Essays on literary works - 2024

The Image of the Snow Queen in Hans Christian Andersen's Tale

Andersen's fairy tales are the only Danish works that have become part of world literature. Time has not diminished their vitality, and they have crossed all national borders. Among the rich literary heritage of the Danish writer, there are at least a dozen tales that are almost universally known. While in the West, "The Little Mermaid" is the undisputed favorite, in our country, "The Snow Queen" clearly takes the lead.

It is important to note that in our country, we often encounter a "condensed," or rather, distorted version of "The Snow Queen," where all the religious and Christian themes have been removed. This not only impoverishes the tale but essentially nullifies the rich ideological and artistic content that the writer infused into it.

In Andersen's tales, we enter a world of oppositions—summer and winter, good and evil, the inner and the outer, death and love, generosity and greed, oblivion and memory... For Andersen, "The Snow Queen" was a tale of his life: when his father was dying, his last words were, "Here comes the Ice Maiden, and she has come for me." When the child tried to call his father back, his mother held him back, saying, "Don't cry; it's no use calling him. He is gone; the Ice Maiden has taken him."

The image of the Snow Queen repeatedly appears in Scandinavian folklore, most often referred to as the Ice Maiden. This strange and mysterious image of a cold, heartless ruler of winter is evidently borrowed from northern myths, which were widely circulated in the cultural sphere at that time, thanks to the efforts of German researchers. The Ice Maiden, the Ice Fairy, the Snow Witch—these are classic characters of northern folklore.

This eerie and beautiful mistress of cold, blizzards, and ice "was so lovely, so delicate, made entirely of dazzling white ice, and yet alive!"

The Snow Queen's realm can be imagined as a depiction of an afterlife. It is known that Andersen did not draw upon any existing concepts of life after death; the halls of the Snow Queen are entirely a product of his imagination. The heroine is surrounded by symbols of death, lifeless spaces. It is "cold, desolate, and dead" in the Snow Queen's garden: the northern lights, eternal ice, and snow. "Happiness never visits here!" The Snow Queen's domain is inaccessible to sunlight. The sun, as the source of life, warmth, and light, has been revered by all peoples of the world. The Danes celebrated the summer solstice with extraordinary noise and joy—on the night of June 23rd to 24th, bonfires blazed in all the Danish villages, around which young people danced, and fiddlers played all night without pause. In Scandinavia, on this festive night, a human-like effigy was burned in the flames of the bonfire. Researchers believe this is a pagan symbol of winter and death, a remnant of the pagan ceremony of light's victory over darkness.

When Kai finds himself in the Snow Queen's realm, the living, those left behind at home, believe him to be dead, drowned: "Finally, they decided that he had died, drowned in the river that flowed past the town." In the mythological songs of the Scandinavian peoples, death is called a "long journey," a "deadly journey." Funeral rites reflect the belief in a long journey to the world of the dead. The idea of another world is also associated with the image of a river—it must be crossed, as it is the boundary between the world of the living and the dead. In "The Snow Queen," the notion of a distant land as the abode of the dead is reflected. To reach it, Kai must fly for many days and nights through the skies: "...they flew over forests and lakes, over seas and solid land... and above them shone a large, bright moon." Gerda's journey to the Snow Queen's realm takes not just one year. Her path to the kingdom of death is long and arduous. Significantly, it begins with a journey down the river. "Perhaps the river is carrying me to Kai?" Gerda wonders.

In folklore, the kiss of the living is understood as an initiation into the world of the living. Similarly, the kiss of the dead is meant to initiate one into the world of the dead. In Andersen's tale, the Snow Queen's kiss plays a crucial role: "The Queen kissed Kai several times more—and he forgot little Gerda, his grandmother, and everything dear to him," "…The Snow Queen kissed Kai again, and he forgot Gerda, his grandmother, and all his family." Different translations of "The Snow Queen" complement each other, helping to understand Andersen's idea, which comes from folklore. The soul of the deceased in the land of the dead forgets everything dear and familiar that remains at home in the world of the living. Upon returning to the world of the living, everything from the Snow Queen's domain is forgotten: "the cold, desolate splendor of the Snow Queen's halls was forgotten by them, like a heavy dream." Here, the mythological motif is given new meaning—in love and happiness, all hardships are forgotten.

