Information AboutThe Snow Queen |
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The Snow Queen (Danish: ''Sneedronningen'') is a Fairy Tale written by Hans Christian Andersen and first published in 1845 . The story centers on the struggle between good and evil as taken on by a little boy and girl, Gerda and Kay. It was later adapted into an Anime , produced by NHK and animated by TMS Entertainment in 2005. It's currently running on NHK. CHARACTERS OF THE TALE
SEVEN ''STORIES'', DIVISIONS OF THE TALE
PLOTLINE ''The Snow Queen'' is a tale told in seven "stories" (Danish: ''Historier''). To set the stage for the main plot we are told in the first story of an evil "troll" who makes a magic mirror that has the power to change how things look or are reflected in it. It does not show the good or the beautiful aspects of things or people but only the bad and ugly aspects. It also exaggerates the bad and ugly aspects, making them even more bad or ugly. The troll and his fellow trolls were delighted with their troll-mirror, which they thought could have a greater effect on the world if they carried it into the sky to take in larger panoramas of the earth: it made a beautiful, rolling landscape look "like boiled spinach," writes Andersen in the tale. The more the troll-mirror distorted, the more the mirror itself grinned and shook with delight. When the trolls had taken it very high in the air it shook so much that it slipped from their grasp and fell back to earth where it shattered into billions of pieces, some no larger than a grain of sand. These splinters were blown around with the wind and would get into people's hearts and eyes. Their hearts would become frozen like a block of ice, and their eyes would become like the troll-mirror itself, only showing them the bad and ugly in things and people. The second ''story'' begins the main plotline: A little boy, Kay, and a little girl, Gerda, live next door to each other in the garrets of buildings with adjoining roofs in a large city. One could get from Kay's to Gerda's home just by stepping over the gutters of each building. The two families grow vegetables and roses in window boxes placed on the gutters. Kay and Gerda have a window-box garden to play in, and they become devoted in love to each other as playmates. Kay's grandmother tells the children about the Snow Queen, who is ruler over the snowflakes, that look like bees—that is why they are called "snow bees." As bees have a queen, so do the snow bees, and she is seen where the snowflakes cluster the most. Looking out of his frosted window, Kay, one winter, sees the Snow Queen, who beckons him to come with her. Kay draws back in fear from the window. It was on a pleasant summer's day following, that splinters of the troll-mirror get into Kay's heart and eyes while he and Gerda are looking at a picture book in their window-box garden. Kay's personality changes: he becomes cruel and aggressive. He destroys their window-box garden, he makes fun of his grandmother, and he no longer cares about Gerda, since all of them now appear bad and ugly to him. The only beautiful and perfect things to him now are the tiny snowflakes that he sees through a magnifying glass. The following winter he goes out with his sled to the market square and hitches it—as was the custom of those playing in the snowy square—to a curious white sleigh carriage, driven by the Snow Queen herself appearing as a man in a bear skin. Outside the city she shows herself to Kay and takes him into her sleigh. She kisses him only twice: once to numb him from the cold, and the second time to cause him to forget about Gerda and his family. She does not kiss him a third time as that would kill him. Kay is then taken to the Snow Queen's palace on Spitsbergen , near the North Pole where he is contented to live due to the splinters of the troll-mirror in his heart and eyes. The people of the city get the idea that Kay has been drowned in the river nearby, but Gerda, who is heartbroken at Kay's disappearance, goes out to look for him. She questions everyone and everything about Kay's whereabouts. By not taking the gift of Gerda's new red shoes at first, the river seems to let her know that Kay is not drowned: Gerda offered them to the river in exchange for Kay, but why would it take them if it did not drown him? A rose bush that had been caused to sink into the earth by the witchcraft of an old woman is raised by Gerda's warm tears and tells her that Kay is not among the dead, all of whom it could see while it was underground. In a robbers' castle Gerda is befriended by a little robber girl, whose pet doves tell her that they had seen Kay when he was carried away by the Snow Queen in the direction of Lapland. The captive reindeer, Bae, tells her that he knows how to get to Lapland since it is his home. The robber girl, then, frees Gerda and the reindeer to travel north to the Snow Queen's palace. They make two stops: first at the Lapp woman's home and then at the Finn woman's home. The Finn woman tells the secret of Gerda's power to save Kay: :No power that I could give could be as great as that which she already has. Don't you see how men and beasts are compelled to serve her, and how far she has come in the wide world since she started out in her naked feet? We mustn't tell her about this power. Strength lies in her heart, because she is such a sweet, innocent child. If she herself cannot reach the Snow Queen and rid little Kay of those pieces of glass, then there's no help that we can give her" (Jean Harsholt, trans., "Sixth Story: The Lapp Woman and the Finn Woman"). When Gerda gets to the Snow Queen's palace she finds Kay alone on the frozen lake, which the Snow Queen calls the "Mirror of Reason" on which her throne sits. Gerda finds Kay engaged in the task that the Snow Queen gave him to use pieces of ice as components of a Chinese puzzle to form characters and words. If he would be able to form the word "eternity" (Danish: ''Evigheden'') the Snow Queen would release him from her power and give him a pair of skates. Gerda finds him, runs up to him, and weeps warm tears on him, which melts his heart, burning away the troll-mirror splinter in it. Kay bursts into tears, dislodging the splinter from his eye. Kay is saved by the power of Gerda's love. He and Gerda dance around on the lake of ice so joyously that the splinters of ice Kay has been playing with are caught up into it. When the splinters tire of the dance they fall down to spell the very word Kay was trying to spell, "eternity." Even if the Snow Queen were to return, she would be obliged to free Kay. Kay and Gerda then leave the Snow Queen's domain with the help of the reindeer, the Finn woman, and the Lapp woman. They meet the robber girl after they have crossed the line of vegetation, and from there they walk back to their home, "the big city." They find that all is the same at home, but they have changed! They are now grown up while remaining children at heart; and, to their delight, it is summertime! MEDIA ADAPTATIONS
VARIATIONS OF THE PLOTLINE IN THE FILM AND '' ANIME '' SERIES
''THE SNOW QUEEN'' IN LITERATURE AND CULTURE
SEE ALSO EXTERNAL LINKS
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