By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Hans Christian Andersen’s influence on the fairy tale genre was profound. Although ‘The Snow Queen’, ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’, ‘The Little Mermaid’, and ‘The Ugly Duckling’ have the ring of timeless fairy stories, they were all original tales written by the Danish storyteller in the mid-nineteenth century.
First published in 1844, ‘The Snow Queen’ (divided into seven parts) is perhaps the most celebrated of all of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales. But what does this story mean? You can read ‘The Snow Queen’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis.
‘The Snow Queen’: summary
First, let’s begin with a brief plot summary of ‘The Snow Queen’. A hobgoblin has created a mirror which magnifies ugly and evil things, and shrinks good and pretty things. When hobgoblin’s associates took the mirror up into the sky to see what the angels looked like in it, it fell and smashed into millions of pieces.
Some of these pieces got into people’s eyes and distorted their view of the world; some pieces became windows; some pieces even made it into people’s hearts and turned those hearts as cold as ice. But many pieces were left scattered about the world.
Two small children – a boy, named Kay, and a girl, named Gerda – live as neighbours and love each other as if they were brother and sister. But one day, the Snow Queen appears outside Kay’s house and shortly after that, a piece of the hobgoblin’s magic mirror gets caught in his eye and reaches his heart, turning it to ice. Thereafter, he starts to behave badly towards Gerda and can only see the ugliness in things.
Kay takes his sledge into town, where the Snow Queen appears to him again and takes him under her wing, and they ride off on her sledge together. Gerda wonders what happened to Kay, fearing him dead. She throws her prized red shoes into the river as an offering, in the hope that Kay will come back in return.
But it doesn’t work, so Gerda gets in a boat and soon drifts out into the world beyond her home, where she meets an old lady who befriends her. Gerda talks to the flowers in the woman’s garden, in the hope that they will tell her where Kay is, but they speak to her in riddles.
Autumn comes, and Gerda continues on her way in the world. She meets a crow, who tells her that Kay is in the palace of a princess. But when Gerda travels to the palace, the prince is not Kay, although his appearance is similar. The prince and princess give Gerda a coach and warm coat, so she can continue her journey.
However, Gerda is captured by robbers, and taken to their castle. There she meets a little robber girl, whose doves tell Gerda that Kay was taken by the Snow Queen to her palace further north. The robber girl helps to free Gerda from the castle.
With the help of a reindeer, a Lapp woman (from Lapland) and a Finn woman (from Finland), Gerda travels north to the colder parts of Scandinavia, until she reaches the palace of the Snow Queen, where the Snow Queen has Kay under her spell. The only way to free him from it is to remove the shard of the magic mirror that has turned his heart to ice. Kay is nearly blue with cold, and it’s only the Snow Queen’s attention to him that keeps him from freezing.
The Snow Queen flies away to warmer countries, deserting Kay. Gerda turns up and recognises Kay instantly despite his changed appearance, but he sits still and cold and unresponsive. Upset, Gerda cries warm tears that drop onto the frozen Kay, and seep through to his heart, thawing it.
When Gerda sings a song they both know, he recognises her, and bursts into tears. His tears wash out the grain of glass from the magic mirror that was lodged in his eye, and he returns to his old self. Reunited, Gerda and Kay return home, growing up together and yet retaining their childlike innocence, as spring turns into summer.
‘The Snow Queen’: analysis
‘The Snow Queen’ is, fundamentally, a story about good and evil. But what is most noteworthy about this fairy tale – perhaps even more so than in Andersen’s other major fairy tales – is that the evil character at the centre of the story, namely the Snow Queen herself, doesn’t get her comeuppance at the end of the tale. Nor does the hobgoblin who created the mirror which allows Kay to be transformed in the first place.
One of the reasons why Andersen’s fairy stories have endured, perhaps, is that they have decidedly bittersweet ‘fairy-tale endings’: the good may end happily, but the bad don’t necessarily end unhappily. The Snow Queen isn’t heard of again after she flies off to warmer climes, abandoning poor Kay.
Of course, the mirror and the ice are loaded with symbolism and significance in the story. The mirror represents unhealthy cynicism which destroys youthful innocence: it’s significant that, when Kay becomes ‘infected’ with the grain of glass from the magic mirror, he wants to go off and play with the older boys, suggesting that wide-eyed wonder and childhood innocence are being replaced by surly adolescence, which involves disrespecting the kindly grandmother who reads stories to him and Gerda, and neglecting Gerda herself.