In "The Snow Queen," it is also noted that, after visiting the realm of the dead, the characters have matured: "But as they passed through the low door, they noticed that they had grown up during this time." In Andersen's work, the theme of growing up takes on a moral dimension: children mature when severe trials appear on their life path; by overcoming them, Gerda grows up—long and difficult quests fall to her lot; she defeats cold and death to save her beloved, to find love and happiness. But even after growing up, Gerda and Kai retain the childlike purity of their hearts: "...there they sat side by side, both already grown up, but children at heart and soul." Kai and Gerda voluntarily embarked on a journey to the realm of death—when they returned from this journey, discovering that they had become adults, it suggests that this was a kind of ritual—a journey beyond life to be reborn anew for a new, adult existence. This means that their physical bodies could only make such a journey—beyond the threshold of death and back—while they were physically still children. Now, like all those who live sinlessly, they can cross that threshold again only after death. The motif of the living bringing back the deceased to the world of the living is often found in fairy tales, mythological stories, and ritual folklore.

Christian symbolism is often encountered in Andersen's works. "Gerda begins to recite the Lord's Prayer; it was so cold that the girl's breath immediately turned into a thick mist. The mist grew thicker and thicker, but then small bright angels began to emerge from it... When Gerda finished her prayer, a whole legion had already formed around her." In Gerda's further story, we repeatedly encounter Christian symbolism, from the prayer with which Gerda calms the snowstorm on her path, to the fish carrying a message to the old Lapland woman.

The Snow Queen is the embodiment of a heartless mind, where the greatest value in her kingdom is the icy and absolutely logical reason. In the Snow Queen's palace, there is also what she considers perfection—the mirror of reason. "In the middle of the largest snow hall, endless and empty, sparkled the frozen lake... In the middle of the lake sat the Snow Queen when she was home; she called it the mirror of reason, the most perfect mirror in the world." In Andersen's tale, the Snow Queen appears as a demonic, though attractive, force. But this is the force of cold reason and perfect frozen beauty. It is no wonder that the transformed Kai loses all human feelings, and even when in fear he tries to recite the Lord's Prayer, only the multiplication table comes to his mind. The only thing that can fascinate Kai is the frozen, perfect geometric shapes. He tramples the roses and, at the same time, enthusiastically examines the snowflakes under a magnifying glass, "Look how skillfully it's made! — said Kai. — This is much more interesting than real flowers. And such precision! Not a single crooked line. Ah, if only they didn't melt!"

In Andersen's interpretation, the land of the dead, ruled by the Snow Queen, is a world of dead, pure reason, absolute ideas, and absolute perfection. Kai wants to understand eternity, dreaming of getting closer to the embodiment of pure reason and rational beauty. But "what does it mean to know?"—the Faustian question, solved by Andersen. The world cannot be understood without love, self-sacrifice, and an awareness of the deep spiritual connection of all living things. Therefore, Andersen contrasts the beautiful but lifeless Snow Queen with Gerda—the symbol of life and passionate love. And Gerda, who did not know arithmetic and fractions, brought the highest, true knowledge of the heart into the cold halls of death, the absolute reason—and the word "eternity" itself formed from the ice shards, eternity itself revealed to Gerda and Kai. Only Gerda's selfless, passionate love frees him from the icy kingdom, in other words, from the grip of emotional coldness and heartlessness. The "mirror of reason" is shattered, like the devil's crooked mirror that broke at the beginning of the tale, symbolizing the flawed nature of absolute logic. Andersen, after all, is a romantic and a man of Christian culture, and besides, as we know, a fairy tale cannot have a bad ending.