The Little Match Girl

The little match girl is not of course real but she is a powerful representative of
the obscure, the excluded, the outcast, the marginalised, the unloved, the alone,
the forgotten, the excluded. We don’t even know her name. She is defined by
her function in society, a child who sells matches, defined by her poverty. She
is treated as ‘less than’, her needs invisible to those around her because they
simply do not care enough to see.

• Most terribly emphasises how very cold it is. Terrible implies something

frightening.

• Naked feet emphasises that her feet are bare and vulnerable, lacking the
normal coverings essential in winter.

• Scuffled – she can’t walk properly because her feet will be numb with cold and
presumably she’s trying to keep her one remaining slipper. It’s a pitiful image.

• Dreadfully fast – the outside world speeds by, not noticing the harm that it
causes her.

• Urchin – street ‘urchins’ were children who begged and sometimes stole to
survive. In that sense the two children are in competition as they try to survive,
she by selling matches, he by stealing. There is no romanticisation of the poor
here. The boy is also poor, although he is stronger than she is – he is able to run
while she can barely walk. The match girl is treated badly by the rich but also by
the poor.

It is particularly shocking that he takes the slipper which she needs desperately
not because he needs it but because he may want it one day. The image of a
slipper acting as a cradle is of course ludicrous – he just wants it.

• Little maiden emphasises how young she is.

• Tiny – the repetition of little and tiny in the text emphasise how vulnerable she
is.

• Red and blue – from cold. It’s a striking image with bold colour, emphasising how
raw her feet are.

• Nobody, anything, no one, single, all emphasise that she was given nothing.

• Whole and livelong emphasise that the day felt long to this small child – a

day with plenty of time for someone to help but no one did. A farthing was the
smallest coin in Victorian England; there was a half farthing in the mid 19thc but
the image is still of the smallest coin, with the lowest value. People were not
prepared to give her even that.

• The repetition of poor, little and tiny in the text emphasise how vulnerable she is.

• Crept and trembling give the impression of something small and afraid, further

emphasising her vulnerability.

• Flakes of snow sets a gentle and peaceful tone for this paragraph – it’s what the
reader expects from a New Year’s tale.

• Beautiful curls – the description of her curls reflects Victorian sentimental

ideals of beauty and innocence.

• From all the windows (the whole world seems to be celebrating), the candles

were gleaming, another traditional image of light, hope and seasonal cheer – part
of family celebrations.

• It smelt so deliciously - Andersen appeals to the sense of sight but also smell to
give us a vibrant picture of a world celebrating the coming of the New Year.

》》The little girl’s lonely suffering is juxtaposed with the trappings of New Year
celebrations, with food and warmth and light and family gatherings. Somehow
people are so busy getting ready to celebrate with their families that they don’t
see this little girl.

• Cowered suggests fear and hopelessness, the response of someone who knows

that their environment is dangerous and hostile.

• ‘Home’ and ‘blows’ or physical violence should never go together. Her ‘home’
is not a warm, light and welcoming place like the ones she sees beyond the
windows. The father who should protect, love and provide for her, sees her as
a means of gaining income. We don’t know what he’s doing but he’s at home,
leaving his hungry child out in the cold with responsibilities beyond her years (to
provide income for the family) and the fear of nothing but violence at home. That
fear is so great that she remains in the cold.

• Straw and rags – her ‘home’ is in stark contrast to the welcoming decorated
homes we see elsewhere in the text. There is no light or warmth, just large cracks
where the roof should be to protect her, a roof through which the wind whistled.
Clearly there is no money for repairs – the cracks are filled by what is available –
 straw and rags, cloth which once was clothing but now is a symbol of poverty.

• A match might afford her a world of comfort – we see the young girl’s
• A match might afford her a world of comfort – we see the young girl’s
imagination here as she dares to hope for some comfort.

• “Rischt!” – onomatopoeia – the word suggests the sound, like the tick tock of a
clock.

• Blessed is a religious term, meaning an act of favour from a benevolent deity.

This tiny word suggests some possible hope.

• The small flame went out, the stove vanished – it was only ever a tiny flame,
offering a very short respite; her imaginary stove vanishes with the dying match.

• Only the remains of the burnt-out match – the match here is an image of burnt-
out hope, something beautiful but not strong enough to survive its environment.

• It burned brightly – the match continues to function as an image of hope, the

brief warmth and light feeding her imagination, opening up a parallel world where
she has access to warmth, light, food.

• Splendid porcelain service – expensive – the sort of dinnerware that would be

used in times of celebration.

• Roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums –
 these are popular images of festive food.

• Capital – in this context it means splendid or delightful. 

• Magnificent Christmas tree – a decorated Christmas tree is perhaps the

ultimate symbol for Christmas and New Year cheer.

• Thousands of lights and gaily-coloured pictures. The little girl is drawn to the

coloured lights, which represent hope but her only experience of such lights has
been seeing them through a window – a window onto someone else’s world. She
can see this world but she cannot be part of it. She has to remain outside the
window, which shows her what life can be like but not for her.

