Wild animal welfare in Hans Christian Andersen (Julia Wise)
By Aaron Gertler đ¸ @ 2019-11-12T00:42 (+20)
This is a linkpost to https://thewholesky.wordpress.com/2019/11/07/wild-animal-welfare-in-hans-christian-andersen/
Continuing the theme of wild animal suffering in childrenâs litâŚ
Hans Christian Andersenâs stories involve a lot of suffering of both human and animal varieties. âThe Ugly Ducklingâ takes a brief detour from describing the ducklingâs repeated social humiliations to describe being a waterfowl in winter:
The winter grew cold â so bitterly cold that the duckling had to swim to and fro in the water to keep it from freezing over. But every night the hole in which he swam kept getting smaller and smaller. Then it froze so hard that the duckling had to paddle continuously to keep the crackling ice from closing in upon him. At last, too tired to move, he was frozen fast in the ice.
âThumbelinaâ likewise details bird hardship in the Danish winter:
In the middle of the floor lay a dead swallow, with his lovely wings folded at his sides and his head tucked under his feathers. The poor bird must certainly have died of the cold. Thumbelina felt so sorry for him. She loved all the little birds who had sung and sweetly twittered to her all through the summer. But the mole gave the body a kick with his short stumps, and said, âNow he wonât be chirping any more. What a wretched thing it is to be born a little bird. Thank goodness none of my children can be a bird, who has nothing but his âchirp, chirpâ, and must starve to death when winter comes along.â
âYes, you are so right, you sensible man,â the field mouse agreed. âWhat good is all his chirp-chirping to a bird in the winter time, when he starves and freezes?
Not that different from âThe Little Match Girlâ, in which a child freezes to death on the streets of Copenhagen:
She was getting colder and colder, but did not dare to go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned a single cent, and her father would surely beat her. Besides, it was cold at home, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistled even though the biggest cracks had been stuffed with straw and rags.
Her hands were almost dead with cold. Oh, how much one little match might warm her!
I donât really know where Iâm going with this. Interesting that an author who didnât shy away from human suffering in his fairy tales also didnât shy away from animal suffering.