Essays on literary works - 2023

The Steadfast Tin Soldier - a characteristic of a literary hero (character)
Andersen Hans Christian

STEADY TIN SOLDIER (Den Standhaftige tinsoldat) - the hero of the fairy tale H.K. Andersen "The Steadfast Tin Soldier" (1838), a symbol of unbending courage and perseverance. His fate is described briefly, but it is full of events, although implausible, but convincing in this magical world where people, animals and toys coexist in a complex unity. He is one of twenty-five toy soldiers, "mother's brothers to the old pewter spoon," who were given as a birthday present to a little boy. From their brothers S.O.S. differed in that it was one-legged (there was not enough tin), but it stood firmly and firmly on its one leg. There were many wonderful things in the toy world of the nursery where the soldiers got into, but most of all the hero was attracted by the paper Dancer, who also stood on one leg - she raised the other so high that the soldier did not see her and decided, that he and the Dancer are comrades in misfortune. Of course, he could only dream that such a beauty would seriously pay attention to him. But it so happened that the fate of S.O.S. turned out to be remarkably amazing. He - a nature, soldierly and, so to speak, simple as Tin, but not like a toy, orderly and delicate - lived a short and amazing life. Separate details of his collision with the outside world, where he fell out of the window, are phantasmagoric: what is, for example, a rat demanding a passport from a soldier sailing on a boat made of newsprint. Having successfully passed the collision with the rat, he completely found himself in the power of the water element (from the stream he fell into the river) and even, like the biblical Jonah, ended up in the womb, though not of a whale, but of an unknown fish, from which he was again expelled into his old nursery, to the same children and toys. But his fate, despite its remarkableness, did not work out from the very beginning, from that very missing leg. This story ended badly. One of the boys threw it into the fireplace, and it turned into a small piece of tin. Melted to the very heart. And yet the story ended well - the wind rushed into the room and threw the little paper Dancer into the stove. So they died together.