But the glass doesn’t infect everyone: Gerda is able to retain her innocence even as she grows up, as is Kay once he is saved by Gerda. By the same token, Kay’s cynicism isn’t his own fault: it’s just his rotten luck that the grain of the mirror gets caught in his eye.
This suggests that a person’s individual circumstances shape their views and their personalities, and that they aren’t necessarily to ‘blame’ for how they behave. But they can be cured of it, if they are shown love by their friends and those close to them.
This, of course, is what the tears that Gerda sheds over the frozen body of Kay represent. They spring from genuine sadness that she has lost him, and their warmth is enough to thaw his icy heart and bring him back.
Here, the gender roles are noteworthy: unlike ‘Sleeping Beauty’ or ‘Snow White’, it’s not a male character saving and waking a female character, but a heroine who rescues her male friend from the stasis (death?) he has been condemned to by the evil witch character (i.e. the Snow Queen).
But what does love triumph over in ‘The Snow Queen’? ‘Cold reason’ might be one answer. When Kay is ‘infected’ by the grain of glass from the magic mirror, he does lose the ability to see the beauty in everything around him. But seeing a worm in the rose when there is one isn’t nasty cynicism: it’s just realism.
The problem stems from losing all appreciation of the rose’s beauty, but blind romanticism and idealism are just as flawed (and arguably, just as dangerous). Nor is there anything wrong with being fond of maths (another ‘skill’ Kay picks up following his encounter with the mote of glass).
Yet this isn’t how Andersen intends to analyse or scrutinise his tale: he clearly was a Romantic who was unhappy with the way the world really was and felt that love and beauty should triumph over intellectualism and rationalism.
If the ultimate message of the fairy tale, when reduced to its core elements, is trite (love and beauty triumph over scientism and realism; love, if you will, conquers all), and if that message even rings a little hollow to those of us who have spent a little time in the ‘real world’, then such flaws are easily swept away by the captivating beauty of the tale itself, with its use of icy landscapes, clear and powerful symbolism (the mirror, the tears, the snow and ice itself), and refusal to follow the ‘prince + peasant girl = marriage’ formula beloved of many writers of fairy tales.
‘The Snow Queen’ is often regarded as a precursor to, and major influence on, the 2013 hit animated film Frozen. But although the film followed Andersen’s tale in the early stages of the movie’s development, the two narratives and characters ended up being very different.
Nevertheless, the influence of ‘The Snow Queen’ can be seen in many works of children’s literature: the Snow Queen’s temptation of Kay almost certainly influenced C. S. Lewis, whose White Witch similarly tempts Edmund away from the other children in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (Both Andersen’s Snow Queen and Lewis’s White Witch appear arrive into a snowy world and wear an inviting warm fur coat.)
And Lyra’s voyage to the frozen north to find her male friend and brother-in-all-but name, Roger, in Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights echoes the journey that Gerda makes in Andersen’s fairy tale. Both Lyra and Gerda convince adults to help them in their quest through being kind and generous, so others feel compelled to help them in their pure quest to find their friend.
Curiously, and by way of conclusion, it’s worth noting a bit of biographical interest. Andersen may have been inspired to create the figure of the Snow Queen after the noted Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind, with whom Andersen became infatuated, rejected his advances. Andersen became Kay, the innocent boy who was ‘led on’ by the beautiful and bewitching, but ultimately cold, Snow Queen who reels the hapless boy in only to desert him once she has stolen his heart.
Related
FAQs
What is the summary of the story of the Snow Queen? ›
Kai is taken by the Snow Queen who lives in a world of ice and snow, but faithful Gerda is determined to find him and restore her friend to the boy she knows and loves. A host of characters help her along her way, including a bandit, a prince, princess and a Sami woman.
What is the analysis of Snow Queen? ›In fairytale form, The Snow Queen elucidates the true nature of innocence, the pitfalls of our fallenness, and the path into eternity. Hans Christian Andersen's story leads us, with his characters Gerda and Kay, to die to the “sensibility” of the world and to discover the true essence of life.
What story is the Snow Queen based on? ›FROZEN is an original story, loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen's “The Snow Queen.” Published in 1845, “The Snow Queen” begins when a magic mirror created by trolls shatters, causing pieces of it to lodge in the heart and eye of a boy named Kai.
