A Frosty Lady Worth Knowing in "The Snow Queen"
"When we get to the end of the story, you will know more than you do now."
- Hans Christian Anderson, The Snow Queen
The Snow Queen, published in 1844, is a breathtaking fairytale that revolves around seven parts dominated by women. Instead of your typical knight-in-shining armor saving the day, the sparkling snow queen saves it in her own twisted way. This lovely but frigid queen functions as the embodiment of nature who floats through the streets on winter nights and turns glass into ice from a simple peek to the inside. Beyond her royalty lies merely a lady who "dresses in the finest white gauze" so delicate and stunning that the world turns to sparkling ice that shimmers so bright the world mistakes patches of it for stars.
Yet such beauty comes with a price. The Snow Queen represents the ability to quickly turn a lovely world into a lethal battleground where the sturdy may survive and the weaker go to the wall. When little Gerda is abducted by the snow queen, we can only experience a waft of pity for the frosty lady who is incapable of love. Gerda's later escape and journey away from her reminds of Lewis Carroll's little Alice who treks through a backward land in search of a perfect way home. See any resemblances here with Disney's later adaptation of The Snow Queen in 'Frozen'? Another story, Walt style, of women saving women much like the snow queen's redemption to set her little changeling free.
This being said, if you haven't read Hans Christian Anderson as an adult, your life has not be worth living. His exquisitely crafted fairy tales showcase one of the finest descriptive setting that a writer has had the guts to put pen to paper (or was it quill?) Don't believe me? Ten minutes or two pages deep into The Snow Queen and you will literally feel a chill in your toes and find yourself reaching for a cup of hot cocoa and that comfy crochet blanket your grandma made for you. The writing, descriptive down to the most minute details of sound, smell, taste, touch, and feel, will bring you to a fantasy world where you never want to leave.
"Everything you look at can become a fairy tale, and you can get a story from everything you touch." - Hans Christian Andersen
