The Little Match Girl


"The Little Match Girl" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen. The story, about a dying child's dreams and hope, was first published in 1845. It has been adapted to various media, including animated, live-action, and VR films as well as television musicals and opera.

Summary

On a freezing New Year's Eve, a poor young girl, shivering, bareheaded and barefoot, unsuccessfully tries to sell matches in the street. Afraid to go home because her father would beat her for failing to sell any matches and not earning even a single penny, she huddles in the alley between two houses and lights matches, one by one, to warm herself.
In the flame of the matches, she sees a series of comforting visions: a warm iron stove, a lovely roasted goose, a kind, loving family and a great glorious Christmas tree. Each vision disappears as its match burns out. In the sky, she sees a shooting star, which her late grandmother had told her meant that someone is on their way to Heaven. In the flame of the next match she sees her late grandmother, the only person that ever treated her with love and kindness. To keep the vision of her grandmother alive as long as possible, the girl lights the entire bundle of matches she has.
When the matches are gone, the girl freezes to death in the cold weather, as her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passers-by find the girl's body with a smile on her face and express pity, but they do not know about the wonderful visions she had seen or how happy she is with her grandmother in Heaven.

Publication

"The Little Match Girl" was first published in December 1845, in Dansk Folkekalender for 1846. The work was re-published as a part of New Fairy Tales, Second Volume, Second Collection, and again 18 December 1849 as a part of Fairy Tales. The work was also published 30 March 1863 as a part of Fairy Tales and Stories, Second Volume.

Adaptations

Amusement park attractions

  • The Fairy Tale Forest of the amusement park Efteling in the Netherlands has a three-dimensional attraction showing the story of the Little Match Girl, called Het Meisje met de Zwavelstokjes. In this attraction, use is made of the Pepper's ghost technique.

    Anime and manga

  • The 52nd and final episode of Andersen Monogatari is based on the story.
  • In the episode 307 of Crayon Shin-chan, "Nene-chan is the Tragedy Heroine", the story inspires Nene-chan to play the Cinderella game with her friends.
  • In Hello Kitty's Animation Theater an episode is an adaptation of this tale, complete with its grim ending.
  • In Is the Order a Rabbit?, Sharo starts daydreaming while handing out flyers, humorously seeing it as a death flag when she connects her actions to the match girl.
  • Chapter 18 of the manga series Binbou Shimai Monogatari replays the tale of "The Little Match Girl", featuring the protagonists Asu and Kyou with a happy ending twist.
  • In Chapter 24 of Love Hina, Su makes Shinobu dress up as a Little Red Riding Hood-type and sell matches to raise some travelling money to Okinawa. When that plot initially fails and Shinobu starts to cry, a good number of passers-by are moved to tears and prepare to buy all her matches until the two girls are chased off by resident yakuza.
  • In the Japanese anime Gakuen Alice, the main character, Mikan Sakura, puts on a play about The Little Match Girl to earn money.
  • Episode 201 of Gin Tama, "Everybody's a Santa", parodies The Little Match Girl, where Yagyu Kyubei narrates a humorous retelling of the story, featuring Kagura as the eponymous title character, replacing match-sticks with Shinpachi, a human punching bag.
  • "Girl Who Doesn't Sell Matches But is Misfortunate Anyway" is the final episode of the 2010 anime series Ōkami-san, which draws inspiration from various fairy tales. The episode features a character called Machiko Himura, who is based on the little match girl.
  • "The Little Key Frames Girl", episode 11 of the anime Shirobako, humorously replays the whole match girl story from a more modern and lower stakes point of view.
  • In "Christmas Osomatsu-san", episode 11 of the anime Osomatsu-san, Iyami humorously acts as The Little Match Girl, dying in the end.
  • Match Shoujo, a manga by Sanami Suzuki, is being made into a live-action film starring Sumire Sato, as the title character.
  • In "Let's Get Wiggy With It", episode 2 of the anime Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, Don Patch humorously recites a story of him selling churros at Christmas time with no one buying, showing a Churro buried and covered in snow in the end, resembling death.
  • In "Troupe Dragon, On Stage! ", episode 10 of the anime Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, the main characters decide to stage a performance of "The Little Match Girl" for a nursing home on Christmas. Throughout the episode, the characters add their own ideas to the story, to the point that the performance bears virtually no resemblance to the original.
  • In YuruYuri Season 3 episode 10, Akari and Kyoko light matches to keep themselves warm when the Kotatsu does not work. They see visions of shaved ice and a turkey dinner. They both survive however.
  • The cover art for chapter 43 of Komi-san wa, Komyushou Desu. features Komi-san dressed up as the little match girl in a snowy street holding a lit match.
  • One Piece cover story from chapter 247 shows former king Wapol, at that point a beggar, selling matches in a snowy street with the subtitles "I'm the little match girl".
  • In Isekai Quartet season 2 episode 11 "It Begins! School Festival", Yunyun acts out a play version of the story solo.
  • In Flint the Time Detective the main characters visit Hans Christian Andersen who is trapped in his own dreams and having his own creations acting oddly. Among them, the Little Match Girls is selling watches instead of matches.
  • In episode 7 of the Nekopara OVA, the catgirls recount various fairy tales. Among them, is a retelling of The Little Match Girl by Maple — starring instead Cinnamon as the titular character — which is restructured in parodic fashion. Namely, Cinnamon instead visualizes sensual fantasies rather than the idyllic visions found in the original telling.
  • In season 4 episode 6 of Date A Live, while in the fairy tale world Kotori is based on the Little Match Girl.