What is the moral of the story of snow? ›The moral of Snow White's story is “Vanity will not take you far, but kindness will”. In this short story, the queen was completely indulged in vanity, which messed with her mind. But kind-hearted Snow White found friends and met a prince that loved her and stood by her.
What is the main plot of the story at Snow White? ›In the forest Snow White discovers a cottage inhabited by seven eccentric dwarfs, who warmly welcome her into their home after she offers to cook and clean for them. The queen eventually learns of Snow White's whereabouts and, disguising herself as an old hag, fatally poisons her stepdaughter with a tainted apple.
What are the themes of Snow Queen? ›Essentially, Gerda's love frees Kay from The Snow Queen's palace. The tale involves three main themes: female strength, a unique relationship of good vs. evil, and a realistic, meaningful ending.
What is the conflict in the Snow Queen? ›The story centers on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by Gerda and her friend, Kai. This story is one of Andersen's longest and most beloved stories. It is included in many illustrated storybooks for children to this day.
What are some symbols in the Snow Queen? ›Things associated with Gerda in the story are flowers and animals, while the Snow Queen is symbolized by ice and emptiness. The biggest contrast of all in the story is the difference between warm and cold. Warm is seen as good, wholesome, and alive, and cold is equated to evil and death, if only figuratively.
Is the Snow Queen good or evil? ›Type of Villain
The Snow Queen is the titular main antagonist of Hans Christian Anderson's 1844 Danish fairytale of the same name and its film adaptations, with the exception of Disney's 53rd full-length animated feature film Frozen, though she is portrayed as a villain in some parodies.
The Snow Queen was separated and blinded by Madame Weatherberry by using the remaining strength she had.
Is the Snow Queen evil in the Snow Queen? ›
As for the Snow Queen, she's neither good nor evil, she just is. Her motives for kidnapping Kay are never given, she doesn't treat him badly and she allows him to be rescued by Gerda.
What is the main message or moral of the story? ›It is the message the writer is trying to convey through the story. Often the theme of a story is a broad message about life. The theme of a story is important because a story's theme is part of the reason why the author wrote the story.
What is the moral message of the story? ›The moral of a story is the lesson that story teaches about how to behave in the world. Moral comes from the Latin word mores, for habits. The moral of a story is supposed to teach you how to be a better person.
What does snow symbolize in the story? ›Snow Symbolism in Literature
It can symbolize purity, innocence, and frozen feelings. On the other hand, it can also symbolize death and sadness.
The climax of the story comes when his men are carrying the coffin. They trip over some roots and the jostling causes the poisoned apple to dislodge from Snow White's throat. She wakes, and the prince declares his love for her.
What is the character analysis of Snow White? ›Snow White is innocent, kind, gentle, sweet, and cheerful. Her generous, trusting and helpful nature can cause her trouble, as other people might take advantage of it, such as her vain and evil stepmother.
What did the evil queen do to Snow White? ›Intending to kill Snow White herself, she takes the disguise of an old peddler woman. She visits the dwarfs' house and sells Snow White laces for a corset that she laces too tight in an attempt to asphyxiate the girl. When that fails, the Queen returns as a comb seller and tricks Snow White into using a poisoned comb.
What does the queen symbolize in Snow White? ›Envy: The Queen (again). The seven deadly sins have opposites in the seven holy virtues: Humility, Chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness. All of these are characteristics of Snow White. Resurrection: Snow White “dies” and comes back to life.
What figurative language is in the Snow Queen? ›On a figurative level, the Snow Queen represents temptation; she draws Kai away from his childhood, family, and hometown, and if it were not for the love and purity of Gerda, he would have remained subject to said temptation. It is easy, then, to see just how a creative spin on this tale might go.
What happens to The Snow Queen at the end? ›But Ingrid feels no remorse towards ending her life; she is excited to once again be reunited with her sisters. The Snow Queen then uses her own magic to destroy herself, which lifts the curse from Storybooke and return the town to its former state of peace.
What is the climax of The Snow Queen? ›
Climax – The Breaking Point
At long last, Gerda arrives at the palace of the Snow Queen and sees Kay playing with the ice blocks, but he is completely unaware of her presence. Gerda goes to him and sheds “burning tears” that melt the lump of ice in his heart.
