a contemporarized version set in Cincinnati on Christmas Eve was aired on WLWT. It featured a nine-year-old Sarah Jessica Parker in the role of the title character. This Christmas special was placed in syndication and last aired on the Family Channel in December 1982.
• In 1987 British TV released "The Little Match Girl" a musical based on the original story. The cast included Twiggy and Roger Daltrey. It included the song "Mistletoe and Wine", which became a Christmas hit a year later for Cliff Richard.^[4][5]
• In 1987 a modernized version, "The Little Match Girl", was shown on American television. The cast included Keshia Knight Pulliam, Rue McLanahan, and William Daniels.
• In 2009 a modernized version set to original music and narrated by F. Murray Abraham was presented by HBO Storybook Musicals, in which the girl is the daughter of a homeless New York couple forced to live underground in an abandoned subway station due to the economic collapse of the 1990s.
• On the first episode of Gilmore Girls, before going into her grandmother's house, Rory says to Lorelai "So, do we go in or do we just stand here re-enacting The little match girl?"

Literature

• In 1996, Hogfather, one of Terry Pratchett's popular Discworld series of novels, gave the story a decidedly less morbid ending, thanks to the intervention of Death himself.
• 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.
• In Neil Gaiman's 2004 novella, "A Study in Emerald," the main characters view a set of three plays, one of which is a stage adaptation of the "Little Match Girl".
• A Spider-Man short story titled "Leah" about a homeless little girl who goes into a coma and is found by Spider-Man, the doctors inform Spider-Man she won't make it, as Spidey kisses Leah on the cheek he wishes her "sweet, sweet dreams"; Leah falls asleep looking at newspaper clippings of Spider-Man mirroring the girls death while looking into the matches. The story was originally in the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man Annual #1.
• Match Girl, a short story by Anne Bishop, published in Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears in 1995.
• In 1992 Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés Clarissa Pinkola Estés page 319 The Little Match Girl, as told to the author by her aunt, is followed by a lucid analysis.
• Novelist Gregory Maguire read a short story based on "The Little Match Girl" over the air on NPR. In 2009 he expanded the short story into a novel, published as Matchless: A Christmas Story.^[6]
• The Little Match Girl is sometimes referenced in the Japanese manga, Crayon Shin Chan.
• The Little Match Girl is retold in a poem by William McGonagall (1825–1902)^[7]
• In the Piers Anthony novel "The Color of Her Panties", chapter 11, the characters reference the story of the Little Match Girl, and the Demoness Metria takes the form of an orphan waif selling matches. As she lights her matches, the heart's desire of the one for whom she lights the match is granted.

Other

The Little Match Girl in the Fairy Tale Forest, Efteling, Netherlands.

• Suikoden III, (2002), a video game for the PlayStation 2, contains a highly-abridged play version of "The Little Match Girl". In the game, the player can cast characters in different roles and have them perform a shortened version of the story.
• "Resurrection of the Little Match Girl" is a 2003 Korean movie.
• In the Japanese anime Gakuen Alice, the main character, Mikan Sakura puts on a play about The Little Match Girl to earn money.
• The Colombian movie La Vendedora De Rosas (Little Rose Selling Girl) is a 1998 film about homeless children victims of solvent abuse, loosely based in The Little Match Girl.
• In France, director Jean Benoît-Lévys film version, La Jeune Fille aux Allumettes (1952) included a brief dance sequence with ballet star Janine Charrat.
• The Fairy Tale Forest (Sprookjesbos in Dutch) of the amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands has a three dimensional attraction showing the story of the Little Match Girl, called Het Meisje met de Zwavelstokjes.^[8] In this attraction, use is made of the pepper's ghost technique.

See also

Children's literature portal

• List of works by Hans Christian Andersen
• Near death experience
• Vilhelm Pedersen, first illustrator of Andersen's fairy tales

References

1. ^ Tatar, Maria (2008). The Annotated Hans Chrisitian Andersen. W.W. Norton. ISBN 9780393060812. 
2. ^ Bratislava Tourist Service - Bratislava - Celebrities
3. ^ "Hans Christian Andersen: The Little Match Girl". Hans Christian Andersen Center. http://www.andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/register/info_e.html?vid=79. 
4. ^ Nick Smurthwaite (21 March 2005). "Million pound notes - Keith Strachan". The Stage. http://www.thestage.co.uk/features/feature.php/6991. Retrieved 2010-03-23. 
5. ^ "INTERVIEW: West End director Keith Strachan takes Dancing In The Streets on tour". This is London. 20 October 2009. http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/leisure/onstage/4692029.INTERVIEW__West_End_director_Keith_Strachan_takes_Dancing_In_The_Streets_on_tour/. Retrieved 2010-03-23. 
6. ^ VanderWerff, Todd (2009-11-19). "Matchless: A Christmas Story". AV Club. http://www.avclub.com/articles/gregory-maguire-matchless-a-christmas-story,35556/. Retrieved 2009-11-23. 
7. ^ McGonagall, William. "The Little Match Girl." Poetry Foundation.2010. Web. 26 February 2010.
8. ^ Efteling - 'The Little Match Girl' in Fairy tale forest (Het meisje met de zwavelstokjes) (video)

External links

• "The Little Match Girl" Jean Hersholt's English translation
• Den Lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne Original Danish text
• Surlalune: The Annotated Little Match Girl
• "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
• Dramatic reading of "The Little Match Girl" with full text and notes (Downloadable mp3 and streaming audio)
• Shedding Light on the Little Matchgirl traces the path director Roger Allers and the Disney Studio took in adapting the Hans Christian Andersen story to animation.
• David Lang's passion
• English translation (full text) from "Andersen's Fairy Tales"