• Stretched out her hands – instinctively she is drawn to light and beauty so she
stretches out her hands as if to take hold of the beauty but the images die with
the match.

• Rose higher and higher – the rhythm of the text (higher and higher) emphasises
the rising lights which draw her eyes upward to the heavens and the stars. Her
thoughts are also drawn upwards, as she focuses now not on the beauty of the
light but on the falling star.
• “Someone is just dead!” The ‘someone’ is her, about to die.

• The only person who had loved her … now no more. The reader feels the
profound sense of loss here. The little girl was loved but only by one person and
that person, her grandmother, is ‘no more’ ie she has died.

• When a star falls, a soul ascends to God. Grandmothers are ideally figures
of love, nurture and protection but the grandmother took those qualities with
her when she died and the little girl is now alone. Yet the grandmother has left
something of value for her – hope – she has taught her granddaughter about
death and life after death in heaven.

• It was again light. Once more the lighting of the match symbolises hope in the
young child, for a little warmth, a little beauty. The match is all she has.

• Lustre, bright and radiant This time she sees her grandmother, surrounded by
‘lustre’ (a word suggesting beauty and bright light) but also the source of light
– she is ‘bright and radiant’, a word which suggests that light radiates from
her. The grandmother stands in physical light but also has an inner light which
radiates outwards. Unlike the girl, who is crouched, cowering in weakness, the
grandmother stood – she is standing, a position of strength.

》》The matches burn out and she is left with the cold dead used-up match
matches but also a hint of hope, as she recalls her deceased ‘grandmother, the
only person who had loved her’. Take me with you! The child’s longing for the
loving figure of her grandmother is clear here.

• You go away when the match burns out. Clearly the little girl associates images
of light, warmth and beauty with her grandmother. She is frustrated by brief
glimpses of the loving person she longs for – images which last only as long as
the light of the lit matches.

• She rubbed the whole bundle of matches. In one last act of desperation the little
girl gives all that she has to feel closer to her grandmother.

• Brighter than at noon-day. The little girl’s plea is granted in a crescendo of light.
The light imagery becomes stronger and stronger, the growing light reflecting the
increased strength and beauty of the figure of the grandmother.

• So beautiful and so tall She is not just standing here, she is standing ‘tall’, she
is not described as old here but ‘beautiful’. This is not an old, tired figure but a
youthful strong one. 

• Took the little maiden – the little girl gets what she longs for – the presence of
• Took the little maiden – the little girl gets what she longs for – the presence of
her grandmother and an escape from her life.

• Flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high – flying represents escape,

freedom. They fly in bright light, here specifically associated with joy (a deeper
emotion than happiness); ‘high, so very high’ – the language itself rises along with
the characters, encouraging the reader to follow their rise both physically as they
fly away and into increasing joy.

• Neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety—they were with God. The end of this para‐
graph echoes the well known verse about Heaven in the Bible: ‘He will wipe every
tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain’.

• But (this word stands in stark contrast to the warmth and beauty of the last
paragraph) in the corner (in the margins, out of the way), at the cold hour
of dawn (dawn is described here as cold and unfriendly, rather than the hopeful
start of a new day). Dawn on New Year’s day should be a time of hope. The beau‐
tiful images of the last but one paragraph lead to a devastating picture – a small
child, dead from the cold, still forlornly holding her matches … ‘stiff and stark’.

• The poor girl – she is poor literally because she had no money but also poor in
the sense that her life was miserable.

• With rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth (pink cheeks suggest warmth and

well-being, underlined by the fact that she is described as smiling).

• Frozen to death – the juxtaposition of a happy image of a rosy cheeked smiling

child with the brutal phrase ‘frozen to death’ is stark and emphasises the horror of
the child’s death.

• Stiff and stark – the words are simple but bitterly effective in conveying the
brutal reality of a frozen child.

• “She wanted to warm herself,” people said. They notice her all too late, after her
death.

》》This is not a jolly Dickensian tale where Scrooge learns his lesson. People see
her, realise that she must have been cold but it’s too late. We don’t know if the
passers-by who finally see her actually change. If they do learn it will be a bitter
lesson to live with. All we know is that the child dies.

• Splendour, joys of a new year. Having given us a cold, stark picture of the dead
child in a dusty street corner, the narrative changes direction again. Finally people
see the child but they only see part of the truth. Her physical death is shocking.
That tiny silent frozen figure tells a brutal tale. But that’s no longer her reality.
That tiny silent frozen figure tells a brutal tale. But that’s no longer her reality.
She and her grandmother are enjoying a splendour and joy in Heaven that these
people cannot imagine.

Andersen conveys the tragedy of her death starkly but his focus is on the little
girl’s future, not the pain of her past. How? The answer is given as she dies: ‘they
were with God.’ This passage looks to a future described in the Bible: ‘There will
be no more death or mourning or crying or pain’.

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