But Tae-woong spent a lot of time looking for her after he ran away from home. He worked so hard to get her to forgive him. They were trying to start over again and rebuild their relationship. She was so happy that Tae-woong found the love of his life.
Who is the main character in the Snow Queen? ›Like the fairy tale, the main character and heroine of the film is Gerda (voiced by Nyusha and Jessica Straus). Set after the Snow Queen invoked the spell of eternal winter, the film follows the story of Gerda who sets out on an improbable frigid journey up North to save Kai.
What powers does the Snow Queen have? ›Andersen's Snow Queen is the story's antagonist and possesses the power to freeze. She freezes Kay's heart, takes him into the depths of Lapland, and keeps him in her icy castle.
Who is the girl in the Snow Queen? ›Snow Queen is a 2002 made-for-television film produced by Hallmark Entertainment and directed by David Wu based on the 1844 story The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen. The film stars Bridget Fonda as the title character and Chelsea Hobbs as her rival and the story's heroine, Gerda.
Who kills the Snow Queen? ›On Sunday night's "Shattered Sight," OUAT killed The Snow Queen and it was really a preachy, cop-out sort of death. After wreaking so much havoc, being super-creepy, and running in league with Rumplestiltskin, OUAT made the Snow Queen's life the key to breaking the Spell of Shattered Sight.
Is the Snow Queen evil fairytale? ›'The Snow Queen' is, fundamentally, a story about good and evil. But what is most noteworthy about this fairy tale – perhaps even more so than in Andersen's other major fairy tales – is that the evil character at the centre of the story, namely the Snow Queen herself, doesn't get her comeuppance at the end of the tale.
What prophecy did the Snow Queen give Alex? ›Prophecy made to Alex, who assumes it means one of her traveling companions on the Granny may die or get left behind. In the last chapter of the book, it is revealed that the Snow Queen meant the four travelers from the Otherworld; Alex, Conner, Charlotte and Dr. Bob; Alex will stay in the Land of Stories.
Who are the characters in the Snow Queen play? ›KARL - A lively boy of about twelve years. GERDA - His sister, a pretty girl a year or so his junior. GRANDMOTHER - A very comfortable-looking old lady. HANS & LARS - Two boys of about Karl's age.
Does the Snow Queen have a happy ending? ›But Tae-woong spent a lot of time looking for her after he ran away from home. He worked so hard to get her to forgive him. They were trying to start over again and rebuild their relationship. She was so happy that Tae-woong found the love of his life.
What happens to the Snow Queen at the end? ›
But Ingrid feels no remorse towards ending her life; she is excited to once again be reunited with her sisters. The Snow Queen then uses her own magic to destroy herself, which lifts the curse from Storybooke and return the town to its former state of peace.
What happened to the Snow Queen in the land of stories? ›She was eventually overthrown by Wise Prince White and banished to the Northern Mountains, where she lived in an icy lair with her polar bears.
What happens to the Snow Queen? ›The Snow Queen flies away to warmer countries, deserting Kay. Gerda turns up and recognises Kay instantly despite his changed appearance, but he sits still and cold and unresponsive. Upset, Gerda cries warm tears that drop onto the frozen Kay, and seep through to his heart, thawing it.
What is the climax of the Snow Queen? ›Climax – The Breaking Point
At long last, Gerda arrives at the palace of the Snow Queen and sees Kay playing with the ice blocks, but he is completely unaware of her presence. Gerda goes to him and sheds “burning tears” that melt the lump of ice in his heart.
The Snow Queen knows that Gold wants to leave Storybrooke with Belle and Henry, and to be free of the Dagger of Kris, while the Snow Queen wants Storybrooke all to herself, and she says that she has the secret to the missing ingredient he needs.
What is the summary of Land of Stories? ›The Land of Stories tells the tale of twins Alex and Conner. Through the mysterious powers of a cherished book of stories, they leave their world behind and find themselves in a foreign land full of wonder and magic where they come face-to-face with fairy tale characters they grew up reading about.
What did the Snow Queen do to Emma? ›Storybrooke. The Snow Queen easily presses Emma's emotional buttons and somehow causes Emma's powers to begin rising uncontrollably. This was apparently her whole reason for letting herself be taken prisoner, so she easily frees herself and teleports away, leaving Emma to panic.
What did snow do to the evil queen? ›Her Magic Mirror assures her that the only way to render her powers and her youth permanent is to consume Snow White's heart, but she is ultimately killed by Snow White.