    Audio recordings

  • Danny Kaye reads "The Match Girl" on Side B of Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales, later re-issued on CD as part of Danny Kaye Re-tells Grimm's & Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales
  • The record "Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol" published by Peter Pan Records features a reading on the B side.
  • The Myths and Legends Podcast featured the Little Match Girl story in a 2020 episode centering on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

    Comics

  • In issue #112 of Bill Willingham's Fables, The Little Match Girl is introduced to Rose Red as one of the paladins of the embodiment of Hope, ostensibly on the night that the girl is doomed to die. The child identifies herself as "the caretaker of hope deferred", braving the deadly cold and saving the meager pennies she earns towards the promise of a better life in the future, and stubbornly denying that her death is close at hand.

    Films

16mm short subject films

  • In 1954, Castle Films released a 16 mm English-language version of a 1952 black-and-white French short live-action film. Instead of her grandmother, the Virgin Mary, whom the match girl believes is her own long-lost mother, takes the girl to Heaven. No mention is made of the father beating the child.

    Animated films

  • The Little Match Girl, one of the Color Rhapsodies, a Charles Mintz studio color cartoon adaptation set in 1930s New York City, directed by Arthur Davis and Sid Marcus, and considered among the studio's best films. It was nominated for the 1937 Academy Award for Best Short Subject, though it lost to Disney's short The Old Mill. This version of the story is slightly different from Andersen's story, specifically near the end.
  • Hans Christian Andersen no Sekai, Toei Animation's animated film based on Andersen's works.
  • In the 1978 animated adaptation of "The Stingiest Man In Town", the character of Ebenezer Scrooge is seen passing by a caricature of the little match girl.
  • "The Little Match Girl", ADV Films' adaptation released in Hello Kitty Animation Theater, Vol. 3.
  • The Little Match Girl, the last of four Walt Disney Animation Studios shorts originally intended to be part of a Fantasia compilation film, which was canceled. This short was then developed as a stand-alone film and was nominated for the 2006 Academy Award for Best Animated Short, losing to The Danish Poet. This short was subsequently released as a special feature on the 2006 Platinum Edition DVD of The Little Mermaid. In 2015, the short was released on the Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Films Collection Blu-ray Disc and is now streaming on Disney+.
  • Emily the Little Match Girl, directed by Matthew Hickinbottom, is a CGI film based on the Andersen story released in the UK on 29 November 2021, with the voices of David Bradley as "Harry the Match Maker", Lesley Joseph as "Grandma", Lisa Armytage as "The Narrator" and Megan Sadler as the title character.

    Live-action films

  • The Little Match Seller, a short silent film directed by James Williamson
  • The Little Match Girl, a 9 minute long silent film directed by Percy Nash.
  • The Little Match Girl, a 40-minute silent film by Jean Renoir.
  • La Jeune Fille aux Allumettes, French director Jean Benoît-Lévy's film version, includes a brief dance sequence with ballet star Janine Charrat.
  • Den lille pige med svovlstikkerne, Danish film director Johan Jacobsen adapted the Andersen story to a short film, starring Karin Nellemose, Françoise Rosay, and Agnes Thorberg Wieth. The film competed for the short film prize of the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.
  • La vendedora de rosas, directed by Víctor Gaviria, is a Colombian movie about homeless children victims of solvent abuse, loosely based on "The Little Match Girl"; it competed for the Palme d'Or at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
  • Resurrection of the Little Match Girl is a Korean movie.
  • Match Shojo, a Japanese adaptation of Sanami Suzuki's manga starring Sumire Sato.