Essays on literary works - 2023

If the shards of a troll's mirror get into the heart... (based on H. X. Andersen's fairy tale “The Snow Queen”)
Andersen Hans Christian

The Snow Queen is my favorite H.K. Andersen fairy tale. I read it many times, and every time the adventures of little Gerda made me worry. But most of all, I sympathized with Kaeva, whose heart was pierced by a shard of a troll's mirror.

Cheerful and kind by nature, before the eyes of the reader he turned into a merciless and cruel egoist. Kai stopped understanding the beauty of life. Looking at the rose, he noticed only the worm that was grinding it. And he saw only flaws in people and cruelly laughed at them. Even Gerda, who loved him with all her heart, he teased and brought to tears.

He liked to look at snowflakes: their clear, regular lines seemed to him the embodiment of perfect beauty. Kai did not feel that beauty is devoid of life.

Kai ended up in the Snow Queen's palace. There he saw the mirror of the mind, which the queen thought was the best mirror in the world. She promised Kaeva that he could own the whole world if he made the word "eternity" out of cold ice fragments. But no matter how hard Kai tried, nothing came of it. The icicles did not want to form that word.

Gerda's love, loyalty, selflessness saved Kai, melted the ice that covered his heart, melted the shard of the troll's mirror. Kai looked around and noticed for the first time how deserted the Snow Queen's palace was. He hugged Gerda, and she cried and laughed with joy. Then the icicles by themselves formed a word that Kai could not form for so long. It turns out that eternity is not cold, unchanging beauty, but love and the ability to do good. Only they can save a person "with a sliver of a troll's mirror in his heart."